I feel on a different planet to other mumsnetters in terms of budgets for purchasing homes

[Faith50]

Dh and I are discussing whether we can live comfortably if purchasing a house for £450k. We would have to seriously tighten the reins.

On the property forum I regularly read threads where MN are deciding where to live with a budget of anything from £800k to £1.3 million. What kills even more is when they receive advice that their budget will not stretch to particular roads in a given area. At this point I think "shoot me now!"

@LuckyLou7

I'm in the South East and 450k is sti a big budget! Ours was max £290k.

Awful thread considering how poor people are in the UK. It's okay asking for advice on what you can get for that money, but the way you've worded it makes it sound like you're a pauper. You are luckier than most people.

£450k is a high budget. Unless you want London.
Mine is £200k and I'm in the south east.

I don't care what anyone else has myself, especially not a group of random strangers on the internet 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Ours was £220k! And it’s a fairly expensive city so we really had to compromise on the area we lived In to even get on the property ladder.

After reading on a thread that anything below £60K per year is a low wage in London I'm not surprised at anything here.

I was watching a channel late one night and the programme was about £million + properties in the states.

I had to laugh at what you could get out there (though I would never move there) to what you could get in London!!!

It's relative I'm in the NW and you'd get a huge mansion for your budget.

There was a thread recently where there were several incredibly indignant MNers saying the North wasn't cheap and just as expensive as South and how dare anyone say it cost less up there.

Make yer minds up grin

^^ AGREE! I'm in the NW and to be fair, £450k here would only get you a 4 bed house on a housing estate. Yes, albeit a quite nice house but not a mansion in any stretch of the word and still on a housing estate with social housing. Cheshire and parts of Manchester in particular are not that cheap! (although yes, you can get houses for more like £200k)

It still very much depends where you live. My parents have a 4 bed, detached house in a West Country town surrounded by a large garden in a quiet, tree lined avenue which they would be lucky to achieve £400,000 for today. They also own a modest, 2 bed flat in a London suburb, tiny kitchen, communal garden but 12 miles from Waterloo on a direct train line. It’s currently valued at £600,000.

They’re retired, not wealthy, no cash assets. They each owned a separate property for decades before they married a few years ago (step dad) and have kept them going with a view to moving to London when they’re too frail to drive.

We live in a 5 bed detached in the North West. My husband and I would dearly love to retire to a modern flat when he retires in a few years. I’m so worried about housing prospects for our (pretty much all adult) children though that I can see us staying on here because in extremis there’s room for all of us.

£450k would get you a decent house here, and under an hour commute into London.. We bought a wreck for £310k but in two years (after a lot of blood sweat and anaglypta stripping) it was valued earlier this year at £375k (having spent around £20k) and once we've done the kitchen it'll probably be around £400k but we can't afford to do that properly yet, so I'm happy to live with our fifties spectacle for another year or so. If your wants outstretch your budget for the area, buy a project and put the graft in yourself.

Sad for you, op. Life is so unfair.

That’s quite a budget for a house. Maybe look for something cheaper so you won’t have to live in the breadline.. I’ll never be able to buy and I’m okay with that, thankfully we are in a council property so any repairs are done by them, the thing about owning that would worry me is the repairs have to be done yourself, I wouldn’t leave myself so skint when that’s the reality.