Its about 50% of mine and I’m paying all of it at the moment while Mrs CD is on maternity leave. Will be tough but manageable until the kid(s) are at school.

3/4 beds in chandlers ford start around £500k, in the catchment for the right school add another £30k.

Have you shopped in the CF Waitrose? It may put you off moving there!

Brooess +1

Anyone who says ‘you can/should’, get a second opinion from someone without a ulterior motive. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Why are we soo debt friendly in the UK?

I still remember my Mum saying ‘never buy on the never-ever’.

Ours is £210k and won’t be paid off until I retire but repayments are only approx 28% of joint take home pay. Got a couple of small short term debts which will be paid off next year then I’ll start overpaying.

Doesn’t worry me too greatly as the property is worth around £600k so if we needed to we could downsize.

How does one determine the right school catchment area ?

Reputation, inspectors reports, exam grades. “Right” is subjective, but plenty info available to make that judgement.

Those graphs are a bit worrying in the light of the increased deposit requirements for first time buyers since the crash(es).

When we bought our place we were offered up to 450k on income multiples…..

Now i know folk who took them up on that at the time gloating about how their new build needed no work.

We did not. Even half hat was more than enough for the time being- we did how ever pretty much save the other half…..

I also know the gravy train has stopped for now up here and i know many are using foodbanks , handing back cars and barely scraping by for the interest only portion of their monster mortgages.

How would you tide over a redundancy ?

Only one thing is certain, interest rates will rise at some point. Could be a few years yet but it’s coming. You do have a choiceb

It would be interesting to look at a graph that shows the availability of cheap credit. How does that relate to the increase in house prices.

What is also interesting is that the government does not count house prices when it works out what inflation is. This seems wrong.

Only one thing is certain, interest rates will rise at some point

While that is true that doesn’t mean it’ll happen anytime soon or by a significant amount. The last rise was 10 years ago. Of course you’d be a fool not to allow for it in your calculations but it’s also foolish to assume it will happen soon and miss a good opportunity.

mine is considerably more than 50% of my take-home pay. Its my second house. Its due to run out when in 69 at the moment. I cant overpay at all as its too much.

The reasoning behind having such a large mortgage is I lost a lot on my first house. (purchased for 110k in Brighouse a the height of the property boom, spent about 15k on it and sold for under 80k) I had to roll this mortgate into the next.

Looking at the area we wanted to live in we could have got an amazing house in a rough area (the pub at the end of the road was on fire when we went to view it!) anything like a nice area and people wanted silly money for a 3 bed semi. It was a decision we made to spend a but extra to get a detached house as we thought it would hold its value better after loosing so much first time.

if either of us loose our jobs were out of there. My glass is always half empty but I still see this as being the best option.

Nickjb your right but this is long term and I’d agree that interest rates are going to stay low for some time. But if your on the edge at today’s rates with two incomes until your 70? Good luck with that plan.

I made a decision a long time ago not to have a huge mortgage and bought affordable. Has meant we enjoyed our life rather than being stuck in huge property. Has also meant I’ve retired early. There’s more to life than a mortgage. You can choose another path.

We’ve paid 40% of household on mortgage or rent for ten years now. It’s hard and our entire income goes on living, any niceties have to come from the paypal ebay selling account.

No choice for us if we want to live in the SE. (It’s our choice, not blaming anyone etc disclaimer)

Like they say sometimes the best is the enemy of good enough

Reputation, inspectors reports, exam grades

i havnt met a teacher yet who reckons those are good ways to measure a schools performance…….

(im married to a teacher so have a number of teachers in my social circle….)

Price of housing – artificially high

Cost of borrowing – artificially low

Is that a scenario which supports possibly over-extending yourself?

Price of housing – going up

Cost of borrowing – low

How about that?

As to which is correct is anyone’s guess but based on the last 10 years it’s this, and right now it’s this. Over the next 25 years???

Has meant we enjoyed our life rather than being stuck in huge property. Has also meant I’ve retired early.

But you don’t have to stay in that huge property. I could sell our house, buy another outright and still have £100k in my pocket.

i havnt met a teacher yet who reckons those are good ways to measure a schools performance…….

Well given that “try before you buy” is not an option, and between those 3 things it covers pretty much all the information readily available to parents to help in decision making, what would you/they suggest? Just chuck them in anywhere and hope for the best?

I could sell our house, buy another outright and still have £100k in my pocket.

based on the presumption that house prices dont fall at precisely the time you are forced to sell…..due to cheap credit being eradicated or other reasons……

its not a particularly liquid asset to play with imo.

What is also interesting is that the government does not count house prices when it works out what inflation is.

Well house prices shouldn’t be included, as they’re not directly a regular cost, but mortgage payments are and they’re included in the RPI but not the CPI.

“what would you/they suggest? Just chuck them in anywhere and hope for the best?”

not at all – just pointing out that getting your self to the eyeballs in debt to get into the catchment area of a school that you think is the best may not be the best idea based on the quality of the information your given…..

my catchement area through blind luck is cults academy and a few friends commented on how lucky we were to get a house in that area….now that gets good reports/and inspection reports – had a good reputation – and good exam results….. it also has a massive drugs problem and of course recent incidents……

But you don’t have to stay in that huge property. I could sell our house, buy another outright and still have £100k in my pocket.

I think that is the key. When we bought our current house we went for a middling option. If we’d have gone for a cheaper house then we could have saved a little more but spent the last 8 years living somewhere less nice. If we were feeling a little more daring one of the options we were considering but obviously didn’t go for would have left us with £500k of equity by now! Making money is easy in hindsight 🙂 One of the reasons for our caution was the constant advice that interest rates were so low they could only go one way and that house prices were artificially high.

could sell our house, buy another outright and still have £100k in my pocket.

not a retirement income.

not at all – just pointing out that getting your self to the eyeballs in debt to get into the catchment area of a school that you think is the best may not be the best idea based on the quality of the information your given…..

my catchement area through blind luck is cults academy and a few friends commented on how lucky we were to get a house in that area….now that gets good reports/and inspection reports – had a good reputation – and good exam results….. it also has a massive drugs problem and of course recent incidents……
I don’t disagree on the point re. up to eyeballs for that sole purpose. I’m not looking for an argument, genuinely interested in what you would suggest to assess school quality over and above Reputation, reports and exam grades as I suggested. In the example above Cults clearly falls down on the reputation point even if the other two are good. There’s not a lot more information apart from those 3 things that I can see being readily available to parents, so you have to do the best you can in piecing information together from those sources to make the best choice.

based on the presumption that house prices dont fall at precisely the time you are forced to sell…..due to cheap credit being eradicated or other reasons……

They would have to fall an incredibly huge amount for my not being able to at least sell and buy somewhere else. And if they fell by such huge amounts then there would be a lot more people in massively worse positions than me…

not a retirement income.

No, but just owning a house outright is a retirement plan in the first place – the person above that bought a smaller house and has now retired was clearly in a very good financial position for other reasons then just only buying a small house.

Good option nickjb

What 3/4 beds are you looking at that are 500k in CF. Detached with Land? Quick Zoopla search shows 3 beds at £250k.

How fixed are you on CF. E.g. if you look in upper Shirley 3/4 beds semis with decent gardens can be had for less then 400k. Its a great area for bringing kids up with the common so close. Good schools and easy access to town (or out of the city). And more importantly much nicer housing stock than CFs 70’s rubbish.

i have no idea doug , my whole point was the above that using those three factors to justify getting up to eyeballs in debt is silly because they are not great indicators – i do agree they are all you have as a parent. Ill ask around what they would do – other than ask the teachers(networking) at the school they are looking at though and let you know on FB if i get any useful nuggets.

Trying to get thornden catchment. 4 bed detached, garage. My searches aren’t showing anything much below 500k. Also looking in upper Shirley or bassett. I hear mixed reviews about the secondary. There are some places in the 400k mark if you go semi and on the busy roads. There is a lovely place on kineton rd, 4 bed detached, garage, offers in excess of £570k. That is ridiculous.

May end up in bitterne as prices (relatively) more reasonable. I’ve started looking wider given the stupid prices, I can get detached properties in Colden Common, Nomansland, Bransgore for the £500-550 mark. Wife doesn’t want rural though.

Rates wise, people have been saying they go up for years and prices go down. In hindsight we should have massively stretched ourselves (rather than be sensible) 10 years ago and we would be in a much better situation.

I estimate the cost of moving to be in the region of £25k so I don’t want to move into a place, and then basically want to move again in 5 or so years paying out another £25k. The idea is this is a 20 year home. Get kid (hopefully kids) through school into uni and see how we are getting on. Long fixes are attractive given the certainty but I;ve worked out it’ll cost in the region of £3.5k more per year over the current lowest 2 year deal.

As for brexit – if we do leave, it’ll be years and my expectation is it would mean rates stay lower for longer due to the ensuing chaos. BTL is an interesting one, and would potentially mean lower demand for my current property but probably not the ones I am looking to buy. Could that reduce prices, maybe, but if my intention is to stay for 20 years and I can afford the repayments it is of less concern.

It feels like a huge gamble….

It feels like a huge gamble.

it is but usually stacked in your favour especially if you are looking long term. I’d imagine somewhere like upper Shirley is a pretty safe bet. Nice houses in a good location in a prosperous city.

Colden Common is hardly rural though, thought it would have been expensive due to proximity of M3.

I don’t really know Colden common, it just came up on the search…I should qualify wife’s rural = not in Southampton (or Bournemouth)

I think I had too great an expectation of what I would be able to afford for what will be 5 times the current mortgage we have.

I think I had too great an expectation of what I would be able to afford for what will be 5 times the current mortgage we have.

I think lots of people get into that situation when they realise that it isn’t just the house cost that they have to factor in but all the extras.

Look for something that needs work doing on it if you are looking long-term. We did that and three years later we are getting there, but there are still things we can’t afford to do just yet.

Discussing it the other day, our joint income is about £42k, three times that just about buys the cheapest property in our village housing estate. Really worry for people coming through now, it’s madness.

Fixed, no need to thank me.

I’m currently paying 33% of my take home pay towards the mortgage.

Things should improve once my partner goes back to work. When this will be I do not know as we have a 3 week old baby and plan to have another.

It is a concern, however I have just accepted for the next 3 to 5 years, money will be tight.

I do hope it gets easier.

We went eyeballs deep (sounds rude) last year, near Reading so probably a little more expensive than Southampton. ~30% of take home, but more like 66% going into the joint account to cover bills and other expenses (and build up a little bit of a war chest).

The logic is/was;
* Promotion and inflation will hopefully erode the repayments quicker than any interest rate rises.
* Only doing it once means that if prices do continue to go up we’re getting 8% (or whatever) of a big number, not ending up buying the same house in 5 years with it’s value having gone up 45%.
* It needed some work, so hopefully when the fixed rate ends we can get it re-valued and that in itself should reduce the loan to value and get us better rates to offset any rates rises.

Long term plan is to move back up North, which if price differentials stay as they are would mean getting a significantly nicer house and retiring at 50 😉 . So the risks (to us) are:
* Short term – the mortgage is big at the moment (and I’m about to be made redundant)
* Long term – not retiring at 50, it’s a nice risk to have to be fair!

So if we make it through the first ~5years we’re probably home and dry.

I don’t really know Colden common, it just came up on the search..

From what I’ve seen when I drive through it looks nice. I’ve heard that Thornden pushes up prices in CF but only you can decide whether a high ranking school is the most important criteria.

I’ve never understood why so many people are willingly to live on the very upper limit of what they can get away with borrowing. It’s surely common sense to know that a lender wants you to be locked into a contract to repay the loan, for as high and long as possible. To me, it’s just idiocy to go down that route and end up struggling to meet repayments, an potentially facing financial ruin. Just so you can appear ‘better’ than others.

Some neighbours have just sold for a silly amount. God knows how the new owners can afford it. Surely they must now be in debt for a very long time? The sellers are moving to a much cheaper area, and to a bigger place, but they are moving to somewhere which cost the same as the place they just sold, when they bought it. Therefore, they now have a massively reduced mortgage, and much less stress in life. They will be able to pay off the debt a lot earlier, and reap the rewards of their ‘investment’ much sooner, than if they’d gone with the maximum that their lender was offering. Very shrewd indeed. Unless the new owners have paid off a big chunk already, or are in very well paid jobs with rock solid security, I fear they may well end up with a life of misery, should any disaster befall them. Too many people just don’t have any contingency plan. The lenders won’t care,as they’ll get their money whatever happens.

We’re in the extremely fortunate position of having zero mortgage, zero debt and relatively very low expenditure. Coupled with not having kids, it means we could enjoy far more ‘freedom’ than most. We could sell, make a mint, and buy somewhere really nice somewhere else. We could also get a mortgage for something really crazy. But we already live somewhere really nice, in our opinion, and aren’t interested in moving, or incurring new debt and stress. Our lawn is a lovely colour.

I think too many people are chasing rainbows. And there really is no pot of gold awaiting them.

I’ve never understood why so many people are willingly to live on the very upper limit of what they can get away with borrowing

it makes sense at the beginning as usually income rises, prices go up, LTV goes down and then it gets cheaper.
though history has shown us that isn’t always the case.

i think the bigger question is how long can you pay the mortgage for if you lose your job? most people have no savings plus a bit of unsecured debt. that would worry me more than a mortgage payment on the slightly high side but having years worth of payments at hand.

(i’m risk averse so mortgage is 20% of take-home and the other halfs is about 30% on her place but we both have a reasonable amount of equity in about 700k of property.)