Owning your own home

Ah, ok. I suppose the key thing is whether, based on your current circumstances, you'd be able to pay off the mortgage over its term - which is why they are stricter about interest-only, for example. Bad luck about Catford - I hear good things about Leytonstone - though apparently the John Lewis in the Westfield is not the best, eh @oat44 ? #middleclassproblems

I find the concept of a mortgage that is a multiple of more than four times mine and my girlfriends salary frankly terrifying.

As a percentage of your take home pay how much would be going to pay the mortgage down in that situation?

In the illustrations we have had, about 32% of what I'm on now, and my pay is going up backdated to July from October onwards.

Which, as I mentioned, is less than our current rent payments.

time to ask for a cheeky payrise

Trufact...

I did exactly this.
Went to my boss and was quite matter of fact about it.
"We've tried to get a mortgage for a house we want to buy and I have been told I don't earn enough to qualify for the amount we need to borrow. So I'm going to start looking for a job elsewhere where I can be above that threshold."

There was a new contract for £1.5k a year more waiting on my desk the next morning.

Which, as I mentioned, is less than our current rent payments.

Yes, that bit did register, I think I may have then tried to blank out the horror of it.

From September, it will be 25% or 26% of my take home pay, depending on what I'm on. Sounds manageable, and seems to equate to what others on here are paying, from my research...

That's a big factor in wanting to buy, assuming you are lucky enough to have a decent deposit, which we are, it seems to be a cheaper option in the long run. Plus the thought of paying my own mortgage off rather than paying off someone else's and then some is quite appealing.

I've lost touch with rents- what would I be paying for a large /3 bed flat in SE23 these days?

My rent is currently 42% of post-tax pay, sads

I'll give you the £800 for half of that extra 25k. Deal yeah? You shake now.

1700-1900 in SE13. Looked in the estate agents window last night.

People definitely lend more than 4x salary. If your outgoings are low (they don't generally consider shopping, booze, hookers etc in this calculation - it's more loan payments, child support, etc.) then someone like Woolwich may go as high as 6x!
For what it's worth, joint income of 70k plus a few k discretionary annual bonus and Yorkshire BS said they'd lend £340k. We have a 25% deposit and were asking for £307k so the application's now progressing.
5 year fixed at 3.45% over 30 years means for 5 years we'd be paying just over £1300 per month. £250 more than we're paying for a 2 bed flat in pretty much the same area (the place we're buying is a 3 bed end of terrace).

What happens after 10 years when interest rates are 14%?

I get a great return on my savings and start buying mortgage repo properties...

There's not enough of them out here. Too many rich fucks.

We only got offered upto £360K on a combined income of £90k, but I'm guessing that was more down to our low LTV (we only have about £20k in savings for a deposit).

What happens after 10 years when interest rates are 14%?

We'll be overpaying by a tidy amount, so the loan should be relatively small (~50-60%) by then if all goes to plan. I'm under no illusions about the current interest rate being lower than a low thing.

We got just shy of £200k on about £80k combined income. Only a 5% deposit though so our interest rate is about 5%. Fixed payments will be about £1100 so planning to overpay then remortgage.

Shelter define rent above 35% of your income as unaffordable housing.

What if it doesn't go to plan?

At least he'll be less screwed than me. #5.5xlevered

its certainly not maintainable without payrise.

Will be downgrading when contract is up

What if it doesn't go to plan?

Then we'll look at selling after 5 years. Provided there's no massive market crash that shouldn't work out any more expensive than renting.

Or we rent the place out (it's near a station) and go live in Malaysia for cheap.

We're starting out borrowing just over 4x salary so I don't think we're taking all that much of a risk. The flip side is that there's no guarantee of what rents will be in 2-5 years time either. Gotta live somewhere.

So we are currently looking at buying a property, and have found one that we like, however after some intensive googling I have discovered that the area behind the house has been put forward as a potential site for new housing via a Community Land Trust.

Its difficult to work out what would actually be built as it is still in the stage of trying to acquire the land from the council so is nowhere near planning at this point.

My question is what sort of detrimental effect would it have for this land to be built on over the fact that it is currently half knackered garages and half wasteland with a fair bit of fly-tipping?

The below pic shows the plot of the house we are looking at in red, and the wasteland in purple - one added factor is that the house we are looking at is down a steep bank, so there are only velux windows on that side of the property and lots of big trees in behind the plot.

Am I crazy to still be interested?!

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