I’d still do it all over again

In 1990/1, I learnt the important lesson that where you live is not an investment. Before that, my property strategy was to coast the crest of price rises and trade up. I felt good and happily contributed to dinner party anecdotes of what our homes were worth.

In 1990, my husband and I traded up to our then "forever home". We stretched ourselves. I was a trainee solicitor, he was soon to qualify as a barrister, with a lucrative job offer in hand. We were seen as having a good future. We bought our home on a six-month fixed low rate.

Then there was a war, oil prices shot up, my husband's job offer was withdrawn, with no other decent offer in sight, and not for lack of desperate trying. Interest rates went up to 15%, and if my memory serves me right, our mortgage rate to 17.5% as we had moved onto a standard variable rate when the six-month deal expired.

The only silver in the lining was that within months, my salary went up from £14,000 to £21,000 when I eventually qualified as a solicitor in 1991.

I had my annual travel card on a 0% interest loan from work that I paid back from my salary every month, so I knew I could at least get to work. Our mortgage company was excellent, and allowed us to halve our payments during a period when nearly everyone we knew was handing back their keys to their mortgage lenders, literally posting them through letter boxes.

We were in negative equity by then. Those old enough might remember these times. At home, we usually bought food for the month and had no money left over.

I remember one particular day on my way to work, I wanted a Mars or Snickers bar. It cost 26p. Scrounge though I would through my bag and purse, I did not have 26p. That day marked my financial low point.

We moved from that house in 2002 to where we still live.

Do I have any regrets about that 1990 purchase? At the time, yes; I hated the negative equity, but with hindsight, no. The adversity built something in me that good times never could have. We got ourselves out of that situation, and even had some equity when we moved in 2002.

The situation taught me that higher equity in your home is irrelevant unless you are downsizing. If you are being paid more, you will also pay more. I also learnt that although negative equity is uncomfortable, it is also irrelevant unless you are trying to sell, or raise capital.

What was unyielding during this time however, is the fact that although we couldn't afford a sofa for years, and our 350-foot long back garden was often overgrown, with neither of us being gardeners and not being able to afford one, we were secure in our own house.

A house can lose value overnight; a home cannot. We learned that difference the hard way, and it is the most valuable thing that house ever gave us.

It is also why I want others who dream of owning their own home to hold on to that dream. Not for what it might fetch one day, but for what it gave me: security, irrespective of what the market did.

Patricia Ogunfeibo