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Debt forces you into wage slavery. Decide what you want in 10 years - tied down with a fancy house, or free with a smaller house.
Your age is a factor, if say under 35 and with good income prospects tat maight point towards the interest only option.
Another point is that housing isn't the only or necessarily best savings vehicle. If mortage is smaller you can put more into ISAs and pension and they each have various tax and other advantages.
Or you could just blow it on bikes, holidays, eating out, fur coats whatever. I've got to 41 and the thought of a 4x salary mortgage fills me with dread.
Reached 50 last year. Retired from full time work. Paid off mortgage and now enjoying a part-time job in a bike shop. In a few years times, my daughter will leave High School and we'll sell the "family" house to buy something smaller.
That was achievable by making sure I didn't have a huge mortgage to pay off, so to me it's a no-brainer.
Consider a smaller house which has options to extend. That way your outgoings are initially low (small house) which may present the option of paying off the mortgage faster. In a few years should you find you need something bigger you can extend rather than move if it suits. Extending is a lot cheaper than moving!
We became mortgage free last year, me at the age of 39, wife at the age of 37, I'd like to say this was astute financial management, it wasn't but what the heck!
Much better to own house and be able to "enjoy" the money that would previosuly disappeared each month on the mortgage - even if enjoying it means stacking it in savings rather than spending it!!
Druidh - the 'smaller' retirement houses round ours are actually going for more than the bigger family house. The 2-bed bungalow beside me had a right old bun-fight going on, sold for £70K more than the next door 3-bed was going for!
I'm really surprised people still buy into the 'you can't lose buying property' line.
Interesting piece from the [url= http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15498328 ]Economist[/url] suggesting UK property is still way overpriced
There are always a lot of people interested in talking up property prices and there are a lot of different metrics people use to justify their beliefs (first time buyers, prices to rents, average price as a multiple of average incomes etc) and by many of them prices still look high.
It's pretty evident that house prices are driven purely by supply, demand and sentiment - there's little link to any underlying asset - hence the rises of the last year while very little property was for sale.
When interest rates rise, and rise they will at some point, theres a whole great deal of buy-to-let fall out still to come. I've also read an interesting view regarding our aging population that says that as the baby boomers downsize and die off you'll get a big glut of property being sold and not enough buyers which will drive prices down.
Buy big, be a wage slave until you drop dead from stress and overwork age 64.
Buy adequate for your needs, lead a stress free life with knowledge your mortgage is affordale, have it paid off by age 45, semi-retire at 50, enjoy life, see the world, still be riding your bike at 80.
I'm defo on the later option 😀