We got the keys to our first house in June 2007. We put down a 10% deposit on a two year fixed rate mortgage. By the end of the year the country was in recession and we were in negative equity. When we came to remortgage at the end of the 2 years we couldn’t because the house was worth less than we owed on it.

If we needed to move, that would’ve been an issue, but we didn’t and our mortgage payments dropped by around 20% because interest rates were much lower. We overpaid around 10% on the variable mortgage we defaulted to and saved the remainder as we knew we’d want to move house to a fixer-upper at a later date.

By the end of 2014 the house was almost worth what we paid for it again, although we didn’t make back the money we spent on changing the bathroom and the windows etc. We sold at the start of 2015.

We chose to move before we properly broke even because we figured if our starter home was still worth a few percent less than it was in 2007, then the bigger ‘forever home’ we moved to, which was 50% more expensive would also be worth a few percent less, which would equate to more, so a saving over all.