What’s your home?

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Don't forget a few on here including my Wife and I bought in the early 80's when the average mortgage was circa £35K and we watched our house prices double every 3 years!

But we are also the generation who at one stage saw the mortgage rate go above 13%

[catherinesian]

We are on the border of Wiltshire and Hampshire - mortgaged up to our eyeballs to buy the place we have just moved into! But it will be our family home (when we have kids) and hopefully we will be here for many years to come!

ETA we paid £550k for our house which is cheap for what it is believe it or not! House prices are high around here but not as bad as London

[smithlane]

I am in Greater London near Heathrow, my 16 year old small 3 bed detached has just been valued at £550K. I bought it brand new in 2004 for £230K.
I live in a fairly rough area with high crime rates, I really don’t want to live here much longer.
Looking to move slightly further out into Surrey or Berkshire where we could get a large 4 bed detached for around £585K to £660K. Still an obscene amount of money but cheaper than where we are. If we want a bigger house in a neighbouring nicer town you are looking at least £750K

[Gryff]

We live in in a house with a granny flat main house 2publicrooms
3beds large dinning kitchen
We are in the 2 bed downstairs flat open plan lounge kitchen diner
1 ensuite 1 guest shower room mud room and laundry back front garden double garage
House is oddly shaped so upstairs to us looks like a bungalow from the front and double height from the back
We own out right last valued at £260,000
Paid £90,000 when we bought 20 years ago

[ClaireNJ]

We live in Essex Semi detached house 3 beds value £400,000, bought brand new in 1990 for £105,000 so not great increase in value unlike others think it’s cause it was new build.
We have thought about moving when kids were little, but it was another £100k for one more bedroom & one more room downstairs, so we stayed put, we have a low mortgage and I have never wanted to mortgage ourselves right up, good job we didn’t as when Hubbie got made redundant back in 2009 he dropped £25,000 in salarywe were ok as we hadn’t overstretched ourselves

[Fairysparkled]

We have a 5 bed ex local authority semi, driveway for 2/3 cars and an extra large garden on a corner plot in a quiet street. 30sq mtr annexe in back garden. One hour on the train to London. Would be lucky to get £200,000 for it. Luckily it is paid for.

[beautybutterfly]

Homeowner of a 2 bed house near Doncaster

Mortgage is £275 a month

[Gill H]

We are in our 50s, never been able to get on the housing ladder and now never likely to. We will only own property when we inherit.

Our rent in West London for a 2 bedroom flat was £1350 a month. That was equal to one of our incomes. (Before bills, council tax etc.) It was crippling us.

We have now managed to relocate to South Wales, in order to look after my elderly parents. We're renting a 3 bedroom house for £750 a month, which apparently is quite expensive but it's bliss for us!

However, our London flat was a new build with huge bedrooms and a big kitchen, in great condition. We rarely put the heating on, even in the dead of winter, apart from an hour before we got up in the morning.

We're now in a Victorian terraced house which is open plan downstairs, and therefore absolutely freezing! And we probably have less room than previously, particularly in the kitchen. Also it appears to be a hotel for spiders, and I'm dreading ant season...

Plus, transport here is a joke. Trains are one an hour (two an hour on Sundays) and buses aren't much better. Neither of us drive and we're really struggling with that aspect.

So, swings and roundabouts!

[Beth_Disney]

We've had our 3-bed semi for just over 10 years and paid off the mortgage last year. We were told we could have borrowed more when we for agreement in principle but didn't really want the risk and wanted a nice quality of life. We've not not really seen the benefits of the extra cash yet as we've had lots of weekend breaks and extra holidays .

We're in the West Midlands so house prices aren't anywhere near London prices. A neighbour sold for £220k a few months ago so we have a nice little profit if we ever sold. We've live on a pleasant, quiet estate and aren't far from a big shopping centre. There are areas within a few miles from here where you could easily pay £750k for a 4-bed detached (posh areas where the local doctors live and nice schools) or go the other direction and you could pay £80k for a similar sized house on a 'rough' estate.

[skalexander]

We have a 1913 mid-terrace, which we own, with a mortgage. We think it was once 2 bedrooms, but its now 2 and a box room.

Next door is on the market for £260k, so that's given us an idea of what ours is worth. We're hoping to be able to move to a 3 bed detached later this year, just got lots of jobs to finish before we try and sell.