Do you push yourself on your house?

richardvc

katejo wrote: »

I bought my current house before the recent recession and had a good sized deposit from the sale of my flat. The lender was happy to loan 5 times my income but I knew I could not afford the repayments as the interest rate was then 6%. I only borrowed 3 times and that was right at the time.

Well done katejo, great to see someone policing themselves.

Good to see that the banks / lenders have learned the lessons of the last few years. Very encouraging !

Ridiculous !

Pixie5740

I'm in a similar position to the OP. I can borrow about £300k more than I need but I'm not going to. I've found the house that's right for, that I can make my home. I have a plan to pay my mortgage off in 8/9 years whilst not having to live frugally and still being able to afford holidays. It's all about balance and besides there's a limit to how many toilets I'm prepared to clean

StevenMarks

I've always intended to buy at a level where I wasn't pushing myself, but in all four cases have ended up paying at the very top of what I could borrow.

I_have_spoken

Bought my current house for cash, but I'd suggest you 'stress test' your ability to service a mortgage by assuming one person is unwaged and interest rates are 6%

Kathy535

We had a similar situation in that we looked for houses around 60% of what we could borrow (nowhere near £300k below though!) - we were honestly appalled by the size of the mortgage we could get. Having lived through the last recession, with a mortgage I thought was affordable, only to have interest rates shoot up to double figures for a short time I am very risk averse. So, we got a house that had what we wanted and felt right and we get to live our lives in the way we want to rather than living them to pay the mortgage - while we might have afforded the full whack offered we'd not have been able to have holidays or nights out.