I should have delayed buying my own place

Jason Mak, 26, from Croydon, bought a two-bed, former local authority flat in Old Street for £237,000 with a friend in September 2007.

Back then the property market was still booming and they secured a 90 per cent two-year fixed rate mortgage at 5.1 per cent with Halifax.

But the deal comes to an end this year and the pair are worried they may face a rise in their current £950 monthly repayments.

Mr Mak said: "The deal is up in September and things might get very hard. The value of the flat may have gone down, meaning we need a relatively bigger loan and the banks are taking away all the 100 per cent mortgage deals.

"If we can remortgage, the deal probably won't be as good. We'll have to go on to the lender's variable rate, which will be more than we are paying now."

Mr Mak, who is an analyst for a mobile phone company, said the scale of the credit crisis had shocked him: "It has been much worse than I ever expected. I thought the market would go flat, but I never expected it to have such an impact on mortgages. That may well come back to haunt me. In the short to medium term, it's going to be a huge concern for us."

Mr Mak fears it may have been a bad decision to buy.

"If I could go back in time, I wouldn't do it again. I definitely would have delayed buying my own place for a few years."