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[Andy B]

...... in September 1979 I also got promoted and my pay leapt to  £720.86 a month ... we started to actually live !!

and that was exactly when I joined the Mob .... 7th Sept 79. My first monthly pay as an apprentice Tiff .. after food & accom was £18! 

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Bought a house in 1990 when the mortgage rate was 15%.

I actually opted for a 100%  mortgage which pushed the rate to 16.5% for the first year.

That would certainly put the wind up a few nowadays.

Back of a fag packet calculation I reckon that would make my mortgage interest about about £5k/yr more than my salary! 

Luckily the mortgage was only about £42000 and cost about £530 PCM if memory serves.

Also, at the time there was tax relief called MIRAS........Mortgage interest relief at source. All gone now.

[Olympia5776]

We bought our house in August 1978 for £13300 with a mortgage rate of 8% .. 2% above the base rate of 6% ........  by November 1979 the rate was 19% .. 2% above the base rate of 17%  .....   

The mortgage repayments were £27 MORE then my RAF monthly salary !! and Chris had lost her job .... (and then there were all the other standing orders as well) .... my parents lent me money every month. .... we came very close to "giving up" and moving back into "quarters" ... some of the "older" guys told us to hang in there until the 1979 pay rise was announced .... the year the labour government tried to "buy" the forces vote ... and failed as Maggie got in in the May election ... but  labour gave me a pay rise from £599.40 a month to £676.80 and we survived, in June Chris eventually got a job then ... in September 1979 I also got promoted and my pay leapt to  £720.86 a month ... we started to actually live !!

We were only talking about this at the weekend.
My wife and I were married before and recall that period of crippling mortgage rates.
I paid £12200 for a three bed semi in Lanarkshire in 1977 ,Sheilagh similar in Luton a year later .
We both had a desperate period of real hardship in prioritising basic essentials and came very close to having to give it all up , and that was with the benefit of both our former partners working .That was a really tough time .
There would be a total collapse of our social infrastructure if those rates were thrust upon young to middle age homebuyers  now.
On the other hand I had two pretty reasonable endowments mature ten years ago and even with some advice from the bank , have not grown in that time .

[Sir Tigger KC]

Bought 3 bed semi in 1989 for £25000 and sold it 5 years later for £50k Mortgage was around £450 a month

Things have gone up a bit ..... this was from a local paper in the late 30's  (I missed the date when I photo's it ... 37? 38?) and just 5% deposit 

Apparently £480 in 1938 is worth £32,521.24 today.     That seems quite reasonable for a semi in Bury. 

https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1938?amount=480

[Mr Skrunts]

Was the same for the Santander 123, good interest rates to get going but still better than some I suppose.

I got cheeky.

Comms etc pays 3% payback. Gas and leccy pays 2%

I pay as much as I can and get the cash back and claim the excess back once a year. 2% on £150 a month is a nice little earner, dont get that with the bank.

If you put £1,800 a year straight* into utilities, what would your returns be? More than 2%  I would wager...

This is essentially what you are doing by overpaying, only the cash back makes it sound like they're doing you a favour...

If I put £100 in Santander I make £.1.50 after 12 months. (Calculation below for compound interest/£100 monthly)

If I put £100 just once towards my bills I make £2 instantly.

So:-

Initial balance
£0.00 Total monthly deposits
£1,200.00 Effective Annual Rate 1.51%

Add £100 per month

 Final investment value
£1,209.79 Total interest earned
£9.79   

Not a fantastic ammount but every little helps

[ronnyd]

My first house, (three bed new build semi), cost £4,750. Early to mid 70s IIRC. Sold it six months later for £8,900. Was buying houses when the mortgage rate was 15%. Was a struggle with three kids but reaping the benefit now, hopefully.

[Viral_Jim]

.

Also, at the time there was tax relief called MIRAS........Mortgage interest relief at source. All gone now.

Ahh the good ol' days, as I recall, my old man used to get relief on school fees too. Used to get a cheque every year from the revenue, despite not being resident in the UK for tax purposes. 

There are loads of younger lads at work that have mortgages of £silly amounts ..... they'd be jumping off the roof of the factory if they'd to pay £16.5 interest rates.

I'm firmly in that bracket, but I view this house as a second job, not a home for life.

I don't think it's ever been easy to get on (despite each generation claiming the one before had it easy), I bought my first place straight out of uni, with borrowed money and didn't have enough money to put any furniture in it. The parents gave me my childhood bed and wardrobe, but that was pretty much it 

My parents bought on a 100% mortgage, then borrowed to build a garage, used the money to renovate the house and sold it. Same sh!t, different decade.

[Doctor Gollum]

Makes a plot of land and a doublewide in rural Tennessee or Arkansas quite appealing from an affordability point of view

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

With an almost complete absence of left wing thinking as avery welcome bonus. 

[Viral_Jim]

Gun toting yokals insisting they don't need to wear a mask, despite a global pandemic because FREEDOM!!!! Probably less so. 

Having spent a reasonable amount of time (for a non resident) in the southern US, I wouldn't take a salary to live there.

[Doctor Gollum]

I wouldn't live in a Democrat State if you paid me, so there's that...

[Rangie]

Bought our first property in 1974 £10,850 brand new 2 bedroom house in Surrey not long after inherited a substantial sum (in those days) from my grandmother and used it to move further up the property ladder and enabled us to buy other properties to let all sold a couple of years ago in readiness for retirement, best move we ever made buying & selling houses , when we did have mortgages always overpaid to reduce term.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I wouldn't live in a Democrat State if you paid me, so there's that...

Apply some perspective though and the British Guardianista's would describe US Democrats as Far Right! 

[Doctor Gollum]

I wouldn't live in a Democrat State if you paid me, so there's that...

Apply some perspective though and the British Guardianista's would describe US Democrats as Far Right! 

True, and to be fair, most Americans are normal decent people, but the left seems hell bent on screwing over all but the champagne socialists. It is a relatively small group, but Antifa/BLM/woke retard bandwagon of choice are having a pretty good go at completely screwing up the American way of life. The sad irony is that the liberties that affords their right to cause chaos, are the very causes they stand against.

There may well be new President in the White House in November, but it won't be a Democrat 

[New POD]

Bought our first house in 1989 at the peak, with a mortgage rate of 8.5% variable because 1% reduction for first time buyer for one year.
We never paid 8.5%. The rate went up before we completed.  Eventually after about a year or so it was 15.5%
My take-home was £680 a month, my wife's varied between £550 and £650 depending on her shift pattern as a nurse, and the mortgage plus endowment was £750. When you added petrol to get to work, and household bills, we had £250 for food and repairs and clothes and going out and holidays and presents.

My mother recently said "You never really did anything to that house did you?"

She seemed surprised that we had so little money, that I built a garage out of reclaimed shite, I picked up off work colleagues, like a garage door, which one bloke was going to chuck when he converted his garage to a room, or the beam above the door, which had been another blokes, mantel piece.(It was a nice solid 8 foot long bit of timber. )
Or the stained glass window someone was replacing with upvc from thier toilet room.