Not in mortgage arrears.....yet!

OHara, part of your problem (nice problem though it is to have...), is that you earn too much to make the banks want to do a deal with you (not that they seem to do deals with anyone at the moment). 100K income should give 5,300 net; your partner on 30K to 60K should net a further 1K to 2K; 2 childrens allowances is 300 per month. So your total net income per month is 6,600 to 7,600. Even when your main mortgage goes up to 3.5K per month and even if you are then subsidising your investment mortgages by 1K rather than 500, that still leaves you with 2,100 to 3,100 per month to live on after mortgages - that is not close to what the banks might look on as being unaffordable for you.

Problem is my wifes salary is a moveable feast, but again in two years maybe we'll both be earning more (or less) but I just wanted to be armed with knowledge if and when we find it hard to pay our mortgages. We're also lucky to have no childcare costs which I know is a rarity.....good grandparents!

I think my wife will always get work even if its not what she does to make ends meet

Because her salary is so unpredictable means that it is more so important to sort this out.
Orka did the sums well and even with the 3.5k and possible 1k shortfall and low income from wife you could still have a little over 1k plus what ever your wife brings in to live off a month. Possibly enough for food and basic bills. But do you want to live like that.

Thank for all your help, twas good to get it down in black and white. I'm of the belief that property is a long time investment, we'll leave them sitting there until the mortgages are paid off and then sell so if we have a few years of pain so be it. What goes down must come up right! Was just testing the waters to see what people thought my chance were of renegotiating even one of them as interest only for a few years. Did I read here that BOS were down writing some of their buy to let mortgages....who knows what will happen in the future

OHara.
I can empathise with you because I'm in a similar boat.
I currently have debt of about €620k on props- both investment (one a joint investment with friends)- worth no more than €400k now. I have continued paying one mort but have recently stopped paying the joint one (due to my friends' unexpected refusal to acknowledge tens of thousands in mortgage payments I paid out for them...... way too messy to get into the detail, not to mention very damaging to my peace of mind, and not the point of my post)

Arrears are mounting and I realise I'm kicking the can down the road on this one plus there is another big problem looming in the shape of ECB rate hikes.

But like you I find myself asking what can the banks can realistically do at this point?
Will they really entertain the idea of repossessing, and then flogging hundreds/thousands of properties in a firesale?
Would this not be their absolute very last resort?

I'd appreciate an opinion on this ....

Great to hear that net income is a bit better than previously stated.

Each interest rate rise of one percent will cost you about another 1000 euros per month.

When ppr is on capital repayment a 1.5 percent interest rate increase things would be very tough.

I would act now to budget hard and save cash like crazy, and try to get interest only extensions.

G.

Hard to know, but they are likely to take a harder line on people who did not engage with them.

Don't ignore it.

P.s. If I was you I would Sit down with your bank statements, your friend and maybe a neutral party to try and discuss.

Gearodc it would be better if you did your own thread with full details. That said you are very naive if you think the banks don't have choices. You need to stay one step ahead of them. The very people who are going to pay the most are those that are on good salaries. They are going to be squeezed by the banks.

In relation to a firesale. The first of these is coming up soon and is widely advertised. In fact I'd looked into attending it myself.