How Big Is Your Mortgage?

OK, this is a super nosey thread, so feel free to ignore but.......

I'm at a loss to understand how so many people can afford their own home in NZ. I've only been here 3.5 years, so not a huge amount of experience, but house prices in relation to average earnings just don't add up.

Maybe I'm just to cautious? Maybe it's more common here for people to take bigger risks with buying property?

As a general rule of thumb, the maximum we would borrow to buy a home would be 3 x my OH's annual wage (ideally only 2 x or less) and we'd always work out what the repayments would be if interest rates went as high as 15%, and see if it was still affordable.

So.....

How many times your annual income is your mortgage?

If interest rates hit 15%, would you still be able to afford your mortgage?

If the main earner of the family lost their job, how many months savings do you have to cover the mortgage etc?

How many times your annual income is your mortgage?
2.5 times as big as combined income

If interest rates hit 15%, would you still be able to afford your mortgage?
Yes

If the main earner of the family lost their job, how many months savings do you have to cover the mortgage etc?
Too scary to think about, but we'd manage on one income, also only just and with a LOT of sacrifice

Oh I meant we were able to pay the mortgage in that situation so I reckon we could do 15%

We pay about 4x DH's income. We probably have quite a small mortgage compared to most people, DH just doesn't earn a huge amount.

If interest rates hit 15% then no we wouldn't be able to afford repayments.

Usually we would have enough to cover a couple of months repayments but at the moment our saving are scarily low after car repairs, house reno's... oh and buying a new tv

Too Big!
Mortgage is 3 times our combined salary.
We also own over half of our property.

15% is pretty high - we've fixed at 7%

DH is in the military losing his job isn't an issue - we'll most likely have our mortgage paid off in 7 years time as DH will be able to collect his super by then, and it more than covers what's left.

Yeah our mortgage repayments on our 3 bedroom house are less than what we'd pay in rent for the same size house in our region. We also have heaps of potential re the value - we spend 10k doing it up and the value goes up by 40k soooo better investing in our own house than paying someone elses mortgage

Peanut wrote: It also depends on the value of the house.

Ohhhhh interesting... are you meaning in relation to how much you are prepared to initially invest in a property (ie: deposit) and potentially loose if you were forced to sell and the property had decreased in value?

Babe wrote: Milliemoo where are you from originally?

I was raised in the North East of England, then moved to Edinburgh and met my hubby. Stayed there for 10 years and then moved here

How many times your annual income is your mortgage?
3 times as combined income and we own about 35% of the house

If interest rates hit 15%, would you still be able to afford your mortgage?
Yes, but with a lot of sacrifice

If the main earner of the family lost their job, how many months savings do you have to cover the mortgage etc?
We would manage on one income for maybe a year if nothing major happens i.e car blows up

How many times your annual income is your mortgage?

4 and a very little times my wage (mortgage is just in my name) but about 2.5 times our combined income

If interest rates hit 15%, would you still be able to afford your mortgage?

yes but like someone said there would be a LOT of sacrifice

If the main earner of the family lost their job, how many months savings do you have to cover the mortgage etc? None! but i have experience in a certain area so could ring up tomorrow and be working the next day (and there will always be work in that area)

the only reason i could afford our place is my parents gave me the deposit