Interest rates in the 70s

We had many friends who simply posted their keys to the building societies. Both of us working full time and DH had second job in the evening and we still struggled.

We had to move to London with work, take out a much bigger mortgage for a smaller house at 15% and it was very, very difficult.

Same for us Doodledog 14.75% in the early 80's.

We moved from the north to the south west in 1983 and our new house cost twice what we got for the old one. Interest rates at 15% soon after kept us hard up for years, and our warnings to our children to allow for interest rate rises have been met with kind smiles. Low interest rates mean they have just about paid off their mortgages so which generation has been luckier, would you say?

It was terrifying, yes. The whole idea that so-called 'boomers' had life handed to them on a plate is ridiculous - houses may have been comparatively cheaper than now in price, but the repayments on them were insane. Rates were going up so fast and so high that we fixed at 16%! A bad move with hindsight, but how were we to know that they wouldn't go even higher?
For us it happened in the 80s/early 90s though.

Ah yes I remember it well. Desperate days. We had a £7000 mortgage which was a colossal amount to us then. 15% interest rate. Nailbiting times. The ACs don't believe us.

Just to add - we were newly weds so no kids - we both worked full time and DH worked every weekend overtime and I had a second job in a restaurant 2 nights a week and we were so very skint. I remember asking for more shifts at the restaurant, but of course everyone wanted them - and it wasn't so busy as no one could afford to eat out!!

We bought our first house when they were at their highest, we literally had nothing to spare, if something broke, it stayed broke, we couldn’t afford heating, and we ate a lot of beans.
As they came down it was such a huge relief.

I remember it well and I was very glad that I had a fixed rate mortgage.

We moved from Staff to Leics, and due to impending birth of numero due, and bast****s letting us down at the last minute with the new house- we had to stretch above our budget to move before she arrived. We had an endowment mortgage due to health reasons, and the rate jumped to an unbelievable 19.5%.

We laugh now, but it was truly scary.

Oh I remember this so well - we seemed to get a letter every month from the building society telling us it was going up again - how did we manage? It was indeed terrifying

Yes, Cath9 - my daughter doesn't believe me when I said our mortgage went up to 15%. We were terrified.