speedking

Andy, you look ahead and appreciate that a large mortgage may become unmanageable. Therefore you limit your mortgage to an achievable value (that is your sensible mortgage). If everyone did that then house prices would adjust accordingly. Whether you can afford to buy with that mortgage is another matter. The debate is not what that level of mortgage is for you as an individual.

Unfortunately for you, individual B is not so sensible, takes a big mortgage, borrows on credit card so he can afford to purchase other things, borrows from parents, etc. Up to now he has been lucky and come off better. This may not continue.

You should be glad to have the foresight not to sink money in a risky investment rather than upset that you have missed the boat.

davegtt

Theres more to life than the grimy **** hole that is London you know

SJ_Skyline

That's your opinion Pete

davegtt

Hey Pete, dont start trolling this thread

106rallye

I agree but my job is here therefore I need to live near work or commute and pay through the nose for it. I was just saying that not all FTB's aspire to a 3 bed on a nice estate as you stated - I would be happy with a one bed in an area where it wasn't 50/50 whether i made it home in one piece or not. But that is out of my reach unless IMHO i over stretch myself and as i said i feel that i am in a better position to think about buying than a lot of my peers.

Unfortunately you might not rate London but the companies in my industry with all the money to spend do.

Trust me a lot of people would replace london in your quote with any major city in the UK (my brother goes to nottingham uni so i know what its like there!) its just all the money at the moment for me is in London unfortunately.

Andy

106rallye

Speedking I see where you are coming from now - and i totally agree I also think that too many people have taken option B and are going to get hit bad when intrest rates keep climing as they have done today. I recon we will be on 5.25% by early next year

Andy

Leslie

The MP's got 8%!, as well as a big increase in tax free allowances.

It has never been easy to get started on the housing ladder, but to do it now for the average person must seem impossible.

Les

john banks

Interest rates at 5.0% now.

lozgti

And 57 year mortgages being offered by lenders

*Edit.I note Tesco's are in there again.That is one big grocer

Petem95

Before Japan's property market crashed there were apparently 100year mortgages being offered that we passed down through to your kids and so on!

57year mortgages sounds crazy, and I dont think they were offering those here even before the last property crash.

lozgti

I like this quote I found.Seems to apply to many of the 'we are never having another trough' people

"Stuart Law of property investment group Assetz reckons that rising house prices aren't due to softer interest rates, but are in fact mostly a function of supply and demand. He admonishes Rics, saying: "It would take excessively high levels of interest rates to prevent the supply / demand imbalance from driving up prices."

This is of course, much more in line with the typical response you'd expect from a business which relies on rising property prices for its profits. But the argument is clearly wrong. The fact that there are now so many weird and not-so-wonderful ways to overstretch yourself to get on the housing ladder shows that easy lending is the reason for the continued boom."