To ask what you think a reasonable price for a small “starter” home is?

DH and I bought our first house 3yrs ago. We had to move 150 miles north of where we were renting to be able to afford to buy. It's a small 3 bed semi we got for £280k. That was our maximum we were prepared to buy for. It's got very small bedrooms, but it's a starting place for us and we are finally on the housing ladder

So much depends on where you want to buy.

It really depends on so many things. Salaries are often higher or have the potential to be higher in more expensive areas. Some people might start off buying a small one bedroom flat, others might buy a bigger house as their first home.

They definitely needed official high quality evidence every time i
have bought @Hardhaton1

This definitely comes down to location. My first starter home bought in 2006 was £79k. I now live in a decent 4 bed town house that cost me £200k in 2021. I live in Hull so that probably explains that cheap prices!

Where I live in the North you can get 2 bed flats with gardens in nice areas for between 50-80k.

My advice to the younger generation is to go as far up the ladder as you can first time. My nephew has just bought 3 bed house in the Midlands for £320k. Their mortgage is just about affordable but it will see them through if they start a family. It’s so difficult to move to a bigger property now from a starter home - the price gap is huge, especially in London.

My parents bought their first home in 1991 in a town in Somerset. They paid £65k for it and were able to get a mortgage based on just my dad working as my mum was a sahm. They've just had it valued and it's now worth £475k

DH & I have been looking at buying our first house, £200k here gets you a small flat with no garden or parking

I bought a two bed stone front terrace in NW for £85k around 2011. Sold it for £150k ten years later in 2021.

Prices where I live and it's a small village are insane £250k minimum it is very hard for young people. There are also too many people in the country whether it be through migration or just people living longer, having 2.5 kids. I only see it getting worse. Hopefully some of the lower priced areas up North get gentrified. I lived in Salford as a teenager, when back in my 30's wouldnt recognise it now.

You can buy an old terrace 2 bed in my area for under 100K.
New build 2 bed terrace £160.

Average full time UK income is £37k so I think a basic 1 bed flat should start at roughly 3x that, maybe £115k.

A starter home for a couple, with a spare room to allow for a baby, maybe £175k

I’d imagine if they do come back they will be under much more stringent conditions and more proof of actual income rather than just a letter.

even renting now you have to meet affordability criteria that isn’t a million miles away from the affordability to buy.

I think they’ll be coming back. I’m seeing more and more commission only roles being advertised in Saas and tech sales

Yeah the self certified mortgages were a way of helping people who were commission based or self employed. Unfortunately they got used and abused, you could borrow ludicrous amounts without any basis for it. This pushed the house prices up as everyone could access high amounts. It was a mad time! It led to prices being built on a glass floor

if All the numbers were still the same now and I was still earning 26,000 and let’s assume the house is still 67,000. I wouldn’t be approved for the mortgage because they would deduct not only the nursery fees in their entirety but they then take another percentage off for everything she would cost me in food and nappies.
I also remember colleagues not having to prove their physical income but banks and building societies taking a letter on Head paper detailing expected commission which was included in the calculations whether it transpired or not

Interesting @Hardhaton1 . I bought 10 more than 10 years earlier.

Location is the issue. Have been looking around the country on behalf of DC in my role as BoMaD. For a two bed terrace, tiny garden, in Surrey, it's about £350k and up, or £2k pm in rent; the West Midlands, £300k gets you three beds. In SE Cornwall/Plymouth, a decent 2-bed flat or a small cottage would be around £220k, but wages are mostly very low and lots of work is seasonal.

It's so variable depending on location.
I know of 150k 2 bed end of terrace in qite nice area here, but if you happy to be in less desirable one you can drop to 120k for the same. That's houses, flays are cheaper but come with service charge and leasehold.
But that doesn't apply to other cities more south

2 bed flat around £360k in SE London

The 2 bedroom house that I'm writing this from is currently valued at around 200k, in Southampton.

Ex and I bought our starter home (small garage, small garden, 2 beds) in the South East 2005 for £150K. The mortgage cost £750 ish at the time.. I think that was pretty affordable and would still be affordable for a young couple now even on fairly low wages and with interest rates a bit higher. I think it'd be worth around £300K now and to rent would be maybe £1300 or so a month.

Given that full time minimum wage is now £25k, I’d say that “affordable” would be around £250k. A mortgage of 4 times joint salary plus a deposit of a years salary, less if either party are on more than minimum wage. But I don’t think there is such a thing as how much a house “should” cost, it’s all down to location and supply and demand. People certainly don’t have the right to live exactly where they want if they can’t afford to.

I’d say £250k should be reasonable for mid-20s couple these days. Where I live, they’d be lucky to get a 2 up 2 down for £350k.

I don't think there is a set price for a house, in the same way that there isn't a set price for butter or electricity. It's about supply and demand and how much it costs to create something. Ultimately the market will dictate the price. The idea that a house 'should' be a certain price is usually an expectation rooted in the last century which actually was a blip if you look across the rest of human history. Most of the time it has been a struggle to survive for most people and the idea that you can get housing, food, utilities cheaply only became a viable concept in the 20th century and as we burn through the Earth's natural resources and our population increases, it may become less viable again quickly.