To think you shouldn't expect to buy a home on a single salary?

Where do you think all the single people should live?

Another single parent here and I own my property. I bought my first flat before getting married.

Surely it depends on your individual salary whether you are married or not.

Shouldn't expect sounds a bit stuck up. Of course you can. I know a couple of single mums who managed it. It depends on where you live, of course. Where I live a 2 bed starter home would cost from £120k. As long as you can save for the £10% deposit and prove regular income, if you can afford to pay rent you can afford to pay a mortgage.

Empathy is a really useful emotion and approach to almost anything.

Would definitely recoomend it.

In my street of 30 3 and 4 bed detached, 6 are owned by single women who bought them on their own, mostly around 25 to 30 years ago, 2 were single parents, all professional people eg doctor, lawyer. Backing onto the street is a terrace of 5 houses, 4 are owned by single women. Out of this small sample it's interesting that no men live on their own.

My DS20 is about to buy a house and he's single?

Depends how committed you are to saving up a decent deposit I guess.

Jesus wept. Single people really shouldn’t expect to be able to do what couples do? Are you serious,OP? Second class citizenship for thr singles amongst us. Wow.

I read the article earlier. I bought a flat by myself on an average salary without help from family or inheritance. However it hinged on a few things:
-Having saved approx £500pcm for years and years in order to build up a decent deposit (went for the cheapest possible rent in shared houses in order to be able to save.
-Buying a flat in a cheap part of the country miles from friends or family
-Not expecting to buy my dream home but just something modest and liveable
It is doable but it's definitely not easy. Keeping living costs as low as possible and being determined to save money is the only way.

If single people can never afford to buy a home, then you end up with many people remaining in bad relationships or worse, and the likelihood of coercive control increasing.

OP, do you think only people with a partner or husband/wife should be able to buy a property? What about single people?

Although I agree with you that BBC article is strange. Why is that woman moaning about not being able to buy a house? Most single people buy a flat as their first property.

I think single people should be able to buy property if they wish, but, at least in London and the south east, it is unlikely that any but a small percentage would be able to afford to.

You'd still be saying that if you find yourself divorced, OP?

I bought a London flat on a combined household income of 75k in 2019, I was 26. I married a Londoner whose mum let me live at her home for 3 years and I also married at 22 (straight out of university) so we were dual income from the start. We saved a lot of money despite the fact that we first started earning, we earned a lot less than 75k but were still saving money.

So it wasn't just being married, it was also marrying early enough that we didn't need to get asap to baby making and hence my salary wasn't swallowed up in childcare and we were also able to live at our parents' home as it was just the 2 of us.

Btw a couple with 2 young children might as well be a single income earner ( in mortgage terms and in the short run) as the second income is often swallowed up in childcare costs. yes this would change once the kids go to school but by then the goalposts might all have shifted in terms of mortgage interest rates, house prices, location of kids schools etc. So if single income earners can't buy homes, it may be that families with children can't buy homes too and homes become the exclusive domain of those who are DINKY or who in Xenia's words (long time mumsnetter) buy before they breed.

Very few people couple up this early nowadays, i think its luck of the draw. go look at the relationships section on mumsnet, lots of women can't find partners and its even worse for the men.

It should be a perfectly reasonable expectation that a single person is able to buy suitable housing.

What are single people supposed to do then? Obviously their income is lower than a couple, but they should still be able to afford their own property. No-one wants to be house-sharing into middle age.

I know a couple of single women who bought their own small flat/house a few years ago in the south east, so it's not impossible by any means. I read the above story earlier today and thought it was a bit odd... on a 50k salary in the Midlands you'd be able to save for a deposit, and that person looks to be in their 30s or 40s so has had time to save. All that stuff about screaming and crying was bizarre too... 🙄

Owning their own home shouldn't be attainable for single people on an average salary.

That's why there are schemes to help first time buyers, although some of them come with catches.

I still regret not buying a one bed flat at £200k with a £30k deposit as a single person through a scheme 10 years ago. That flat is now worth £600k+.

Blimey this is off the scale unreasonable!

Single people shouldn’t expect to be able to buy houses now?

I bought a very small flat on a similar pay grade. I saved a deposit because I had lived with my parents for years, there’s no way I could have afforded to rent. I’d checked the rental prices for bedsits and there was no chance.

I know lots of single people who have bought a home of their own.

Nothing crazy but a combo of flats, semis, terraced houses. Me and DH bought a modest first home that either one of us could have afforded alone so we could overpay the mortgage.

None of my friends at the time were on particularly massive salaries. 30/40k is a perfectly reasonable amount of money to buy a home in most areas of the UK.

Not everyone is in a couple (or wants to be). I am in a couple, but I bought my first property when I was single on my single salary - a one bed flat. You have a really weird take on things.

I am not entirely sure where you expect them to live.

I appreciate people can rent but presumably the same issue around affordability exists for them.

Do you feel they all need be in flat shares forever.

I do think we need to ensure that planners build what's needed though. But I also think people have very odd views on what single people need space wise. Things like a washing machine, bath tub, oven etc take up the same room for a single person as 4.

I am a single parent and own my house too.

Where are the single earning households supposed to live ?

There are many reasons why there might only be one income coming in , single parents, carers, unemployment, disability, etc.

This.

My son is in the same position. No partner and none on the horizon, so should he just rent for evermore?
Many years ago, I bought as a single woman.