Mortgage difficulty

Thank you. I don't really have a definitive answer for "how did you do it?" because so many things happened over the years. We just had to stick with it and make the best of our situation. There were definitely some dark times but we supported each other. At the time of starting this thread I really felt our future was very bleak. My brother was a bit more positive but everybody is different. Personally I thought it would never end and we were burdened for life.

My brother and I continued living together for a number of years but we also shared the house with a couple of students under a licencee agreement. Obviously that wasn't ideal as it was quite cramped at times with 4 adults under the one roof, sharing a kitchen & bathroom, but we needed the financial support. In 2017 I moved out and rented a much smaller place in Dublin with my partner. The extra payment I had towards rent each month was difficult but it was manageable due to an improving work situation. We were in our mid 30s at this stage so our lives had to progress at some point.

My brother remained in the house and eventually his partner moved in with him. They had to live with students too which was far from perfect for them but it meant we could pay our mortgage every month. We were very lucky sharing with students to be fair to them. We weren't greedy and charged under the market value for the rooms because we hoped they would be appreciative of good quality accommodation at a very fair price. Thankfully we never had an problems with the people sharing with us. The appreciative feeling was also mutual because we really would've struggled without the financial support.

Apart from the licencees we have had to be very sensible with our money. The mortgage still had to be paid every month. I wasn't reckless with my money and only spent what I needed. I have a 15 year old car and I have not been on any extravagant holidays. I can still recall days where there was no money in the account until payday and cornflakes for dinner but overall those days were few and far between. I learned that if I was careful with my money I could manage month to month. The mortgage was the priority and everything else would fall into place after that.

My thoughts now are quite mixed. My overall feeling is relief. I am so relieved that we managed to sell our house for slightly more than what we paid for it in 2006. I never thought we would see that again. For example, in 2012 the house next door sold for over 60% less than what we paid for ours. We were in a colossal amount of negative equity. In fact, as recently as 2019/20 we were still hovering around the negative equity line but in 2021 the market seems to have gone crazy. We took a chance and put our house on the market and ultimately couldn't believe the price we got for it in the end. We possibly could've gotten even more because there was a bidding war for it but we weren't greedy and took a best offer at an agreed deadline. We just wanted to progress the sale as quick as possible rather than let a bidding war drag on.

We're both renting now with our partners. I know rent is crazy money and that we're paying into something we don't own but I feel it gives me breathing space at this moment. Of course I would love to buy again but my gut is telling me to hold off for now. I am certainly no expert but I just feel the whole market is crazy right now and I don't want to get burned again. We were 15 years paying for our mistake of purchasing in 2006; I don't want to make the same mistake again.