Personal details
Age: 47
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 42
Number and age of children: 2 (8, 4.5)
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €37,500
Annual gross income of spouse: €90,000 + potential moderate bonuses of up to €5k annually
Monthly take-home pay: (combined) about €6000
Type of employment:
Me: Public Sector, working job share (0.5 WTE, permanent post)
Spouse: Private Sector, full-time
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? - making moderate savings monthly individually (about €300 each) and jointly (aim for €500, but some big expenses lately have made that difficult)
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home: recent valuation €1.1M, remaining mortgage €520k
Cash:About €10K - the majority of this is from previous Tracker Redress
Buy to Let Property: 2 - We each have properties that were originally our PPRs when we met - we are both "accidental landlords"
Family home mortgage information
Lender: KBC
Interest rate: recently fixed for 5 years @ 2.4%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Me: Car Finance €320 per month (PCP, finishing Jan 2023)
Spouse: PCP €450 per month.
(we need 2 cars)
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
Buy to let properties
Me:
Value: Property bought 2005 @ €248k, currently worth about €225k. Balance €145K with 18 years left.
Rental income per year: €12,000, in RPZ
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest : €2000
Lender: UB
Interest rate: Tracker mortgage of ECB+1%,
Spouse:
Value: Property bought 2005 for about €250k, currently worth about €170k. Balance €125k, 18 years left
Rental income per year: €10k , in RPZ
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest : €2000
Lender: UB
Interest rate: ECB +1.15%
Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, we each have individual schemes
Me:
AVCs on top of Public Sector Pension, latter is based on final salary so my recent work situation will impact that.
I will also have access to small pension from 5 years of UK NHS employment and I'm making annual UK NI contributions to access a UK state pension also
Spouse: company pension + AVCs
Savings:
Altogether, currently about €40k (including some in children's names)
Other information which might be relevant
We have no childcare costs for the foreseeable future, thanks to my recent employment changes and WFH for spouse.
Life insurance: we have additional policies on top of our work benefits.
I also pay for separate income protection, about €60/month
We live comfortably but not excessively - max 1 holiday a year, don’t really eat out, careful-ish with weekly shopping, etc.
In general we are good savers and shop around for utilities, insurance etc at least annually.
I changed employment at the start of this year, from full-time at a high Health Sector grade, to part-time at the grade below. This has been great overall for our family and my own well being, but I feel cash flow is tight. I would hope to increase my hours up from half-time in a few years but grade progression is less likely, so I don't envisage any huge changes in finances on that front.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
Should we sell one or both of our rental properties, and if so what would be the best use of the capital that this would release?
Recent inflation & interest rate hikes, with more to come, have us concerned re the rental properties and what is best to do with them.
There are still almost 2 decades outstanding on the mortgages on each of the rental properties and although the current tenants are good and there are no active problems, the tax liability in particular feels like a big hit annually to cash-flow/savings - it's working out at about €6+k a year.
But we have 2 young children who we will need to finance for that same period of time also. By the time the rental property mortgages have been paid off, the children will hopefully have flown the nest, more or less.
The mortgage on our home is manageable, but we’ve had a number of big maintenance expenses recently and need more work done.
Another concern is our ability to remortgage given our other borrowings and my drop in salary - we did consider switching earlier this year but were told by one of the main high street banks that we would have to reduce/remove at least one of the car loans before we could be eligible. When my current PCP ends in January 2023, I fully intend to downgrade to a run-around vehicle and have no, or at least lower, car finance.
I also went through the whole tracker saga with First Active/UB for my rental property (tracker restored since 2018) so am quite “burnt” by that and I'm nervous about making another expensive mistake, especially with young dependents.
All advice from the AMA sages is most welcome!
Age: 47
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 42
Number and age of children: 2 (8, 4.5)
Income and expenditure
Annual gross income from employment or profession: €37,500
Annual gross income of spouse: €90,000 + potential moderate bonuses of up to €5k annually
Monthly take-home pay: (combined) about €6000
Type of employment:
Me: Public Sector, working job share (0.5 WTE, permanent post)
Spouse: Private Sector, full-time
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving? - making moderate savings monthly individually (about €300 each) and jointly (aim for €500, but some big expenses lately have made that difficult)
Summary of Assets and Liabilities
Family home: recent valuation €1.1M, remaining mortgage €520k
Cash:About €10K - the majority of this is from previous Tracker Redress
Buy to Let Property: 2 - We each have properties that were originally our PPRs when we met - we are both "accidental landlords"
Family home mortgage information
Lender: KBC
Interest rate: recently fixed for 5 years @ 2.4%
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
Me: Car Finance €320 per month (PCP, finishing Jan 2023)
Spouse: PCP €450 per month.
(we need 2 cars)
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes
Buy to let properties
Me:
Value: Property bought 2005 @ €248k, currently worth about €225k. Balance €145K with 18 years left.
Rental income per year: €12,000, in RPZ
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest : €2000
Lender: UB
Interest rate: Tracker mortgage of ECB+1%,
Spouse:
Value: Property bought 2005 for about €250k, currently worth about €170k. Balance €125k, 18 years left
Rental income per year: €10k , in RPZ
Rough annual expenses other than mortgage interest : €2000
Lender: UB
Interest rate: ECB +1.15%
Other savings and investments:
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, we each have individual schemes
Me:
AVCs on top of Public Sector Pension, latter is based on final salary so my recent work situation will impact that.
I will also have access to small pension from 5 years of UK NHS employment and I'm making annual UK NI contributions to access a UK state pension also
Spouse: company pension + AVCs
Savings:
Altogether, currently about €40k (including some in children's names)
Other information which might be relevant
We have no childcare costs for the foreseeable future, thanks to my recent employment changes and WFH for spouse.
Life insurance: we have additional policies on top of our work benefits.
I also pay for separate income protection, about €60/month
We live comfortably but not excessively - max 1 holiday a year, don’t really eat out, careful-ish with weekly shopping, etc.
In general we are good savers and shop around for utilities, insurance etc at least annually.
I changed employment at the start of this year, from full-time at a high Health Sector grade, to part-time at the grade below. This has been great overall for our family and my own well being, but I feel cash flow is tight. I would hope to increase my hours up from half-time in a few years but grade progression is less likely, so I don't envisage any huge changes in finances on that front.
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
Should we sell one or both of our rental properties, and if so what would be the best use of the capital that this would release?
Recent inflation & interest rate hikes, with more to come, have us concerned re the rental properties and what is best to do with them.
There are still almost 2 decades outstanding on the mortgages on each of the rental properties and although the current tenants are good and there are no active problems, the tax liability in particular feels like a big hit annually to cash-flow/savings - it's working out at about €6+k a year.
But we have 2 young children who we will need to finance for that same period of time also. By the time the rental property mortgages have been paid off, the children will hopefully have flown the nest, more or less.
The mortgage on our home is manageable, but we’ve had a number of big maintenance expenses recently and need more work done.
Another concern is our ability to remortgage given our other borrowings and my drop in salary - we did consider switching earlier this year but were told by one of the main high street banks that we would have to reduce/remove at least one of the car loans before we could be eligible. When my current PCP ends in January 2023, I fully intend to downgrade to a run-around vehicle and have no, or at least lower, car finance.
I also went through the whole tracker saga with First Active/UB for my rental property (tracker restored since 2018) so am quite “burnt” by that and I'm nervous about making another expensive mistake, especially with young dependents.
All advice from the AMA sages is most welcome!
Last edited:
