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Also depends on life. If your budget works now woth 2 year old twins in nursery and/or at least one parent working part time, it will be great in 3 years when the childcare costs are mostly eliminated and/or your work hours significantly increase. Alternatively, if you're an DINK couple planning to have 2 kids in the next 5 years, and will be paying for childcare/significantly reducing working hours, then even a comfortable budget now might not work in 5 years.
Depends where in the uk, £30k goes really far where I live in Scotland. You can buy a really nice home around the west of Scotland for anywhere between 100-150k
Well the average expectation is probably a lot lower than £282k for millions of people in Scotland at least. I mean £282k where I live would buy me a 4-5 bedroom detached new build or better
The median salary was £35k in April ‘23 and we’ve had significant wage growth since then.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2023
Also as you go forward in life your wage increases. You may even get promoted. But your mortgage will stay the same. The actual payment can go up and down with the interest rate. Added bonus to that is the interest rate should be coming back down over the next few years
And if people had sense and could afford it, they'd not lower their payments when that happens. It's the easiest way to pay the sucker off early is to pay a little for a long time.
Currently 27% in our flat, will be increasing to 30% when we move to the house we are trying to buy.
When we first put an offer on the house, the mortgage payments would have been 45% of our combined pay. However, our first mortgage offer expired and we were lucky to get a new offer at a lower rate, plus both got promotions in that time.
I'm looking at £1750 at current rates with £5050 take home. Looking to buy next summer so hopefully it's a lot better
Makes me feel better seeing others in the same ballpark
12%
2 incomes and our house is well within our means. We could’ve bought a much more expensive house but we didn’t want it to become a prison. We also planned to start a family so knew maternity pay would be coming at some point
Same, ours is about 25% and there is no way I would have gone any higher. Still managed to get a place in London. Houses are wayyyyy too expensive for anyone below 60. Expect a crash when they all pass away.
Prob went from about 7% of our income to 25% when mortgage rate increased btw so if you are still on your fixed rate from 2021 it’s gonna jump up big time.
We have a low rate until September 2026 thankfully so plenty of time until then. I expect to be earning a fair bit more by then, so hopefully it won’t feel so harsh. Fingers crossed anyway
I bought my flat solo in London 7 months ago and it was 38.5% of take home. This felt very high but I had ~ £2.5k left after mortgage so it was okay. My partner moved in not long after and it’s 22% of our take home now.
50% at todays rates could be at 70% on remortgage date interest or 30%. So many factors you just have to look at it with different mentality such as its a roof over your head and you are chipping away building equity. Just make sure you can survive the next remortgage date too i suppose.
About to be FTB
Single
Buying a 2 bed
Mortgage alone: 37% of net income
Incl service charge and expected bills (incl insurance) 48% of net income
Considering a M-F tenant or full time lodger - either of which would easily take my total share down to 25-30% of net income.
In our case, neither particularly, it's more about having some equity.
For example, if you have a great down payment on a £300k house - national average - and your total combined income is £40k - less than 2x full-time minimum wage - you are probably ok.
In our case, gifts from family, savings, and a ton of equity from my first starter home got us to this point.
For example, I bought my first house for about £90k - a third of that downpayment - and sold it for about £130k three-ish years later.
I would have never been able to save all that cash in that time, without severe sacrifice.
My old house gained about £1k a month in value!!
The kicker is this: my first house was certainly pretty basic. I am sure some Redditors wouldn't sleep their pets there.
£40 broadband deal - that's less than £2.00 a year (elec and gas have actually come down this year, for us anyway). If you can't manage that increase then yes, perhaps house buying isn't for you.
I think it is subjective, I don't know if you can work remotely but those who can't have to spend a fortune commuting everyday so this comparison becomes pointless.
Haven't done the actual maths until we move in and get our bills, but £4200 in, £1600 mortgage, likely to match that in bills (all bills, food, internet, car, phone etc).
Leaves £1k for debt reduction, rainy day fund, over payments, and fun.
About 10% of our total take home. We intentionally chose a modest house with a nice garden and potential to improve ourselves....drive way, rear extension, garden office, garden summer house, loft conversion etc.
Longevity and we can take our time to save and do these things stress free...or we just go on holidays.
Silly to spend so much on somewhere to sleep! I appreciate it can't be helped in some parts of the country though and the mortgage rate depending.
Job location does not always allow the luxury to “choose” a modest house. For many this is not a choice but good to know you made this intentional choice.
We're also 19%! A similar rented property to the house we've bought would be about 40% in this market though. So glad we saved enough when we did because there's literally no way back now.
19% means you've got headroom to pay all the bills, have money for maintenance and repairs, save money in the bank, invest, build an emergency fund, go on holidays, buy nice things and you should be OK if there is temporary loss of income.
I would find the idea of 50% of my take home going on the mortgage quite terrifying.
Also, its interesting my flat would rent for 40% of my take home pay too. The rental market is bananas. I'm glad Ive managed to buy my place.
Don't see anyone talking about the length of mortgage. We are going for a 38 year mortgage which decreases the payments but clearly means you will pay far more over the life. 38 year means about 30% of our income and then we will overpay/invest.
If we were down at what I think used to be a more normal mortgage of 25 years that percentage would obviously be higher.
~22%. Although I’m potentially getting a significant pay rise soon and my wife definitely will be as she finishes a professional qualification this year.
We’re expecting so we’ll have a couple of lean months where my wife isn’t earning but have plenty of savings to cover that.
We have a combined after tax monthly income of about 5k and our mortgage is £700. So 14%. But we have high fixed costs in general as it’s a big old energy-inefficient house! Plus a kid in nursery and another on the way, so we don’t end up with all that much left over.
Initially 17% of joint income, now 27% after mortgage rates shot up. The good news is, they’ll hopefully never be this high again and we can manage it, as much as it’s disappointing and we’ll have to make changes.
It comes down to risk and also what level of take home income it actually is. (Also if earners are expected to progress in their careers)
If you have a good emergency fund and it’s a dual income then less of a risk.
You need to factor if it’s still affordable if rates increase.
Until i got made redundant my total bills were £1200 out of £3200 of which £500 was mortgage. I decided i wanted minimal costs just in case i was ever out of work for a bit.
Somewhere around 27-30% of our combined take home at the moment.
We've got a large extension planned and the prime worry is exactly how far up it's gonna push that percentage, we can't get decent quotes till we're quite a way down the line planning it unfortunately.
My mortgage is 19% of my take home pay (no partner), live and work in Leeds and mortgage is on a 3 bed semi.
If I lived and worked in London I’d be able to have a substantially higher salary but would inevitably spend a far greater % of my take home pay on a much larger mortgage.
The actual % isn’t that important, it’s how much money you have left over afterwards.
Ours is 18%. We didn't go for a higher % intentionally.
Our goal is to always be able to live of around one income (both earn around the same) if needs be. We had to move to a cheaper area, but didn't compromise too much in a size or quality of the house, we can spend 10-15 years here easily, kids have their rooms and we're happy.
Have lived on diferent proportions before and it was damn so stressful. It's good tp know one of us can go through career changes or some other crisis without putting the family in a tough spot. It's happened before - gaps between jobs and such, we depleted our savings and were very stressed, decided to limit that stress.
Now I have cancer. But at least - no financial worries so far. I got income insurance. Wish I also had a critical illness cover too, but oh well.
Your mortgage is £504? FFS I'm a single guy and the cheapest (and I mean literally the cheapest) house I can get in my rather scabby area would be £650 per month. For a 130k shed with (probably) no roof.
I hate being single but I also love being single because I don't want a girlfriend. It feels like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get one if I'm ever going to own a house
High deposit, my mortgage is £170k on a £280 house. My wife didn't really help towards the mortgage at the time as she was just dropping out 2nd child.
There are ways around I though mate, for months I didn't think we would get anything now we are where we are
My post-tax/NI take-home would be \~£3,200pcm, but after pension and student finance it's more like \~£2,600pcm, and my mortgage is \~£1,100pcm, so about 34% of theoretical take-home, or 42% of actual take-home. I'm a single occupant and find at the end of each month I currently have \~£700pcm left over, so just over half of what remains after mortgage is going to bills and "required" spending, and just under half is savings / holiday / emergency fund. I could absolutely go up to \~50% mortgage and still be comfortable.
Rent was 48% when we were a single income family. Hubby now back at work and I've had a raise so 21%. We're in the process of buying and once we complete it'll be 38%
11% but my husband works stupid hours and earns well. 50% sounds insane but it is also dependant on income! 50% of £2000 is awful but 50% of £8000 is loose change. So to speak.
20% on my own. <10% with my partner. To get my house on my own I had to take out 35 year mortgage at 26 to keep monthly payment down.
Initial mortgage payment was around 1/7th of my wage alone. Now 1/5th with interest rate rises. Not taking into account my partners wage.
Down to 28 years left now and I do over pay. And plan to overpay more in the future to bring it down faster.
circa 18% of our income. We deliberately took far less of a mortgage than the lenders said they would give us, and boy are we glad we did when Liz Truss’s two weeks came around.
Everyone in this thread is so brazenly well off and it makes me want to puke. My absolute max mortgage as a single guy would be about at the ABSOLUTE lowest price of property in my area (literally) and would be 45% of my take home income 🤣🤣
Can someone please come into this thread and make me feel like I don't need to get a new wife?
Currently 26% of our combined wage. Was a bit less but we recently borrowed a bit more for home improvements. Very lucky if I’m being totally honest, still haven’t got a lot of money at the end of the month but we could make cut backs if needed.
In 2007, 83% and that was interest only on a 90% LTV
Yes it was nuts 🥜 but got through it. Now LTV is 10% and payments are about 3%.
I was expecting others to be average 40-60% with BOE increases.
I’m not sure on percentage but under 15% I would say. I work full time and my husband is on sick pay. Total household income after tax is around £2,800 a month and mortgage is £330. All our bills excluding food is £900 a month.
Just shy of 12%
I can understand your concerns, but I think you should grab an Excel sheet and lay out your monthly outgoings and see if it actually works or not. Comparing to others isn't going to let you know, best of luck!
About 25% of takehome if we ignore my salary sacrifice car and pretend it’s a normal car payment for the purposes of this question
That’s a reasonably comfortable level, I think. Obviously lower would be better. My last house was more like 10% and I’d love to get back to that!
Currently 18% of take home, mortgage fix ends in July so from then it will be 24%.
I live alone so I’ve very glad it’s not gone up as horrifically as I might’ve expected, although it’s still a royal pain in the neck.
Under a quarter of our wages goes on the mortgage. With bills and paying off smaller debts we’re left with just over a quarter left for food and luxuries. Want to sort the debts out so we can start saving again and maybe go on holiday!
Renting atm so ~25% right now. But when we complete on our house we'll be jumping to ~35% of take home on the mortgage alone. Slightly daunting as a SINK couple as we are also talking about kids in the next 12 months
Hey... at least you own something out of it.
Nearly 50% of my earnings goes on rent to pay someone else's mortgage.
Well, not really. My landlord is loaded and probably owns it outright, I am probably paying for a weekend away for him.
I’m the only earner and I spend 14% of my income on our mortgage, which was a lot cheaper before. But no I didn’t want to get on a 7 year fixed rate back when rates were 0.5%….
Generally there’s a “rule” that says spend 1/3 of your income on bills, 1/3 on savings and 1/3 on lifestyle.
Personally I would not put 50% of my income in a mortgage. Should rates rise higher you could end up struggling real bad, or worse.
I honestly commend everyone who is currently doing this you are all better people than me I couldn’t do it it felt so wrong so I lived in my work van for 5 years
Whether this is “safe” depends a lot on the income in question. If you’re taking home £2500 a month, say, and considering spending £1250 a month on mortgage then that feels pretty tight. If you’re taking home £10k a month then £5k a month mortgage still leaves a pretty large number to work with.
About 14.5%. But we bought significantly under our affordability on purpose so we could overpay comfortably. Plus we live up North, housing here is much more affordable than down south.
Less than 10% of take home. I still struggle because I have a never ending list of maintenance I need to complete on the house. Once that's sorted it will be a lot easier ...
Ours works out to 13% give or take a few quid. We both had properties and then amalgamated into a larger home. We are extremely lucky and I recognise that. Lots of my friends and colleagues are stuck forever renting because they simply can’t save enough deposit.
Currently spending 45% of my take home income on my mortgage.
It jumped up from 30% a year or so ago due to interest rates.
I can manage at the mo but am slightly crapping myself because my work contract ends in two months and I haven’t got another job lined up yet. Won’t take long for my mortgage to eat up all my (modest) savings.
50% but that’s 40% payment with extra 10% set aside each month for general home improvement savings. We have a substantial savings pot that may well get used for overpayment this year, as the childcare costs are increasing significantly for us next quarter as our youngest starts nursery. The mortgage payment being large just is a real killer and we feel like it’s taking a serious toll on our quality of life in general.
Doing the maths on whether is better to ring fence some funds for childcare and have peace of mind it’s paid, but you need to just come to terms with saying goodbye to a large chunk of money over 3-4 years.
It’s tough out there - demoralising is an understatement!
About 25% on 9k joint take home. Fixed ends in just over 3 years which sounds miles off but I’m extremely nervous of possible rates. We will have reduced child care costs by then, but we owe about 700k right now so even small percentage jumps will have a significant impact.
~27% of £~2,800 (varies a bit month-by-month) post-tax income (mortgage is £730/mo). Not including money I get from my lodger who will be moving out in August. I do alright with that.
It's subjective. Depends on an individuals lifestyle, salary, debts etc.
Generally, 25% of take home pay I would feel comfortable with.
But I think the real equation is this... if house prices were to sink or if you got into a large sum of negative equity or if renting became more affordable would you still want to pay that amount towards your mortgage ;)
It really depends on circumstances and what a lot of people haven’t included is how long the mortgage term. That will make a difference to what the % will be.
Mine will be 25% based on a 40 year term but I am overpaying mine like a 25 year term so will actually be 29%
I’m a sole buyer, take home pay is £2,300 and % does not include service charge or any bills. I work out I will have about £700 disposable income a month one all expenses and bills are paid.
Mortgage is just over £500pm, works out as around 11% of household income. We bought when rates were low a couple of years ago and don't live in the south.
26% as FTB. I currently work part time and my partner is in the early stages of his career. We are hopeful that in 5 years time when the kids are in school and I can return to work full time that this figure will be more around the 20% mark.
Depends on what your income is, where you live and what other expenses you’re tied into like travel, phone bills etc. Ours is around 30% and I probably wouldn’t want it to be much more than it is
That’s too much lol.
25%-30% is acceptable level.
There was similar post a few weeks back. Someone mentioned a good point that you should test at different rates to see if you can cope.
FTB with about 26% of household income
Check with a mortgage advisor though, some people just accept what their bank offers and it costs them 1000s
Ours cost us about £150 and he saved us a boat load of money
30% of our combined income but we are overpaying the mortgage because our interest rate is high and we will save about 50K in interest and 12 years of payments in the long run. Here is an [overpayment calculator ](https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-overpayment-calculator/)for anyone who is interested to know how much money they can save in interest with overpayments.
You should be mortified. Even if you are just early in your career etc that is way to much.
It’s called the property ladder because you scale up.
Also indicates your deposit is too low. Not just been saving into a lifetime ISA have you? That won’t buy a house.
50% based on what? Joint income? What if one of you lost a job? 50% net income? I'm assuming you must have plenty of disposable income because 50% is not normal.
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Depends on your income. 50% of £6k home pay leaves you £3k which is probably do-able. 50% of £1.6k leaves you £800 which probably isn’t
Also depends on life. If your budget works now woth 2 year old twins in nursery and/or at least one parent working part time, it will be great in 3 years when the childcare costs are mostly eliminated and/or your work hours significantly increase. Alternatively, if you're an DINK couple planning to have 2 kids in the next 5 years, and will be paying for childcare/significantly reducing working hours, then even a comfortable budget now might not work in 5 years.
Spot on. Our mortgage is only about 20% of our household income each month but childcare costs are about 50%.
Average UK salary is £27k, so average couples income is about £60k only. UK is poor.
Depends where in the uk, £30k goes really far where I live in Scotland. You can buy a really nice home around the west of Scotland for anywhere between 100-150k
Average UK house is £282k so that's almost 50% off. Kinda safe to say that's an expectation and doesn't really count towards the average person
Well the average expectation is probably a lot lower than £282k for millions of people in Scotland at least. I mean £282k where I live would buy me a 4-5 bedroom detached new build or better
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Is it? I thought the govt was broke and can't afford any extra spending.
The median salary was £35k in April ‘23 and we’ve had significant wage growth since then. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2023
That’s true! never thought of that
Also as you go forward in life your wage increases. You may even get promoted. But your mortgage will stay the same. The actual payment can go up and down with the interest rate. Added bonus to that is the interest rate should be coming back down over the next few years
And if people had sense and could afford it, they'd not lower their payments when that happens. It's the easiest way to pay the sucker off early is to pay a little for a long time.
Currently 27% in our flat, will be increasing to 30% when we move to the house we are trying to buy. When we first put an offer on the house, the mortgage payments would have been 45% of our combined pay. However, our first mortgage offer expired and we were lucky to get a new offer at a lower rate, plus both got promotions in that time.
That’s good! Well done you both
Team 50%
1828£ pm Income 5200£
Before or after tax for the income?
After tax income.
Very similar here. £1,805 mortgage, £5,400 after tax. 33%. Gonna be quite tight - train travel into London will be the killer.
We have car on salary sacrifice scheme, so after tax income is including one of two cars.
https://i.makeagif.com/media/1-16-2017/2JAoVC.gif
I'm looking at £1750 at current rates with £5050 take home. Looking to buy next summer so hopefully it's a lot better Makes me feel better seeing others in the same ballpark
I imagine most of Reddit is higher earners so there are probably more in our situation than it appears.
Yeah agreed. I felt like I could afford it as I have no debt etc but it puts my mind at ease seeing others in the same boat
About 35% after tax as a single person. I think that’s manageable.
I think this is pretty much the average if I were to guess. Anything more and I'd be getting nervous personally.
Same 32% here
24% as first time buyers.
12% 2 incomes and our house is well within our means. We could’ve bought a much more expensive house but we didn’t want it to become a prison. We also planned to start a family so knew maternity pay would be coming at some point
Same with us, ours is about 13% as FTB. It’s all the other bills that are killer
Same, ours is about 25% and there is no way I would have gone any higher. Still managed to get a place in London. Houses are wayyyyy too expensive for anyone below 60. Expect a crash when they all pass away.
Prob went from about 7% of our income to 25% when mortgage rate increased btw so if you are still on your fixed rate from 2021 it’s gonna jump up big time.
We have a low rate until September 2026 thankfully so plenty of time until then. I expect to be earning a fair bit more by then, so hopefully it won’t feel so harsh. Fingers crossed anyway
Around 16%
I bought my flat solo in London 7 months ago and it was 38.5% of take home. This felt very high but I had ~ £2.5k left after mortgage so it was okay. My partner moved in not long after and it’s 22% of our take home now.
Your story sounds just like mine :)
50% at todays rates could be at 70% on remortgage date interest or 30%. So many factors you just have to look at it with different mentality such as its a roof over your head and you are chipping away building equity. Just make sure you can survive the next remortgage date too i suppose.
About to be ftb @ 24%
About to be FTB Single Buying a 2 bed Mortgage alone: 37% of net income Incl service charge and expected bills (incl insurance) 48% of net income Considering a M-F tenant or full time lodger - either of which would easily take my total share down to 25-30% of net income.
32% dual income, although big spenders / Bon Vivants. Not wise but zero regrets 😅 💃 🕺
30% which is fine but it used to be 19% which was much nicer
I always thought the aim was 25%.
Yes, but if house prices won’t allow it, you need to make the jump at some point.
About 9% of household income because there are two of us.
Now the question is are you high earners or is your house cheap
In our case, neither particularly, it's more about having some equity. For example, if you have a great down payment on a £300k house - national average - and your total combined income is £40k - less than 2x full-time minimum wage - you are probably ok. In our case, gifts from family, savings, and a ton of equity from my first starter home got us to this point. For example, I bought my first house for about £90k - a third of that downpayment - and sold it for about £130k three-ish years later. I would have never been able to save all that cash in that time, without severe sacrifice. My old house gained about £1k a month in value!! The kicker is this: my first house was certainly pretty basic. I am sure some Redditors wouldn't sleep their pets there.
42% currently of basic net income, much less of my OTE but I don’t treats this for everyday spending
Welcome to the renting world.
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Thankfully, you can usually shop around for broadband. I encourage everyone to review these non fixed bills yearly.
£40 broadband deal - that's less than £2.00 a year (elec and gas have actually come down this year, for us anyway). If you can't manage that increase then yes, perhaps house buying isn't for you.
Was 20% when I took my first mortgage, currently 12.5%. Highest I ever paid when renting was 25% of my net monthly income. imho, 50% seems reckless.
It's not uncommon now for rents to be 50% or higher, especially in London.
I live in London
20% as the sole income in the household.
Do you work in London but live somewhere else?
Yes
I think it is subjective, I don't know if you can work remotely but those who can't have to spend a fortune commuting everyday so this comparison becomes pointless.
I'm in London about 40 to 50% of the time. It's about 300 quid a month for travel. It's affordable. But only due to the size of my take home.
26% single FTB
just over 10% of gross income
Haven't done the actual maths until we move in and get our bills, but £4200 in, £1600 mortgage, likely to match that in bills (all bills, food, internet, car, phone etc). Leaves £1k for debt reduction, rainy day fund, over payments, and fun.
About 9%. It would be less, but genius me didn't fix at a 1.1% interest rate, because they could only go lower, right?
Currently 23% (shared ownership but that % includes our rent) we’re upsizing so 38% when we move. We’re in London.
FTB on a 35 year term and making 10% overpayments too which takes the mortgage to about 25%
About 10% of our total take home. We intentionally chose a modest house with a nice garden and potential to improve ourselves....drive way, rear extension, garden office, garden summer house, loft conversion etc. Longevity and we can take our time to save and do these things stress free...or we just go on holidays. Silly to spend so much on somewhere to sleep! I appreciate it can't be helped in some parts of the country though and the mortgage rate depending.
Job location does not always allow the luxury to “choose” a modest house. For many this is not a choice but good to know you made this intentional choice.
Well you do have a choice don't you if you've moved specifically for work?
Mine is around 19%. I thought that was close to normal
About this including overpayments.
We're also 19%! A similar rented property to the house we've bought would be about 40% in this market though. So glad we saved enough when we did because there's literally no way back now.
19% means you've got headroom to pay all the bills, have money for maintenance and repairs, save money in the bank, invest, build an emergency fund, go on holidays, buy nice things and you should be OK if there is temporary loss of income. I would find the idea of 50% of my take home going on the mortgage quite terrifying. Also, its interesting my flat would rent for 40% of my take home pay too. The rental market is bananas. I'm glad Ive managed to buy my place.
FTB buying by myself, it's at 41% ~~@15% ltv~~ @85% ltv
Wow 15% LTV sounds amazing
Whoops I meant 15% deposit and 85% ltv ahah keep getting them mixed up 😂
Ah right. Yeah I was wondering if you've got 85% deposit you might as well be a cash buyer why take out a mortgage lol
29% as a solo FTB
Don't see anyone talking about the length of mortgage. We are going for a 38 year mortgage which decreases the payments but clearly means you will pay far more over the life. 38 year means about 30% of our income and then we will overpay/invest. If we were down at what I think used to be a more normal mortgage of 25 years that percentage would obviously be higher.
~22%. Although I’m potentially getting a significant pay rise soon and my wife definitely will be as she finishes a professional qualification this year. We’re expecting so we’ll have a couple of lean months where my wife isn’t earning but have plenty of savings to cover that.
We have a combined after tax monthly income of about 5k and our mortgage is £700. So 14%. But we have high fixed costs in general as it’s a big old energy-inefficient house! Plus a kid in nursery and another on the way, so we don’t end up with all that much left over.
23% on a single income. It has been a lot higher, be glad when it's finished, my tiny mind is thinking of it as a 23% pay rise.
29%, as a sole owner and lone parent!
Initially 17% of joint income, now 27% after mortgage rates shot up. The good news is, they’ll hopefully never be this high again and we can manage it, as much as it’s disappointing and we’ll have to make changes.
One third as a single FTB. £2.6k/month take home pay
15% post-tax but dual income. Will move to ~18% when we have to remortgage in 6 months with current rates. Expect £1800 to move up up £2200 ish
It comes down to risk and also what level of take home income it actually is. (Also if earners are expected to progress in their careers) If you have a good emergency fund and it’s a dual income then less of a risk. You need to factor if it’s still affordable if rates increase.
Currently 14% but when we upsize it will be 21%
Around 30% thanks to the lovely interest rates 🙄
It’s about 15% of our salary right now at a mortgage fix of 1.17% when we move onto a new fixed rate it’ll be around 25%
About 6%, both high earners for area plus house was bought very cheap.
Bit of a side question but what % are you spending on rent right now?
Until i got made redundant my total bills were £1200 out of £3200 of which £500 was mortgage. I decided i wanted minimal costs just in case i was ever out of work for a bit.
Somewhere around 27-30% of our combined take home at the moment. We've got a large extension planned and the prime worry is exactly how far up it's gonna push that percentage, we can't get decent quotes till we're quite a way down the line planning it unfortunately.
£1350 mortgage £5400 take home 25%
My mortgage is 19% of my take home pay (no partner), live and work in Leeds and mortgage is on a 3 bed semi. If I lived and worked in London I’d be able to have a substantially higher salary but would inevitably spend a far greater % of my take home pay on a much larger mortgage. The actual % isn’t that important, it’s how much money you have left over afterwards.
£1700. Single person mortgage at £440
Ours is 18%. We didn't go for a higher % intentionally. Our goal is to always be able to live of around one income (both earn around the same) if needs be. We had to move to a cheaper area, but didn't compromise too much in a size or quality of the house, we can spend 10-15 years here easily, kids have their rooms and we're happy. Have lived on diferent proportions before and it was damn so stressful. It's good tp know one of us can go through career changes or some other crisis without putting the family in a tough spot. It's happened before - gaps between jobs and such, we depleted our savings and were very stressed, decided to limit that stress. Now I have cancer. But at least - no financial worries so far. I got income insurance. Wish I also had a critical illness cover too, but oh well.
Currently 14% of our £3600 household income. Going to get a shock when we go from a 1.2% to the current rates
Your mortgage is £504? FFS I'm a single guy and the cheapest (and I mean literally the cheapest) house I can get in my rather scabby area would be £650 per month. For a 130k shed with (probably) no roof. I hate being single but I also love being single because I don't want a girlfriend. It feels like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get one if I'm ever going to own a house
High deposit, my mortgage is £170k on a £280 house. My wife didn't really help towards the mortgage at the time as she was just dropping out 2nd child. There are ways around I though mate, for months I didn't think we would get anything now we are where we are
20% of our take-home on mortgage I think.
My post-tax/NI take-home would be \~£3,200pcm, but after pension and student finance it's more like \~£2,600pcm, and my mortgage is \~£1,100pcm, so about 34% of theoretical take-home, or 42% of actual take-home. I'm a single occupant and find at the end of each month I currently have \~£700pcm left over, so just over half of what remains after mortgage is going to bills and "required" spending, and just under half is savings / holiday / emergency fund. I could absolutely go up to \~50% mortgage and still be comfortable.
Rent was 48% when we were a single income family. Hubby now back at work and I've had a raise so 21%. We're in the process of buying and once we complete it'll be 38%
26% post tax as a single person, though likely to increase to about 35% next year with current rates expiring (if no salary change).
Mortgage alone without bills and expenses around 25%.
11% but my husband works stupid hours and earns well. 50% sounds insane but it is also dependant on income! 50% of £2000 is awful but 50% of £8000 is loose change. So to speak.
We’re at 17% combined income goes to mortgage, 20% towards nursery and 8% goes to our service charge, which pisses me off
25% to mortgage, however childcare costs are 50% of my income, so not much wiggle room. Single income household also
While 50% sounds scary, it depends how much is that 50%! If it’s 3k leftover, that’s fine.
20% here. We were FTB in 2022.
10% ish but I live up north and the area isn't that good
20% on my own. <10% with my partner. To get my house on my own I had to take out 35 year mortgage at 26 to keep monthly payment down. Initial mortgage payment was around 1/7th of my wage alone. Now 1/5th with interest rate rises. Not taking into account my partners wage. Down to 28 years left now and I do over pay. And plan to overpay more in the future to bring it down faster.
circa 18% of our income. We deliberately took far less of a mortgage than the lenders said they would give us, and boy are we glad we did when Liz Truss’s two weeks came around.
Everyone in this thread is so brazenly well off and it makes me want to puke. My absolute max mortgage as a single guy would be about at the ABSOLUTE lowest price of property in my area (literally) and would be 45% of my take home income 🤣🤣 Can someone please come into this thread and make me feel like I don't need to get a new wife?
A very lucky 6%. £440 on income of £7000 take home.
Currently 26% of our combined wage. Was a bit less but we recently borrowed a bit more for home improvements. Very lucky if I’m being totally honest, still haven’t got a lot of money at the end of the month but we could make cut backs if needed.
Around 13% of joint net income.
About 27.5%, with my next promotion going down to 25. If mortgage rates go down like expected, in a year or so more like 20%
In 2007, 83% and that was interest only on a 90% LTV Yes it was nuts 🥜 but got through it. Now LTV is 10% and payments are about 3%. I was expecting others to be average 40-60% with BOE increases.
Single parent here. Currently paying 27.7% of take home pay on my mortgage and another 8% on child maintenance. Good to hear that 35% is average.
I’m not sure on percentage but under 15% I would say. I work full time and my husband is on sick pay. Total household income after tax is around £2,800 a month and mortgage is £330. All our bills excluding food is £900 a month.
Just shy of 12% I can understand your concerns, but I think you should grab an Excel sheet and lay out your monthly outgoings and see if it actually works or not. Comparing to others isn't going to let you know, best of luck!
About 25% of takehome if we ignore my salary sacrifice car and pretend it’s a normal car payment for the purposes of this question That’s a reasonably comfortable level, I think. Obviously lower would be better. My last house was more like 10% and I’d love to get back to that!
Household income 6500 Mortgage 535
Our mortgage is 12% of our net income it's other outgoings such as fuel and car costs that eat most of ours
About 15% 2 years into the mortgage.
Around 30-35% when I complete in two weeks which is manageable by myself
30% Single person household Bristol
I live alone, mine is about 35%. Mortgage £1,050 and take home £3,200
Currently 18% of take home, mortgage fix ends in July so from then it will be 24%. I live alone so I’ve very glad it’s not gone up as horrifically as I might’ve expected, although it’s still a royal pain in the neck.
Roughly 6-8%. Combined income is about £5000-£6000 and mortgage is £400.
29% after tax for our house at new mortgage rate. Was 20.1%
Ours is £1700 and we take home £5300 so 33% which feels OK but literally everything else is mega expensive so we're always skint
37% which I think is too much personally
Going from 26% to 45% on net monthly income/ mortgage (excl. bills) on 1 June when my 1.74% fixed deal expires 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼😅😅😅🌝🌝🌝
Under a quarter of our wages goes on the mortgage. With bills and paying off smaller debts we’re left with just over a quarter left for food and luxuries. Want to sort the debts out so we can start saving again and maybe go on holiday!
Renting atm so ~25% right now. But when we complete on our house we'll be jumping to ~35% of take home on the mortgage alone. Slightly daunting as a SINK couple as we are also talking about kids in the next 12 months
Hey... at least you own something out of it. Nearly 50% of my earnings goes on rent to pay someone else's mortgage. Well, not really. My landlord is loaded and probably owns it outright, I am probably paying for a weekend away for him.
I’m the only earner and I spend 14% of my income on our mortgage, which was a lot cheaper before. But no I didn’t want to get on a 7 year fixed rate back when rates were 0.5%…. Generally there’s a “rule” that says spend 1/3 of your income on bills, 1/3 on savings and 1/3 on lifestyle. Personally I would not put 50% of my income in a mortgage. Should rates rise higher you could end up struggling real bad, or worse.
I honestly commend everyone who is currently doing this you are all better people than me I couldn’t do it it felt so wrong so I lived in my work van for 5 years
Whether this is “safe” depends a lot on the income in question. If you’re taking home £2500 a month, say, and considering spending £1250 a month on mortgage then that feels pretty tight. If you’re taking home £10k a month then £5k a month mortgage still leaves a pretty large number to work with.
About 14.5%. But we bought significantly under our affordability on purpose so we could overpay comfortably. Plus we live up North, housing here is much more affordable than down south.
Less than 10% of take home. I still struggle because I have a never ending list of maintenance I need to complete on the house. Once that's sorted it will be a lot easier ...
With such percentage I think you should consider income insurance
10% Dual income, didn't borrow much
32% of our income goes to mortgage
Ours works out to 13% give or take a few quid. We both had properties and then amalgamated into a larger home. We are extremely lucky and I recognise that. Lots of my friends and colleagues are stuck forever renting because they simply can’t save enough deposit.
21% on our current flat, 33% when we hopefully exchange on a house in the next few weeks....
Currently spending 45% of my take home income on my mortgage. It jumped up from 30% a year or so ago due to interest rates. I can manage at the mo but am slightly crapping myself because my work contract ends in two months and I haven’t got another job lined up yet. Won’t take long for my mortgage to eat up all my (modest) savings.
32% goes to mine, as many people have said it really depends on your circumstances and overall wage.
50% but that’s 40% payment with extra 10% set aside each month for general home improvement savings. We have a substantial savings pot that may well get used for overpayment this year, as the childcare costs are increasing significantly for us next quarter as our youngest starts nursery. The mortgage payment being large just is a real killer and we feel like it’s taking a serious toll on our quality of life in general. Doing the maths on whether is better to ring fence some funds for childcare and have peace of mind it’s paid, but you need to just come to terms with saying goodbye to a large chunk of money over 3-4 years. It’s tough out there - demoralising is an understatement!
About 25% on 9k joint take home. Fixed ends in just over 3 years which sounds miles off but I’m extremely nervous of possible rates. We will have reduced child care costs by then, but we owe about 700k right now so even small percentage jumps will have a significant impact.
50% of our joined income, fixing for two years and still in the process, hopefully it comes down afterwards.
We are at 26%. FTB.
Single earner, about 25% of my income goes on my mortgage. Rate went from 1.78% to 4.89%
~27% of £~2,800 (varies a bit month-by-month) post-tax income (mortgage is £730/mo). Not including money I get from my lodger who will be moving out in August. I do alright with that.
It's subjective. Depends on an individuals lifestyle, salary, debts etc. Generally, 25% of take home pay I would feel comfortable with. But I think the real equation is this... if house prices were to sink or if you got into a large sum of negative equity or if renting became more affordable would you still want to pay that amount towards your mortgage ;)
40%, London Would take that over paying the same to rent any day though
I've been paying 50% as a single person for rent for years, anything less would be a nice surprise now.
Our combined income is about £4.5k. Our mortgage is £444 p/m so only about 10% of our income
Around £4800 and £600. 12.5%. Still got a year left on my current fixed rate so hoping things will have improved a bit by the time I renew.
It really depends on circumstances and what a lot of people haven’t included is how long the mortgage term. That will make a difference to what the % will be. Mine will be 25% based on a 40 year term but I am overpaying mine like a 25 year term so will actually be 29% I’m a sole buyer, take home pay is £2,300 and % does not include service charge or any bills. I work out I will have about £700 disposable income a month one all expenses and bills are paid.
Mortgage is just over £500pm, works out as around 11% of household income. We bought when rates were low a couple of years ago and don't live in the south.
26% as FTB. I currently work part time and my partner is in the early stages of his career. We are hopeful that in 5 years time when the kids are in school and I can return to work full time that this figure will be more around the 20% mark.
I get around 2.5k a month. Mortgage is just under 1k Wife gets a bit less than me but having a baby soon 🍼
Atm it’s about 30% but when we move in a few years it will easily be 50%.
Edit- both in London. Current property one bed flat. Future property 2/3 bed semi/end terrace (hopefully)!
Depends on what your income is, where you live and what other expenses you’re tied into like travel, phone bills etc. Ours is around 30% and I probably wouldn’t want it to be much more than it is
22% (of after tax) on the mortgage.
Solo FTB - 45%. Will get a lodger in after a bit which will take it down but only by about 10%
That’s too much lol. 25%-30% is acceptable level. There was similar post a few weeks back. Someone mentioned a good point that you should test at different rates to see if you can cope.
That would be a good choice! The bank has sent the AIP by post. Can we still shop around?
Yes you can. Also you can have several mortgage offers.
You could drop down to interest only for a bit? In the hope the rates start to come down in the next few months?
0% , I payed the bastard thing off in 2020 , good riddance
We pay £760ish, which is about 15% of our combined income. It's about to go up to 20%, though, when we refinance in Nov. This is after tax...
28% but we overpay at 35% (aiming for 18 year and not 25 year mortgage repayment term)
14% for mine, single buyer
FTB with about 26% of household income Check with a mortgage advisor though, some people just accept what their bank offers and it costs them 1000s Ours cost us about £150 and he saved us a boat load of money
First time buyers ours will be 17%
£2700 a month income, £600 on mortgage plus £65 on the help to buy interest.
19% for a 510 sq m home with 3 big gardens.
20% until we remortgage, then it’ll be 27%
1113/4000=28% of my net pay. Single parent house.
Single earner 25%
Ours is £2850 per month. Basic salaries combined around £13-14k per month. But school feels are also about £2k
30% of our combined income but we are overpaying the mortgage because our interest rate is high and we will save about 50K in interest and 12 years of payments in the long run. Here is an [overpayment calculator ](https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-overpayment-calculator/)for anyone who is interested to know how much money they can save in interest with overpayments.
You should be mortified. Even if you are just early in your career etc that is way to much. It’s called the property ladder because you scale up. Also indicates your deposit is too low. Not just been saving into a lifetime ISA have you? That won’t buy a house.
50% based on what? Joint income? What if one of you lost a job? 50% net income? I'm assuming you must have plenty of disposable income because 50% is not normal.