Never going to buy a house

[Juiceey]

Just that, really. I feel really sad about it.

Me and OH are in our mid thirties and forties and know it's realistically never going to happen for us. We live in Herts and pay a whopping £1500 a month for rent (for a 2 bed house >not envy) and simply can't afford to save for a deposit as well. On top of that we're in an expensive town anyway, a 2 bed house to buy is at least 400k.

It's sad, considering we both earn good money, to know we're in this position. I'm trying to stay positive about it- we're SUPER lucky after years of bad luck (moving every year thanks to landlords selling etc) to be in a secure lovely let- our house is owned by a charity, they will never sell or evict us, and is about 10 times nicer than anything we could ever dream of buying. It's just small but at least we can decorate as we wish and feel really happy here.

(We really can't move away somewhere cheaper. DC are at school, we live smack in the middle of both of our workplaces, I have a grandparent who relies on me etc, not to mention endless friends and family. We couldn't/wouldn't want to live away from our people)

So how do I get over the sadness?

Even if we managed to save 2k a month on cutting down on stuff that’s still 20 years to a save the 40k we would need!

£2k x 12 months is £24,000 so only 2 years to save £48,000

I'd rather rent for the rest of my life than move to Birmingham

So how do I get over the sadness?

Most people have to compromise a bit to get on the housing ladder. You had choices and still do. Your DC are at school and you are mid thirties so you chose to have children early, before buying your own home when others would have waited. You now don’t want to move, others would make a different choice. You’ve made active choices, so why be sad about them?

Yes Cheetah...highly doable... the houses are beautiful too and mortgage companies have over the decades become more and more accepting of them. I lived in Ireland for a while early 2000 and they were going up everywhere. If you are earning £60,000 between two of you that is what I would be doing. Paying dead rent for no security either in adulthood or retirement is depressing.

Sorry meant to add just google British made timber houses.

I don't think I am either. Every time it looks like I can, either suddenly we are priced out (a 2 bed+ boxroom house in our road sold for £111k in 2015 and £190k last week), or they withdraw all 90/95% mortgages, or our rent goes up so much that proper deposit savings are impossible, etc etc etc. Annoying because a mortgage plus savings for ongoing maintenance would be less than rent currently is.

It is very hard in some areas to buy at present particularly the loss of 95% mortgages. For those with better off parents who own a house even an ex council house there are various parent guarantee and other schemes around.

For some prices are dropping plus stamp duty holiday means now is actually quite a good time to buy by the way so it is worth some looking around. Others who work in offices - some are being told they can work from home forever so that might be a huge advantage. you can buy in places near where I grew up like Sunderland, Bishop Auckland, Northumberland, Cumbria (never mind bits of cheaper Yorkshire where family life like near Halifax) for very very little compared with the SE. Some of these places are by the sea or with wonderful countryside - in my view Northumberland countryside is the best in the UK.

Thanks everyone for the insights. When I think about us reaching retirement I feel immense panic, although we do have pensions.

If we saved for 10 years at this rate DW would be mid fifties- who's going to give us a mortgage then?!

@8T8w I meant 2k a year!! God I wish I had 2k a month to save 😂

And I am very, very grateful for our secure long term let. I can see us here happily for a long time.

My biggest issue is my ex- the DC split their time between me and him and I would never want that to stop, he's a great guy. He has his own business here and would never leave, he's born and bred here. So we're tied to this area.

@MyPersona

So how do I get over the sadness?

Most people have to compromise a bit to get on the housing ladder. You had choices and still do. Your DC are at school and you are mid thirties so you chose to have children early, before buying your own home when others would have waited. You now don’t want to move, others would make a different choice. You’ve made active choices, so why be sad about them?

But back when I went travelling in my early 20s banks were handing out 100% and even 110% mortgages. I had no reason to believe that I wouldn’t get similar when I came back a couple of years later (and no-one to advise me otherwise). When I had my first child house prices were half of what they are now so again no reason to believe they would rise so much and be unaffordable when we came to buy.

Choices are always easy in hindsight.

Moving is always touted as the golden answer on these types of threads. People don’t stop to think that some areas with cheap housing are cheap for the very reason that there’s not a lot of jobs around!
Whenever DH has a wobble and looks for another job he’s not been able to find one doing what he does for his salary. Now it’s a combination of his job being in a particular sector with a particular product and his company paying him more than the going rate. In this climate jobs are going to be even harder to get a new job. Moving north (from South Wales) will mean a large drop in income which would negate any drop in house price.

What about a flat? They can be a bit cheaper but not by much in the SE. The housing market does need a massive overhaul and to be more tightly regulated price wise. I do however baulk at people who claim they can’t even buy on a 6-figure salary - there are 3 and 4 bed houses for sale in my part of SW London for 4-500000k. I’m single and buying a flat in London with no help from parents and I earn 45k, I understand that’s no use for people with kids who need more room though.

And DW wouldn't get her London salary if we moved away. She already has a long commute.

They will never sell or evict us, and is about 10 times nicer than anything we could ever dream of buying

This is what you need to hold on to. I rent a lovely HA property in a mostly private street. It costs me £700 p/m (but I’m alone so it’s a little under what you and your OH pay each). I could never afford to buy something this nice. At best I could afford a little one bed in a crappy area, but I’m 50 now anyway so that ship has really sailed! I love my home and I have a secure tenancy so I don’t need to worry about being evicted. The way I accept it, is by living in the here and now. I pay my rent and don’t need to worry if the boiler packs up or the roof caves in! (I’m actually currently awaiting repair men who need to replace a portion of the roof!). When it comes to retirement there are options, I could rent out one room for nearly as much as I pay in rent (due to location). I could do a few hours of freelance work to bring in a bit of extra cash, plenty of retirees do voluntary work so a day or two a week should be manageable. Now my DC are adults, and I live quite frugally, I can help them out financially if need be. So yes they won’t get an inheritance when I die (although they may not anyway if any house I bought was swallowed up in care home fees!) but I can still help them out while I’m alive. I would not give up what I have to live somewhere worse just for the sake of saying I own it.

@BrieAndChilli

I know how you feel. A 3 bed semi in the worst part of our town is £300k. 10% deposit is 30k and that’s if you can find a mortgage that accepts 10%deposit at the moment. Plus £5-10k for land tax (we are in wales) and solicitors fees and surveys and moving costs etc. Even if we stopped sky and Netflix that’s only £1000 a year saved. We don’t have daily coffees or even weekly or monthly!! We don’t have the latest phones, we have camping holidays, went abroad last year but drove and stayed in a eurocamp so no luxury holidays to cut down on. Even if we managed to save 2k a month on cutting down on stuff that’s still 20 years to a save the 40k we would need! We have 3 kids so need a 3 bed minimum. I wish banks would offer 100% mortgages to people who have been paying rent for 15+ years without a missed payment. We know we can afford the monthly mortgage payment. It’s the deposit that’s stopping people like us from buying.

@BrieAndChilli, am I miscalculating if I say if you saved £2k a month it’d only take you just under 2 years to save £40k. Maybe I misread though and you actually said £2k a year 🙈.

I’m with you 100% that the payment of rent continuously should count for something. I’ve been renting since I moved out at 18 (31 now), and have never missed a rent payment. Currently trying to get a mortgage and have my fingers crossed for a lender with a 10% deposit!

@Juiceey it’s so difficult! House prices are so inflated and rent is extortionate if you want to live anywhere decent. Don’t give up though, have you thought about any of the government schemes?

We earn just under 6 figures between us but only manage to save £1-300 a month. Our council tax is £245! So we pay nearly 2k a month just to literally live here in our fairly small house. Then there's transport costs and childcare and everything else. We live fairly frugally and haven't had a holiday in 5 years.

@Juiceey my mum got a mortgage at 55 last year, she only earns £25,000 a year and is single, she got about £100,000 over about 10 years, although she's since been able to release a big chunk from her pension to pay it off. I appreciate the figures wouldn't get you much in Herts but just to show you can get a mortgage when older, also think about how you can utilise your pensions in that way like she did (it's very heavily scrutinised by an advisor, she will have enough to live on).

Perhaps the government should relaunch mass council house building on a scale that existed before the 1980s. Would be a cheaper alternative to private renting and buying.

[quote Yetiyoga]@TheSunIsStillShining I'm 27 :)
Yes I guess our priorities are different of course. I just want a house more than anything so spent the years saving. It isn't for everyone. But i have friends who are my age who are now at the point of wanting a house now and totally regretting wasting their money on nothing.
And i would honestly say I've lived my life in my 20s. I had a blast at uni, partying a lot, a few abroad holidays since then. But i always had a job at uni. And now at 27, I have made this year to focus mainly on saving (which helped with covid tbh as wasn't spending much)
I hope it works out for you too :)[/quote]
Ah yes, 27. What a glorious age :D
I'd love to be that again, really...

The general underlying problem is the whole concept: you have to live on almost nothing to save up when you are young (talking big city like london) and by the time you have a house, kids, whatever you potentially missed out on a lot of things. House prices are insane.

In another country...and another life. We moved out from my parents -lived there in a 9sqm room with my husband for 4 years- when we were 25. Bought a very small flat with huge mortgage. 9 yrs and a kid later we upgraded to a 3 bedroom apartment in the same street. Again huge mortgage, but manageable. Then crisis hit, our mortgage doubled as foreign currency exchange rates went through the roof and we couldn't afford it, the mortgage was bigger than what the flat was worth. This is not normal in any scenario in my book.
So, at least by our mid-20s we had living sorted. Then moved and got f..ed again. (ps. the price of that flat would not cover a mid-range london flat's deposit :( my parents are renting it out as it is a good extra income next to their pensions)
Going from owning to renting was hard. Not being able to furnish it properly, not being able to hang a pic on the wall.

I think the normal would be:

• have average salary
• save for 5-8 years (not skimp on everything)
• put down deposit and go up the ladder as you get older.

@CortinaFan

Perhaps the government should relaunch mass council house building on a scale that existed before the 1980s. Would be a cheaper alternative to private renting and buying.

If I could make the government do one thing, it would be that!

@Juiceey, are you sure you guys live frugally if you can’t afford to put more than £100-300 pm away and you’re earning almost 6 figures between you?

Admittedly I don’t have childcare or travel costs atm, but I manage to put away £600 pm if I have to (as I am at the moment as I’m saving for mat leave/baby things) and I only earn just over £23k.

Are you both wfh at the moment? Maybe this would be a good opportunity to put a bit extra aside without travel costs and childcare to pay out?

Maybe take a look at cutting your weekly food shop, it’s amazing how much money goes to that unnecessarily (been there myself!) and little trips to the shop here and there all add up.

Don’t be too disheartened, create a budget spreadsheet and detail exactly what you’ve got coming in and going out and set a strict budget. I think you’d be surprised as to what you could save, rather than what you actually do save at the moment.

Best of luck 😊

The problem with building more council properties is the people living in them would be saying in a few years ' we should be able to buy this property! '
Thats the thing that needs to change. No , you can't buy it: you can have an affordable rent and a secure tenancy etc and save up to buy something privately : but buy it at discount and then move on for a profit? No way! ( which went on in the 80s and 90s)

It sounds a bit unfair I know, but unless the rules over 'right to buy ' are changed then there will always be a housing shortage.

I realize this is not a point of view that many might agree with though and I'm not jealous of anyone who did do this as those are the rules and it is a legitimate thing to do after so many years living in the council property. My neighbours in my first ever house did this but dh and I paid full asking price for our place!
It just creates an uneven playing field!

It can still happen @Juiceey We only bought for the first time 2 years ago at 35 and 38. The house is in a fairly rough area but the houses sell really quickly as they’re popular for FTB (ex local authority) We’re now over-paying like mad to move in two years. You can do it!