Do you rent or have you bought your house??

[~*Leanne*~]

We are currently in a rented property but have to leave in August this year, which is fine by me because i think the rent and the bills for the one bedroom place is extortionate (spel?) anyway - i feel, that with me being off work for 9 months and will be recieving half of my wages for that time, we cannot afford to buy a house at the moment and our only choice is to rent, probably a council house, OH on the other hand wants us to buy and his dad has said he will give us a deposit - that's all great and its very nice of him to do that BUT i dont feel how we can afford a mortgage on basically OHs wage - ive never bought a house though so i dont know anything about it but OH and his dad have both said we would be better buying now while the prices are low

What do you lot think?

 

[NickyB]

I think you wont lose anything from speaking to a mortgage adviser. I was so surprised to learn how much we could afford when I bought my first house.

The online calculators you find aren't reliable and we found we were able (and have since found we can also afford) a lot more than they quoted.

 

[SarahH]

We own ours.

I dont know what the cost of renting is where you are, but here it is stupidly expensive compared to a mortgage.

Here you are looking at £600-£800 a month for rent, plus your bills, where as mortgages, if you get a fixed rate will be about £400-£550 for a 2bed house/flat

 

[~*Leanne*~]

well we are paying £465 for a, well they call it house, but its a 1 bedroom 'flat' with a bathroom downstairs. its on a new estate which is why its probably alot BUT they are roughly all that price, if not more, for renting in Sheffield.

Im just not sure what to do ?!

 

[Suzie and Faith]

Some places offer a mortgage break during pregnancy where you get a few months where you don't have to pay, no harm in looking at mortgage options, then decide.

We're with my mum at the moment but we will be renting as we couldn't get a mortgage.

 

[Tara & Liam]

it's not that easy getting a council house either. we have a two bed council house and it is £63 a week.

Hopefully when DH goes to work when Liam starts school we will look into buying it. It's a lovely house in a lovely place.

 

[Babylicious]

Bought mine Personally think renting is throwing your money away (if you can afford to buy that is)

 

[Xena]

We own ours, and we have a £60k mortgage. We pay £300 a month mortgage plus around £50 a month mortgage protection

 

[Mrs_Jay]

we've bought our house, did when Jack was about 3 months old. but it is defently the main reason that i cant be a SAHM coz if i was we couldnt afford our house . i prefer feeling like that we get something at the end of the day tho coz with renting it feels like empty money iykwim. and you got to ask before u can decorate etc etc. Id say theres no harm having a look around and working it out to see if you could afford to or not.

 

[LisaJ1986]

We own ours. Been a bit of a struggle. I bought it off my dad when i just turned 19. We've had it 2 years and our mortgage has gone up another £200 a month! And it's interest only at the mo.

 

[Strangeness]

We're in shared ownership. We own half and rent the other half off of a housing association. We couldn't afford a full mortgage so this was a great option for us. We can do pretty much whatever we like to the house unless it effects the structure etc but decorating etc is down to us. We have a 2 bedroom house, right across the road from a huge park and playing fields but we live about 10 mins walk from the city centre too. I love our house so much! It's even better now we've added our own touch to it all.

 

[Mildly]

We rent at the moment and are going to look to buy hopefully next year as prices (in our area, at least) seems to be on a downturn. I think what with the current increases in fuel, food and living costs it would be a good idea to wait a little while before buying a house. Many people in the last few years have bought houses while prices have been sky high, often with 100% mortgages and any increase in interest levels will be bad news for some of these people who are already stretched to the limit with payments and household bills.

I know it is very difficult to predict how the housing market is going to go but I think that the last few years of soaring prices just isn't sustainable. Wages are not increasing at the same amount as house prices or household bills and so it is reasonable to expect that the number of house repossessions will go up. Also while getting a foot on the housing ladder is important, I would rather rent than find myself in a negative equity situation in a couple of years. I would check out which way house prices are going in your area for a few months before making any decisions although talking through finances with a mortgage advisor would be useful so that you can work out the price at which you could afford to buy.

 

[happy-chick]

On an 85k mortgage we'll be paying £520 a month (thats over 40years as we plan to reduce term when 3yr fixed period is up) thats with Halifax In comparison rent on our 2bed council flat was £300 a month.

 

[jennywren]

We are currently in a rented property but have to leave in August this year, which is fine by me because i think the rent and the bills for the one bedroom place is extortionate (spel?) anyway - i feel, that with me being off work for 9 months and will be recieving half of my wages for that time, we cannot afford to buy a house at the moment and our only choice is to rent, probably a council house, OH on the other hand wants us to buy and his dad has said he will give us a deposit - that's all great and its very nice of him to do that BUT i dont feel how we can afford a mortgage on basically OHs wage - ive never bought a house though so i dont know anything about it but OH and his dad have both said we would be better buying now while the prices are low

What do you lot think?

They are not low yet!!! They have only just started falling (by small amounts 5% ish on average) and experts are predicting we wont see the real ''low'' for 12-24 months if not a little longer! They reacon it could be 50/60% drops but I don't think that much I think perhaps abuot 40% max, still that suits me.

We had a flat, sold it and are now renting in wait for the market to drop properly, we have signed a 12 month contract as we know its not going to fall and pick back up in that time (plus on average its 3 months to buy a house (if your lucky) so we can start looking from 9 months in if we wanted to).

you need to bear in mind now lending is pertty harsh due to the CC - alot of banks have reduced their multaples and increased LTV as well, some are 25% - which I guess isnt a problem if FIL is paying deposit lol but for example our multipliers at the moment (have been reduced) and they are as follows :

Household Income Salary Multiplier

up to £19,999 3.00 x

£20,000 to £29,999 3.25x

£30,000 to £39,999 4.00x

£40,000 and above 4.50x

so you can hopefully get a ruff guide from that what yuo can borrow if it helps?

Anyway so yeah, owned, now rent, will own again in about 3 years

 

[Gem & Leland]

we rent a 1.5 bedroom gf maisonette , its £800 pcm unfurnished ,

to buy this flat we would need 220k well thats never gonna happen ! and would be well over 800 a month so thats why we rent !

 

[MrsBrightside]

Our house is bought, we will have to move when we finally fall pregnant as its just a one bedroom cottage and nowhere near big enough.. I didnt think we would be able to afford to move to somewhere bigger but have had a look about the estate agents and like its been said b4 its amazing what ya can afford!!

there is still some cheaper houses out there if your willing to spend some time on them.....

 

[Dee1985]

I rent my house its £620 a month but im the first to live there it was built 2 yrs ago its a good size 3 bedrooms and garage xxx

I'm in no rush to buy a house with all the palarver thats going on with house prices at the moment.

 

[lillou]

we just bought a new house, dont move into April next year but our mortgage is set up with nationwide.
its 750 a month for a 130K mortgage on a 2 bed house. we had to pay a deposit of 19K but the builders gave us an incentive of 10K so me and OH are only paying 9K deposit.
i think here it is cheaper to buy than rent but it varies in places.

 

[jennywren]

i think here it is cheaper to buy than rent but it varies in places.

Yes it certainly does, here we paid £675 (including Mortgage Protection ins) for the 1 bed apt and now pay £625 for a 3 bed townhouse with a garden!!!!

 

[Hazel]

You need to speak to a mortgage man at the bank. There are different options for first time buyers. House prices are falling as nothing is selling. I would get an agreement in principal to start with then wait 6 months and see what is happening to houses in your area.

DH and I are "planning" to put our house on the market in Sept (after baby is born) hopefully get asking price as we are low end of the market and had people that are downsizing already interested in it. Then going to move in with my mum and keep an eye on the house prices and hopefully should be able to get something for 20k less than the asking price at the moment in a better area.