How much are your Mortgage Repayments?? Mortgage Vs Rent...

Just curious.....


When we built our first home three years ago, and mortgage repayments of $506 a week seemed ENORMOUS and embarassing....that is on only $278,000. We fixed it for 3 years, and it unfixes soon and will be about $480 a week. I am just starting to realise though that our payments are pretty average?? Just curious what everyone else pays...
We live in the country, and I have moments every now and then when I think about how much easier it would be to rent.....but then one of my friends was looking for a new rental and was telling me about how you have to go on "group viewings" as there are always more tenants than houses, and that her rent is $375 a week....that is in the country....so only $100 difference really between that and our mortgage.
It made me realise how fortunate our own situation is as we live in a country where housing affordability is really becoming an issue.... and it is not just affecting the big Cities....

Soon the only debt we will have is our home anyway, as we we have been paying off our credit card debts etc, and are about 2/3 of the way to having them paid off in full..................2 years ago I thought there was no light at the end of the tunel, but now I can see we are nearly there!! It is a very liberating feeling, and I know we will NEVER take out a credit card again....EVER!!! We took out a debt agreement to pay them off. We have paid no interest since, have NEVER missed a payment on them, and we are paying every cent back and were still able to keep our house. Hard lessons to learn at a young age, and it will affect our credit listing for another few years, but to me that is a small price to pay for learning to live within our means.

Our mortgage repayments are $353 a week at the moment.

Rent in town for a place like this one would be about the same.

our mortgage is for 280k and its about $500 a week!!!!
To rent we can get a nice big 4 bedder for about $350 a week.

our house is a small 3 bed 2 bathroom single garage. i hate it and especially knowing what we could get if we did rent. i know its better to have ur own house and blah blah blah but i wish we had of waited a while to do it

Our RENT is $325 a week. To buy a similar house in thie area would cost around $350,000-400,000. We like the house we're in though, its huge (especially for us haha), we couldn't affod to buy a place like this right now. We are gong to wait until Jazz is in Prep and then we'll both work and be able to buy a house and afford the repayments and not have to settle for something we don't want. That way we also know what direction our lives might take. At the moment we're thinking of not having any more kids, but if we bought a 2 or 3 bedroom house now and changed our minds later about kids then that would really suck! We'd have to make do or sell and move... BAH nah we're just gonna wait!

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i hate it and especially knowing what we could get if we did rent. i know its better to have ur own house and blah blah blah but i wish we had of waited a while to do it

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Yeah we are considering moving back into town and renting again - so selling the place we just purchased in January. Its too far away from town, and costs us about $100 a week in petrol, so we're thinking very seriously of selling the joint. At least then we could save money and purchase a block of land closer to town and eventually build on it when I go back to work.

I am currently paying $500 a week (just added a little on to our homeloan to do our kitchen) but that $500 is more than we are meant to pay. I never take much notice of what our minimum payment is and have always paid at least $50 more than needed. Ours was fixed to begin with but has been variable for the last 4 years i think.

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Yeah we are considering moving back into town and renting again - so selling the place we just purchased in January. Its too far away from town, and costs us about $100 a week in petrol, so we're thinking very seriously of selling the joint. At least then we could save money and purchase a block of land closer to town and eventually build on it when I go back to work.

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We thought about selling and renting but we'd make about 40k profit on our house and then have to pay a mean amount of capital gains tax and DF's quarterly tax payments would go up to.
so we decided not to sadly :(

mine is $320 on $200k, I'd probably be paying $40-50 more to rent something similar. I've always paid much more than needed on my mortgage until recently, I can't to start hacking back into the debt once it's rented out!

ours is a bit under 300 a week (four bed/two bath/two living) - which is cheap compared to rent in the towns nearby. we live way out in the country though, and do pay a bit in petrol for me to get to work. i sat down and worked out the figures though - to live in town, to get a house maybe 2/3 this size (and with no yard - we have a huge yard) - we'd be paying 70-100 more per week. so the petrol/travel balances it out - and we get to have a home we are happy with

As far as I was aware, you don't pay capital gains tax if it is your primary residence :dunno:

really?! wow our financial advisor told us that.
gosh michelle you've got me all excited now!!!!!!specially with another bubba on the way, having to decide who's going to share with who is a toughie, maybe we wont have to after all!!

Yep, I am pretty sure that is right as well, capital gains tax is only payable on an investment property, not one of primary residence, and there are also time limits I think...

Yep, Michelle is right. I am a property lawyer and can tell you that for certain!!

About $170 per week here, just about to go up to $210 as we have extended on the loan to buy some surrounding land. We live out of town, have to deal with our own garbage and need 2 cars. At the current petrol prices a round trip to town costs $6 without any running around in town. That adds up if I go in everyday, plus DH drives in for work, but he has a more fuel efficient car. Our mortgage is low, but we can't get ADSL out here, so no cheap phone or internet and that is really hurting us right now. We also lost $50 rent assistance per fortnight

We were renting in town, an 80's 3 bedroom, 2 living area, 2 bathroom, 2 car garage et for about $260 per week (that was 2 years ago, so it would be more now). We would just live with one car if I dropped DH off at work, he was only 5 minutes up the road.

Our original mortgage on our home is just under $900 f/n. This house would rent for about $430+ a week here. It is a little poky 3 bedder. So it would be not quite covering itself.

We are also buiilding an investment property, the mortgage will be about $1100 f/n under current interest rates, the rental income will be around $490 a week - so it will not cover its own mortgage repayments. Again this is a small 3 bedder.

The thing about canberra is that property prices are very high as are the rents. You might save a little by renting, but not much. The problem is that a lot of people don't have much choice because they cann't afford the large mortgages but they still have to pay nearly as much on rent anyway.

Exactly Misty, and then how are people excecpted to save for a mortgage/deposit, and they are paying such enormous rent prices...such a viscious cycle really.

u girls have just made my year!

Skybie, so glad I started this thread then! It amazing how light shines through when we all share!

I currently do both, rent and have a mortgage and quite frankly I'm getting rid of the mortgage, will continue to put money into the "mortgage" account but once I have hit my goal amount of savings, use that as a deposit for a new place and I will most probably end up with paying less in mortgage than I do now (even if the rates jump up over the next 2 years).

My previous house the mortgage is $45pw, it is rented for $110pw. I have it for sale, whoever buys it would be paying about $90pw if they had no deposit, or much less if they did (banks won't give you a loan in the country with 0% deposit anyway).

Current house the mortgage is about $115pw, it would rent for $200+pw, but it is WAY too small for us and we really can't live here much longer, even though it is a gorgeous little house it is just Too Small and with one bathroom (with the toilet IN it) and lots of long haired people in the house who take long showers as well as little people who take long baths the bathroom contention alone is a make-or-break. DD#1 hopping around outside the bathroom because she is "buuuuuuuuuusting" is a regular sight.

We're building a new house at the moment, it will cost us about $140pw and to rent a similar house would cost $330pw. Two bathrooms! Two toilets! *drool* lol

I really really really want to sell the first two houses so we have no mortgage at all and wads of cash in the bank but it just isn't working out that way for us, so I'm resigned to being an "accidental landlord".

OMG I would like to trade mortgages with ANY of you!!!
Our repayments per FORTNIGHT are $2035! Its all of my wages. Gotta love Sydney prices.

We have never rented, DH bought his first house and i moved in just before we got married. The mortgage on that place was around $500 p/f (changed with interest rates). Its was a two bedroom unit and when we got preg with number 2 we needed to make a decision about what we would do with the house as we desperately needed more room. DH is in the RAAF so we had a few options including buying another place, subsidised rent in a private rental or a defence housing property. In the end we decided to buy a bigger house which costs us more money however after we sold our unit we actually made all the money back that we would have paid in mortgage, fees etc so effectively we had lived rent free for 4 years. Its kinda made me realise that dh was right to not want to rent (he was adamant that we wouldn't and i wanted to rent instead) as in the end we were better off financially for having a mortgage than renting.

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OMG I would like to trade mortgages with ANY of you!!!
Our repayments per FORTNIGHT are $2035! Its all of my wages. Gotta love Sydney prices.

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Same... ours is $1400 per WEEK but we went halves with XPIL so they pay half. (I dont pay any now since we're divorced :lol: ) To rent a house the same as ours (just taking into consideration our half of the house... we made it into a duplex with 2 three bedroom houses) it would probably cost about $500-$600 in this area possibly more as our half had 3 bedrooms + 3.5 bathrooms (each bedroom has a full ensuite) & is huge!! The other half has 3 bedrooms + study, 2 bathrooms.

Being a single mum now I'm back to renting & will be moving to Forster at the end of my lease where I will get a 3 bedroom house for around $250 a week :)

Renting can in fact be alot cheaper. Renters don't have rates (sometimes water) and don't have to maintain the property. So if you pay rent, you pay your money each month - clear. Nothing else.

Property is a long term investment, you can't get all antsy if your mortgage payments seem close to rent - you have an asset growing in value every single day.

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OMG I would like to trade mortgages with ANY of you!!!
Our repayments per FORTNIGHT are $2035! Its all of my wages. Gotta love Sydney prices.

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It's all relative though.
Our mortgage repayments are have of yours but I would bet our house is likely half the size too (115m2), or yours is in a much better location (our is right out on the edge of town - literally go the bush across the road).
Plus I daresay that the morgage repayment take up a similar % of income. Our household income (mostly from DH as I only work casual) is less then $3000 f/n (between $2200-$3000, depending on my work) - this means that 1/3 of our income is going towards our mortgage repayments (more in reality as we are paying double at the moment).

Rumpled elf may have significantly cheaper mortgage then myself, but I bet her household income is alot less too.

Thats a great point Misty..if I work it out, our Mortgage varies from being 29% to 23% of our weekly income (I am self employed, and my income can vary a little). I think it is suggested that your housing cost should no more than 30% of your income after tax.

Our mortgage is $550 per week on aprox $330K loan. We only bought our first place 12 months ago so we missed the boat when it came to cheap property prices unfortunately :( We paid $380K for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom duplex. It's brand new, but it has NO yard for the kiddies. Our mortgage takes up 1/3 of our total wage with both me and DH working fulltime and when I drop back to part-time after bub is born, it will take up nearly half of our weekly income. There is absolutely NO way I could ever be a SAHM unfortunately :( BTW, rent on a place similar to ours would prob be about $400 per week.

We pay about $450 a week on the mortgage. To rent a similar house would cost about $350 a week so we're paying more to own- especially when you add on rates, repairs, house insurance etc.

ETA: We made the decision to buy though as we can afford the mortgage with me being a SAHM and it gives us the freedom to garden and paint etc and also to put down roots somewhere. I had no hesitation renting before that though.

It's hard isn't Mama Spice, if I wasn't working our mortgage would be a little less than 50% of our income, it would liveable when our other debt is totally cleared (not long now!!! :) ), but there would be no room for extras, just the basics.
I am so thankful to God that he blessed me with talents in my current career, because it has meant I can work for myself and pick my own hours, and essentially work part time hours for more than a full time wage in my indutsry. Otherwise, I am not sure how we/I would keep going......thats why I take my hat off to anyone working full time with kids....you guys rock!

Ours is just shy of 2300/mtg for a 4br+study with not much yard. I'd prefer asmaller house and larger block tbh.

Our repayments are about 40% our income

Our's is only $300pw, we bought land and built when the time was right so our morgtage is under $200000. If we sold now we could buy outright in some rural areas. Renting in our area is around $350pw.
Lulu is very right...it's investment. we got in just at the right time, any later and it would not have been worth it.
If you do rent and your dishwasher, stove/oven or heating need repairing they have to get it fixed, if you own it and don't have the money, you wait :)

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It's all relative though.
Our mortgage repayments are have of yours but I would bet our house is likely half the size too (115m2), or yours is in a much better location (our is right out on the edge of town - literally go the bush across the road).

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Only 115? Yikes! Our little worker's cottage is about 90sqm, plus verandahs. No wonder you're squeezy. My old house and the new one we are building are both 150sqm (plus verandahs) but one has massive bedrooms, one massive bathroom, and the new one is a modern layout with smaller bedrooms, more bathrooms, walk in robe etc but heaps of living area. All the builders have a floorplan very very similar to our new house, and it is our builder's most popular 4br design - very good value for money.

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Rumpled elf may have significantly cheaper mortgage then myself, but I bet her household income is alot less too.

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Centerlink give me $320 a fortnight while I'm too pregnant to work! I feel so rich! And the builder wants us to get loan approval 6+ months before they even start the house while our mortgage broker is trying to negotiate us getting a loan AFTER the house is built. Argh. This is what you get for building a transportable - costs $60k less than the equivalent house built onsite in brick, but much harder to get a loan for. All fun and games.

Our mortgage is sitting at 96K and we pay 670 a month.. most people near us pay that a week.. and then some..

It is heaps cheaper to buy a cheap house then it is to rent here

When we had our last mortgage it was nearly $500 a week. Both DH and I were working and we only had one child, she was school age. When we decided to have more children we knew we would have to sell and rent.

We've been very happy renters for 7 years now. DH is a banker and like Lulu mentioned sometimes renting can be a much cheaper and wiser decision. Please don't panic if you feel that your mortgage repayments are getting too much. There are other ways to secure a nest egg that are just as good as a house. When we sold our house we put the profits into shares and DH has self managed that. Unlike a house where you can't liquidate a portion of the asset ie sell the spare room, when we have a financial crisis we can sell some shares without threatening the whole nest egg. Our portfolio didn't suffer during the GFC either, it actually grew because we didn't sell during that time (DH held his nerve) we bought!

Anyhow I'm not saying that our way is better... It's just an alternative. Here in Australia there us huge pressure on young couples to get into the property market and it's not always the wisest thing to do. At the end of the day make sure your money is working for YOU... Don't become a slave to it. Remember also that while renters seem to be giving their money away to landlords people with very little deposit on their mortgage also end up giving away hundreds of thousands to the bank in interest. DH is hoping that if he continues to invest wisely we may escape having to pay the bank much/any interest at all when it comes time to buy a house... Maybe we will be able to buy one outright... No mortgage. In the meatime we have been fortunate enough to live in a big house on a big block of land (worth well over a million) in a quiet leafy suburb with quiet neighbours. Quality of life should always come first :)

ETA: I probably also need to add that our decisions have been influenced by several other factors. DH and I are old enough to remember the situation in the 80s when interests rates were up and above %17 and many people had mortgages higher than what their homes were actually worth... A horrible situation indeed. Also my parents were slaves for a mortgage and the pressure contributed to their divorce... Overnight the house and all assets were sold ... It was like everything they had worked for vanished. My mothers boyfriend then squandered the bit that was left and when she finally left him she found herself in her 40s with barely a penny to her name. Debt collectors were constantly hounding her for the boyfriends debt too.

Not meaning to scare... Just put my choices in context.

My wages only just covers my mortgage (I have my xh to thank for the mortgage - I had my place almost paid off when we got together - he coerced me into refinancing the property quite a few times). Attempting to pay a personal loan (for solicitors fees when he went after my place after we split), rates, body corporate, water, insurance means currently any rent goes onto that so personally I have minimal money left at the end of a pay period. My accountant worked it out that approx 90% of my income goes on bills associated with my home, out of the last 10% I have to pay normal living expenses (gas, electricy, rego, insurance, car costs) and food etc. But all will work out in the end, yes it is tight right now but things will always work out the way they are supposed to work out.

Our is definitely on the higher end of the scale, $1,725 a fortnight four our new house and we have an investment propery on top of that which is $1,100 a fortnight, but we get back in $680 a fornight, the rest is negatively geared. In proportion to our wages it depends on how many hours I work a month but on average it is about 50% of our wages, excluding the income we get in for the rental property. But we are selling that at the moment - when it sells :rolleyes: to take the pressure off as such, it will clear the investment loan and take a good chunk out of our repayments on our current house as well, we don't have any penalties for paying our loans off earlier. I also put $300-500 extra on our current house a month depending on what I have brought in to reduce the length of the loan, the investment loan gets $100-$200 extra a month on it as well, as I have just set the Direct Debit to be that bit higher JIC and can always redraw the extra as it just sits there reducing the interest on the loan, and it makes it easy when rates etc come around ad I have the extra money sitting there.

The new house is sustainable as well, runs on full solar power, recycled and rain water, huge amounts of insulation etc, so we are seeing big savings in our everyday living costs, which is why the cost to build it was so much more than another house of the same size.

But for the value of both of our properties has gone up substantially, both times buying then building at the right time and right place.

Our mortgage is $430 a fortnight, and that includes an extra $90 a fortnight that we pay. But we did build 14 years ago and we got our house and land for $106,000. We have used equity twice adding an extra $30,000 onto that, hence the extra $90 a fortnight to pay the $30,000 off quicker LOL.

Our house is a little 3 bedroom on a busyish road but it is in a good(not super posh or anything) area of Sydney. DH earns about 75% of what i earn so his income is all we have after mortgage takes mine so definitely more than 30%.
We chose to spend more and stay in the area we work in and where I grew up, if we had moved we could have got a lot more house for our money or paid a lot less.

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Our mortgage is $550 per week on aprox $330K loan. We only bought our first place 12 months ago so we missed the boat when it came to cheap property prices unfortunately :( We paid $380K for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom duplex. It's brand new, but it has NO yard for the kiddies. Our mortgage takes up 1/3 of our total wage with both me and DH working fulltime and when I drop back to part-time after bub is born, it will take up nearly half of our weekly income. There is absolutely NO way I could ever be a SAHM unfortunately :( BTW, rent on a place similar to ours would prob be about $400 per week.

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We borrowed $320k and we pay $600 - in saying that we pay more than we should, I think our minimum repayments are something around the $490 mark tho. We payed 305K for our 3 bed + study SLUG 2 bath 'duplex' (only 2 on the land) close to motorways and highways (5 mins to each) and close to loads of shopping centres. If we were to rent this we could be paying around $450 :)

At the end of the day - we dont need to be stressed if the landlord needs or wants to sell and we can do what we like to our house :)

Ours is low - $268 pw (and damn well fixed until September - grrr!) Once it switches to variable it will be around $240-250. We bought our house years ago so our mortgage is very low - probably to rent similar we would be up for $600 pw in rent.

Also on capital gains tax - Bun is right in that primary residence (your home) is not subject to CGT but if at any stage it has been rented out you will have to pay some CGT based on that fact. For example, if your home is worth $300k and you rent it for a year while you move overseas, and during that time it increases in value to $450k, you will pay CGT on $150k when you come to sell it. It's been years since I practised in this area but I am pretty sure an individual gets a 50% discount, so if the home in above example was in a person's name (ie: not in the name of a company) you would only pay CGT on 75% (ie: 50% of the gain). Plus it is calculated at your base tax rate. So if hubby earns heaps the it is better to have the house in the wife's name, because her tax rate will be lower.