Does anyone remember when mortgage rates were almost 17%!

Me and my X bought a new build one bed flat in bury for £5500 which we had to borrow £500 deposit from the builder!! We sold for £8500less than 3years later and moved to Chorley in detached 3bed for £14995 to avoid £15k stamp duty threshold!! Nearly lost it in 1989 when our personal rate shot up to 18%!!! We had the rate loaded because my X was disabled!!! You can't believe that!?!?Many moves later and I now have zero mortgage but still careful with the outgoings, we live very well but don't squander on several foreign hols, takeaways eating out, and all the other utter junk younger People appear to think are essential for them! Maybe if they "did without" more like we did they'd have less to bleat about? Just a thought........

I remember the rocketing of interest rates only too well. We had two small children and our plans for me to return to some part time work quickly changed to - find full time or else we might not be able to:
1. keep our home
2. stay in the area where we had friends
3. keep the children at local school/nursery where they were happy and settled.
No family near, either. We never had any childcare we didn't pay for. What would have happened if I hadn't found work, I can't imagine....

I left my husband in the 80s and bought a small town house. At the time I was desperate to get away and just grateful to be able to just afford a mortgage on my own. As far as I understood my mortgage was a fixed rate and I felt safe as the rates rocketed. I hadn't realised that the Fixed rate was for a fixed time - one year. Exactly a year after I moved in, I had a letter to inform me that my mortgage payments had doubled. I think I grew up overnight and have always made sure since then that I take nothing for granted especially financially. I married some years later and am now comfortably off and happily retired but I still find it hard to relax about money.

Anneeba

Oh golly yes! We'd decided to leave school boarding and move into a house of our own, two weeks before DD2 arrived. Then the 17% happened. Ha! We ate a hell of a lot of grated carrots in things to pad the tasty bits out and lentils became our staple. Probably very healthy. Mind you, we bought with a mortgage, miniscule deposit, based solely on 3x my husband's teacher's salary (for £27,000). You couldn't do that now.

No, you couldn't.

Yes, bought for £17,500. It's now selling for about £260,000.

I had a mortgage for three times my salary. Today, my starting salary would be about £25,000. There's no way I could afford that flat.

I paid 17% interest at one stage, but I'd rather that than a much lower percentage of an unaffordable amount.

Yes bought our first house in 1979 in north London for £17,500 now selling for £420,000

We both lived at home until we married and nothing prepared us for the reality of mortgages and prices spiralling out of control. We had a warm air electric heating system that we couldn’t afford to run. We heated our newborn’s room in January but that was all. Initially my maternity benefit/pay covered our food bill but within a couple of months it only covered 3/4 of it. I remember the blind panic when the mortgage leapt up every other day, then it occurred to me that they couldn’t make all of the young mortgagees homeless. Could they? OH lost his job when the company he worked for went under.

What an easy time we all had! We celebrate our 50th anniversary next Spring!

I remember I the mid 70’s you just couldn’t get a mortgage and house prices were good but no way of getting a mortgage.
Then in early 80’s the interest rates hit the roof. More economising
In the early 70’s sugar was rationed - there was only electricity for some part of the day. Bin men and grave diggers were on strike.
There was mass unemployment. Factories particularly engineering.
The government stopped children having free milk at school.
Then we had the miners strike.
Memories!

I do, we bought our first house in August 1979 and at the time the interest rate was 17%, plus you only qualified for 2.5 times your joint salary, could only have a mortgage term of 25 years and had to find at least 5% deposit, no extras thrown to help first time buyers.
I clearly remember our monthly payment on a £18,000 mortgage being £179 per month. My salary at the time was £181 per month, so that left my husbands salary to pay all the household expenses. I was also pregnant at the time with our first child, so was going on maternity leave, when you only got paid 90% of your salary for 6 weeks, then 12 weeks at half pay.
Tough times, but I was fortunate enough to have my lovely mum look after our daughter when I went back to work full time in March 1980.

Oh golly yes! We'd decided to leave school boarding and move into a house of our own, two weeks before DD2 arrived. Then the 17% happened. Ha! We ate a hell of a lot of grated carrots in things to pad the tasty bits out and lentils became our staple. Probably very healthy. Mind you, we bought with a mortgage, miniscule deposit, based solely on 3x my husband's teacher's salary (for £27,000). You couldn't do that now.

We were typical 'Get on your bike and look for work' people in the early 1980s. We reluctantly moved twice in two years across the country. Gazumping was rife. All the new houses on a housing estate were sold the very second that they were put on the market. Mortgages were decided by the Building Society and they only met every month! All out money went on our mortgage. We had to eke out my husbands wages and although ill at the time, I forced myself to work.
They were horrible times. Remember going to a playgroup and there were mothers from all over the country that had moved because there was no work locally. I still remain such a long distance from my home town and elderly mother.

In1967 my interest rate on my mortgage was wait for it.....4%That was a council mortgage !!@

Although we've been lucky and made money on houses we didn't choose them to make money but to have a home. So many people buy houses today solely with a view of making money and moving on - not surprisingly some of them are overstretching themselves.

Alrsady having a DD at Uni and twin DS starting too with 3 accommodation costs we worked cheaper to buy a flat. This was 1992. Hadn't even finished decorating when mortgage rate when up to the 17% rate. It didn't stay that high for long but two mortgages at that rate, it was hard. Yes, boomers are constantly told they had it easy: try imposing 8% etc mortgage rates now, there would be riots. It could though bring down house prices!

Yup! I definitely remember 15%, and that you were only allowed to borrow 2.5 times your salary, none of this 120% mortgage nonsense.

I should add that all my four children are safely housed in their own properties because we've downsized and shared out the equity that was released. We didn't need to stay in our large house when we were living alone.

I remember it well. We had four young children and I was not able to work. We lived on pasta and very simple foods for a couple of years and never took holidays or spent much on anything other than the basics.
But we were luckier than many because we first bought in 1976 and always tried to keep to a relatively small mortgage.
Today people seem to be able to borrow far more in terms of multiples of salary and regard taking foreign holidays and visiting theme parks as a right.

Where were the food banks in those days when we were all struggling. We had to manage.

Yes, we just got on with it. I learnt how to make a chicken last a whole week, and a friend had Bramley apple trees in her garden so I became very inventive with apples.

We rented a TV and walked everywhere.

We bought our do-er upper house in December 1980 for £18k, spent 9 months doing it up & then married in September 1981. We had an endowment mortgage with the rates shooting up. Then as I worked in a bank we did eventually get a staff mortgage at 9% and felt so relieved. I feel so sorry for my children as they can’t afford to buy without shared ownership (eldest married) and youngest is still living at hone as she cannot afford to move out at all.

We bought our first house in 1985, our mortgage went from £120 - £550pm, we gave up in 1988, went into Council accommodation and didn't buy again until 2001.

I do remember it - taking on our first mortgage was a seriously scary endeavour, especially as a baby was on the way.

Where were the food banks in those days when we were all struggling. We had to manage. Or if we were lucky Mum and Dad invited us all round for dinner a couple of times a week.

I remember it well and we survived it despite being at a critical stage in our lives - house purchase and starting/raising a family. So I find it hard to believe how people struggle to buy a house with rates so low these days and are moaning about prospective increases in interest rates which, if they happen, will begin to repay those of us who paid such high mortgage repayments who now deserve a better return on their savings than they've experienced over the last 15 or so years.

I worked in a building society for 20 years and in the 1980s the interest rates were sky high. Frequently people were just giving us their house keys saying they couldn't cope with the mortgage payments any more. We were fortunate that I had a staff mortgage at a much lower rate but when we were first married, we both worked at 2 jobs for over 2 years, 9 -5 at one and then 6-10pm at another to save up a deposit which was 30% of the price of our flat. When we had children, my husband worked Monday to Friday and I worked all weekend - we only had bank holidays together for 6 years. Our furniture was all hand-me-downs. It was a real struggle but we did it. I think a lot of young people today have more of a sense of entitlement and wouldn't want to put in the hours of work that we did.

Juliet27

What a wonderful time that must have been for those with savings!!

Interest rates on savings were nowhere near as high