Your opinions please...! **SEE OUR REPLIES & DECISION ON POSTS 39 & 41 **

taxi73

I totally agree with your decision ...just ride the storm you'll manage with the space at the moment.Maybe when your fixed rate is up go for a offset or flexible mortgage that you can overpay as much as you want saving you loads of interest and enabling to gain a bigger equity in this house ready for your next house..

Cheddar_2

Thanks m8

The £10,000 is in Cash ISA's at the moment, so my last question is this...

Is it better to keep that money invested or to pay it straight off our mortgage? :cool:

pinkshoes

Cheddar wrote: »

Thanks m8

The £10,000 is in Cash ISA's at the moment, so my last question is this...

Is it better to keep that money invested or to pay it straight off our mortgage? :cool:

Well work out how much interest you make per month on your £10k ISA, then taking £10k off your mortgage, work out how much per month you'll be saving. See which one is more!

(there's a mortgage calculator on the bbc, just google it...)

HugoSP

Chedder

I couldn't agree more with your decision. Especially as you are both self employed. If we do hit a recession it's going to take some balls to run your own business - especially with customer credit control.

My guess is that things will be brighter in about 5 years time. Then your eldest will be 7. Moving area and perhaps school won't be an issue at that age.

Also, on a joint salary of 53K you should be able to put quite a bit away during the next 5 years.

MissMoneypenny

Cheddar wrote: »

We are going to stay in the apartment until such time that it sells. I think we've finally come to terms with the fact that the £30,000+ is now gone, and we learned a very valuable (but expensive!) lesson.

My sister and OH lost all of their equity on their 3rd house in the early 90s. They bought a business in Scotland and thought it would be easy to sell their house in the SE. They watched their equity get drained away as prices dropped. Eventually they sold it at negative equity as they were finding it a struggle to pay for both mortgages. They were gutted that they were never going to see that money again.

They then only made 30k profit from the sale of the business in Scotland in 2000!

Now, they are mortgage free. Bought a house in Oz with 15 acres on a 100% mortgage. They just sold 13 acres for building and paid off their mortgage.

They never did see that lost equity money from the house in the SE, but they did see new money in their house in Oz. It all works out in the end.:D

barnaby-bear

Cheddar wrote: »

Thanks m8

The £10,000 is in Cash ISA's at the moment, so my last question is this...

Is it better to keep that money invested or to pay it straight off our mortgage? :cool:

Thanks for the update - I think you're doing the right thing. In the long term falls could be good for you as the difference between upgrading falls....

The ISA question depends on what you are going to do with it, I assume you are a low band tax payer since £53k joint income - if your ISA rate is higher than the mortgage interest rate the ISA is working better for you, plus the ISA total is rolling so after 4 years you can have £12k stored tax free - an issue for people whose income is rising (i.e. they expect to fall into higher band soon- issue here in South East more than North).... Other options are offsetting - unless you have a lot the normal tracker mortgages with an offset savings account seem quite a good idea, but again depends on mortgage rates available to you. A lot of better rates are only available if you have 80% LTV so how you use the £10k could affect the products available if you remortgage....

Sounds like your wife's friend did well. :rolleyes:

seven-day-weekend

A wise decision and I wish you welll for the future.

Jorgan_2

I think you've made the right decision. Good luck.