To ask how you managed to buy a house?

[ditziness]

We pay close to a grand rent a month. It's of our friend's mortgages are cheaper. As a consequence it's very difficult to save. But save we must to tryand get a deposit. So we have to continue to rent

Stuck in a vicious circle.

How the hell did you manage to buy a house?

Any financial, deposit raising, mortgage getting advice welcome

[squeakytoy]

lived with parents, saved up a deposit, didnt have holidays for a few years, lived as cheaply as we could and saved every penny we could..

certainly worth doing as our mortgage is peanuts now, which has been a great help while my husband was out of work recently

[ZiaMaria]

No holidays, wearing clothes until they were threadbare/got holes in, rarely going out for a meal/having a takeaway. It all added up.

We also transferred the amount we wanted to save each month away from out current accounts on the day we were paid, into an account that we were not allowed to touch.

[edwinbear]

I bought my first house straight out of uni with an ex bf. DH also bought his first house in his early 20's. We both did well out of prices rising and so when we met, were lucky enough to have a decent amount of equity to pool together.

[ShutTheFrontDoor]

Bought 15 years ago with a 4k deposit. Mortgage is £40 per month now. Sorry that probably doesn't help but I certainly have nowhere near the income to be paying £1000 per month.

[BlackTieNTails]

we saved up every penny before we got married. was a real struggle but we did it the right way round and didnt have kids until we were settled in our own house and didnt marry until we had a place of our own to live

then a week after we got married, OH got made redundant so was even more of a struggle but we managed somehow

think it would be near impossible to save up for a deposit if we had kids or rented somewhere else

[DoingTheBestICan]

We bought quite young but we both lived with our parents and we used to take out a set amount of cash each week to live on and save all the rest.
We saved shed loads doing that.

[Kayano]

12.5k gift from parents
5 year fixed rate mortgage in 2007

The world
Went tits up 6 months later and we were like 'ohhhhh nooooo' (despite me Working at northern rock)

Our fixed rate has now ended and we are now 'ohhh yes!!!' overpay overpay overpay

[reddaisy]

We got a shared equity house earlier this year. We saved up for four years for the deposit even just for a stake in a hous.e Our mortgage and rent on the shared part is £200 cheaper than our rent was. I know a few people who moved back in with their parents but I would rather rent forever than have to do that!

[Kayano]

Oh and we never ever rented as we both saw it as dead money so saved like mad before we moved in (20 and 21 we got our mortgage)

[HandMini]

Went overseas to work for 2 years, good tax treatment, saved very hard. Came back and bought first house with boyfriend. We still scrimp quite a bit to pay down as much mortgage as we can.

[Proudnscary]

Luck in terms of market. Made our own luck in terms of careers/salaries.

Bought first flat in early 90s.
Sold at 100% increase in price in late 90s.
Bought small house.
Got big increases in salary in mid 00s.
Now have dream(ish) house.

[ErmahgerdPerngwens]

Bought a flat when I was a teenager, I was working part-time and still at college but did get quite a bit of help with the deposit from my parents. Upgraded to a house with DP in 2001.

I have no idea how any first time buyers have done it since 2002.

[blondiedollface]

DH and I have bought our first house this year and realise that we are very lucky to have been able to do this in the current financial climate in our early 20's. We have both been saving for our entire university careers and my parents kindly helped toward the deposit, bank only required 10% of which we had saved 9% but to help with mortgage repayments my parents topped us up to 25%.

Many of our friends who have lovely holidays/don't watch what they spend/budget everything down to the last penny/use extra layers, blankets and duvets instead of turning the heating on always ask 'how do you do it?' and it is just that, we work very hard at saving money so that we could do this for ourselves and now our DD.

As a result for a 2 bed terraced house we pay about the same as friends of ours who rent a 1 bed flat per month. It takes a lot to cut out the 'excesses' many of which you don't even thing of being excessive, but every saving is a saving, if you save 10p for every single item you buy in a month, whether it is food, drink, clothing, turning a light off, turning heating down etc you have saved a lot by the end of the month :)

[TraineeBabyCatcher]

We haven't, but are hoping to. I live in social housing, dp lives with his parents. We are trying to save save save so that when I finish uni we can buy a house together.

[VivaLeBeaver]

First house cost 32k in 1997.

[WorraLiberty]

Bought 17yrs ago

Struggled a bit to save up the 4k deposit but it was worth pulling our belts in for.

My mortgage is silly money - just under £300 per month for a 3 bed semi in a London borough.

Just very very lucky to have been able to buy in 1995.

[Flyonthewindscreen]

Moved from London to North Wales. Obviously house prices weren't the only consideration (DH is Welsh and was desperate to "go home") but it was a definate factor on our decision.

[OddGoldBoots]

Luck! I started saving aged 11, met dh (6 years older than me) aged 17 and by the time I was 19 I had the deposit and dh had the earnings to get a mortgage.

It is so much harder these days and it looks all but impossible if you decide to have children first.

[Jinsei]

DH and I bought "late" but we had both saved significant sums when younger by living in less than lovely accommodation and generally doing everything frugally. We didn't overstretch ourselves on the mortgage when we did buy, and put down 40% on a nice but modest house - it's much smaller than I'd like but has potential to be extended. We've been overpaying significantly in the three years since we bought it, as interest rates are so low, and I'm hopeful we'll be clear in the next few years. We still live relatively frugally compared to others with similar incomes!

[sparkle12mar08]

We were very lucky - OH had brought (with a small deposit from his parents) a flat in Brighton at the bottom of the local market and through happy timing managed to sell at the top of a little boom. I also had a inheritance from when my parents died when I was younger. Put together it allowed us to go from a one bed flat to a four bed detached in one go. Mortgage is still four figures but we made the decision to get an offset mortgage because we knew we would be saving every penny for a number of years and both had good jobs. As a result we've effectively overpaid to the point where we've halved the mortgage term. Sometimes I think that the mortgage and house stuff is the only thing that's ever really been lucky for us - most other things have never quite worked out!

[CasperGutman]

My wife and I were both earning good money. We lived well below our means in a cheap rental in a less good area, and drove economical used cars with six-figure mileage on the clocks. We hardly went out to eat, and when we did we always had Tesco vouchers or a half price offer. We never rented a DVD, never bought drinks in bars, rarely bought clothes, never went to concerts/the theatre/whatever. We were able to save about 50% of our income, and did this for 5 years.

[MoaningMingeWhingesAgain]

I bought my house (on my own) in 2002. Saved up while living at home. And it is a small shit house in a shit town.

But my mortgage is £188 a month. Thank fuck, given that I am not working now.

[SheppySheepdog]

Met a man who already owned a few properties. Who says feminism is dead?! But seriously there's no way I would be on the property ladder without him, the timing was completely wrong for me as I graduated just as the shit hit the fan financially, had no deposit and wouldn't have been able to get a mortgage alone at the time.

[FizzyLaces]

Had loan from dd1's dad for the deposit (for house for me and dd2's dad and kids). Still need to pay him back and keep hoping he has forgotten nae chance of that. It was the only way we could manage and I actually wish we'd stayed renting as the catchment areas have moved and now my dd2 is going to go to a school we don't want her to go to... Gawd!

[Goldidi]

We saved like mad for years. Our rent was £450 per month so we could afford to save a bit as long as we were quite frugal with our day to day expenses. We still ended up borrowing from family but managed to pay that back within 6 months. We were 30 and 40 when we finally had enough money to pay a deposit and then it was hard finding a bank/building society to give us a mortgage as our credit ratings weren't perfect (dp had never had a loan or a credit card so had no credit rating, and I had a few late payments when I was a student)