Buying, renting, pensions, debt, future

itcanbedone_2

Due to lots of different circumstances, husband and myself now rent. Years ago we both had our own homes, but we both divorced (other people!), and we built up a lot of debt. We are both in our forties with one teen.

We now have no debt at all, we have paid it all off, but the only assets we have are two cars, worth about £15000 (paid off). We managed all of our debt and have never paid late or had CCJs etc, and our credit ratings, for what they are worth, are both high. Obviously you can see the past debt we were in.

My husband has his own successful business which he has had for 5 years and I have a part time business, and some contract work. I earn a fair bit but there is no pattern to my earnings. He has a pension, I don't. We have no savings plans. Pulling all our resources together, we can now save about £3000 a month, after rent, bills, living costs.

We could afford a mortgage, but we have no deposit and I'm not sure that even if we build up a good deposit, we will get a mortgage due to past debt, being self employed etc. We thought a buy to let to get on the housing ladder, but as a first property we can see problems with this.

The longer we rent, maybe the more we are throwing money away, but I'm not sure of another solution at the moment. I almost feel like renting until I can buy a house outright. Or maybe one of us could buy on their own?

I am accutely aware we are getting older and have made no plans for the future, maybe we should invest in pensions. Or something else.

Does anyone have any advice?

glasgowgirl80

I'm no expert, but it would be wise to invest in a pension.

As to getting a mortgage, plenty of self-employed people have mortgages and if your debts have been settled for a while then it shouldn't be a problem. Debt itself isn't necessarily a barrier to mortgages anyway, as long as you can afford the repayments and don't miss any.

If you can save that amount every month then you should have enough for a deposit in no time.

itcanbedone_2

Thank you. All our debt was on credit cards so we now have huge amounts of credit available but should we reduce these? Who can do self employed mortgages?