Sunday 7 July 2013

Mortgage affordability, is it something young parents should think about?

I know this is a subject that have I have given a lot of thought even before becoming a parent, being able to put a roof over my families head and provide that same kind of financial stability that I have always had. 

Lets face it, in this economic climate many of us don't have the odd £20,000 hidden down the sides of the sofa (unless they will accept payment in cheerios, we have lots of those down there thanks to the toddler) which of course immediately puts a big hurdle in your path on the deposit front. 

We have sought out advice from every corner, we have learnt so much about the different mortgages available to us and explored every avenue in our quest to get on the property ladder. I have to say that the advice we have been given has explained exactly what is involved with a mortgage, which for me was in-valuable as before I didn't have a clue between fixed rate and variable.

Luke and I spent a lot of time gathering mortgage quotes and in order to get the ball rolling we needed to find £20,000 to put down on the table. To us this is a lot of money, money that we quite simply don't have. I am sure I am one of many people in this day and age who can quite simply say they cannot afford to buy, and realistically renting is our only option right now. 

The mortgage we qualified for back when we were enquiring was in the region of £130,000, which in our area wouldn't actually buy us much. We would be looking at a 2 bedroom house with not a whole lot of room in any which way about it. 

It is really easy to get an idea of a ball park figure you may be looking at on a mortgage. I have found the Halifax mortgage calculator is really useful to get an idea into how much you may be looking in terms of repayments each month. You can input certain details that will tell you how much they may be able to lend you.

There is so much information available to call upon and guide you through the process of being first time buyers, but until you have the deposit money firmly in your pocket actually getting a mortgage behind you can seem like a million miles away.

I think this is a subject that all first time buyers do give a lot of thought, and I certainly think it is something that we should all be thinking about to some extent. Dreams for the future and making dreams a reality, carving the way for our little ones and making a family home that is ours are all things that I want for my family.

So for now we are renting, but one day we will have our very own home.


 photo HalifaxWatermark.jpg

2 comments:

  1. It's so difficult. I was fortunate, back in the day, that there were 100% mortgages, and that the housing market was on the up so we moved and made enough for a decent deposit... and nearly fifteen years later we have 50% equity in our home.
    I am not for a minute boasting, we could not have done this without that initial mortgage... and I am at a complete loss as to how young people are expected to buy homes (and don't even get me on car insurance to allow people to hold down jobs!).
    I hope you go on and find that dream home.

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    Replies
    1. It is all so much harder these days, I just hope we can get some savings together to get us on the property ladder x

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