Does anyone remember when mortgage rates were almost 17%!

Buying houses is classic supply and demand. the prices rise until the number and prices of houses on the market match the number of people who can afford to buy them.

Yes remember paying 14.75% that included 1% because the loan to value was high. Mortgage was for about £30k . In those days you got Miras tax relief on first £30k . We bought for £44k and sold for £88k a few years later, the perks of buying when the markets were crazy going up!

We were incredibly lucky in that DH worked for a high street bank and, although the financial situation had to be totally transparent, we had a bank mortgage. This was very, very rare, except for bank employees. We only paid 5% interest rate which meant we had a much bigger house than mere mortals! It was very helpful as I didn’t work ,had three children in 5 years of marriage!
But I have to say that each time we sold, when we were moved, we honoured the buyer’s offer. No gazumping from us.

Oh I remember. We had just moved towns and as I was about to have second baby, no family or support around- and the house we had bought (we thought) was taken off market at last minute- we bought 'above our means' as it was the only house we could move into almost straight away. Could barely afford repayments, and then this happened. Our endowment went up to 19.5%. I had massive panic attacks.

But it all worked out in the end- brilliant neighbours took us under their wing and our child 1 before baby was born- and we sold on very quickly 10 years later, for a good price.

We bought our first house at the end of 1965, after renting for the first 2 years we were married, paying £1 a week rent. Our house cost £2,150, we paid £100 deposit, and the mortgage was just over £12 a month. I wasn`t working at the time, we had a baby and a toddler, hubby brought home about £10 a week, a little bit more with overtime.

We lived abroad for two years when we first married and then OH did a Masters so we didn’t buy our first house until 1979. I can’t remember the interest rates but we were both working and I don’t remember finding it a squeeze. Fast forward to 1981 and I gave up work to have our first baby. The interest rates had shot up to 15% and it was all a bit difficult! Maternity pay was quite good back then so it was a year or so before we realised how little we had to live on. Fortunately OH started getting short stints of overseas work so things improved. I registered as a Child Minder after our third and I did a typing job one day a week when youngest went to Playgroup. We had made the decision that I wouldn’t return to work properly until youngest was 5 and at school, and we kept to that.

Absolutely remember it. It was crippling. No doubt every generation thinks life was harder back when, but we really did struggle and had no luxuries at all. It was amazing what you could make out of a bag of horse carrots and a sack of potatoes just to make ends meet.

16.67% was the highest we went to with Abbey National. Dreaded opening every envelope from them. Awful time but somehow we survived.

I remember it only too well. Hard times indeed.

Katie59

In those days you had to be brave, whatever you bought it cost more the next week because inflation was 25%, those of us that “bit the bullet” never regretted it. Housing cost both rented and owned was much more affordable then, mortgages seems very achievable if both were working.

I remember mortgages being very difficult to get. You couldn't go to a bank because they didn't do mortgages. Building societies did mortgages so you had to save with one and jump through hoops to get your mortgage.

We were both working and living in a two bed town house. We were both on good money so decided to move to a 3 bed detached on a large plot of land before we started our family.
The building society refused to lend because our next move should be to a 3 bed semi even if we could afford something bigger.

We did get the home we wanted but had to get it through an insurance company and pay a higher rate.

We bought a wreck in London in 1979 for £21,000. Mortgages were rationed and we were offered a mortgage of £13000 or £15000 if we waited 6 months!
Fortunately we’d made money on selling our first house in Birmingham, so could go ahead with a £13000 mortgage. But it took four years of doing the house up, no floors, ceilings and plumbing. All done DIY.

I planned my 2nd pregnancy in 1988, (wonderful timing - not); the mortgage rate just kept climbing throughout. And stress isn't good for pregnant women!

I worked three jobs to pay the mortgage. I’d serve breakfasts in a hotel, travel into my day job as a social worker, go home and spend an hour and a half with the children then go out again to serve tables as a banqueting waitress. Sometimes my husband (who was a student at the time) would do the breakfast and dinner shifts so I could spent more time with the children. We often both worked shifts at weekends too. There was never any money to spare.

Then I got a promotion to set up a new unit and it meant a much longer travel time. My husband (still a student) encouraged me take the job even though it meant he then did all the housework, childcare, shopping etc. - and his studies. I worked until I was seven months pregnant, then went on maternity leave just as my husband needed to focus on his finals (he got a 1st!)

We were inventive cooks and made huge pans of food that lasted several meals and our children did without ‘extras’ a lot of the time. We never had a holiday except for visiting my husband’s parents in Devon, we drove a couple of ancient cars (to this day the most we’ve ever paid for a car is £3,800) and almost all of our furniture and clothing was second hand.

When loans came almost entirely from Buiding Societies, the extent of their loans depended on how much they received in deposits, so at times there was very little money to lend. but they would never admit this.

They got around this by making mortgage offers borrowers couldn't afford. We put an offer of £5,000 on an end of terrace with a garage and large side garden. An inner terrace had sold for the same price. The surveyor valued the house at £4,000 and said £500 would be withheld until we had done a whole host of jobs, if necessary, including replastering the garage(!!!!). We came to the conclusion that the Building Society surveyor had never even gone into the house because he could have checked for himself whether or not all these jobs were necessary.

Obviously as first time buyers we simply couldn't afford the house, we hadn't got the money. In the end what and where we bought was dictated by finding a new estate where the devloper had done a deal with a building society so money was available, but we had to take out an endowmwnt policy.

We bought our second house in 1988. I was pregnant with my second baby.
We ate jacket potatoes, baked beans on toast or fish in a bag. On a weekend we'd eat some chicken for a treat.
Those were the days...

I do, we bought our 1st home, a flat in 1988, I remember the interest rates going up what seemed like every month. We used to dread the postman delivering Mail in case it was a letter from the mortgage company saying the rate was going up. The winter of 1991 we have in. We were freezing, as only a gas fire in the living room, both working and a toddler. We had to pay childminder fees as well. My parents only lived half hour away, they rang and suggested we sell up & move in with them. We sold very quickly and moved in with my parents for 3 years, it was such a relief.

Somewhere in my archives I have an annual statement from our building society, which shows mortgage repayments for the year, think it was 1979, totally well over £2800.00 but our actual mortgage that year was only reduced by just over £380 because of 18% interest rate, insurance and charges! The “ good old days”!
!!

I do! We had just separated and I had a 7 year old plus returned to work full time! I had bought out my ex and budgeted on this! Then the increase occurred so I took the decision to rent out a room and that was a life saver! Their rent paid the mortgage allowing us to get on our feet !
My daughter was well looked after and I had second hand clothes for a long time but we have happy memories plus one lodger remains a friend 30 years later !!

Yes! Sold our first house in 1988 to buy a bigger one as I was pregnant. Had that happened only a year before prices were much lower, which I know is relative if buying & selling but it was a struggle, knowing I would soon be on maternity leave. I worked at a Merchant Bank in London and in those 'unenlightened' days I was informed that I either went back to work full time afterwards, or left! No part time hours. So I became a stay at home mum for a few years as, had I returned to work, my salary would have gone on childcare/train fares.

remember it well two young children and only husband in work it was hard and some days we had hardly enough money to feed ourselves but the children never went hungry

I remember making so much soup from scraps of veg. I’d stretch out food and of course nothing was wasted. All clothes and furniture were second hand. No holidays all this just to survive as the house prices fell.
It was a sad time and we survived - not unscathed tho’
We bought a house in an area we thought we could afford. Not where we wanted but where we could afford.
And yet youngsters just now feel aggrieved. It’s different times.

It was worldwide as well.
Because of such a high interest rate , it meant that my ex husband couldn't afford to pay me for either my share of the house or pay maintenance for my son.
I'm still waiting !

It was terrifying. I don't know how we got through that phase in our lives, I must have blocked it out, but we did survive it. I would never want my children or grandchildren to know that level of worry in their lives.

Yes I remember mortgage rates being that high. I was working in the estate agents business at the time and unfortunately we regularly had properties to sell on behalf of the banks and lenders that had been repossessed because people just couldn’t afford to keep up the payments ?