How do people without family help buy houses ??

[01Username01]

As the title says, how do people who don’t have family help buy houses ?? I’ve been saving for the last 10 years to buy a house and every time I get close, prices seem to jump again and it’s still out of reach.

Me and my partner earn decent salaries and have what I thought was a decent deposit but it just never seems enough. Prices in my area seem to have got totally out of control and 2 bed bungalows are now going up for £650k.

Everyone we know has been given significant deposits (£200k+), whereas we have no family help and it’s starting to feel like it will never happen . Has anyone been able to buy in this situation ?

I think you must have a very narrow group of friends

You may want to broaden your search in terms of houses and friends to get a more realistic And varied view of life

You get a one bed flat as a starter ,you don't need to be paying 650 for a starter in the SE. I'm in zone 4 and you can get a 1 bed flat for 250ish in a nice area.

I think it may be your expectations OP - perhaps lower the bar?

There are perfectly ok flats for 300k in zone 2. Houses further out but still in travel cars zones.

Buy an ex council house instead, you get more house for your money & probable are 25-50% cheaper than a private house, private terraces where I live are going for around £170-190k, an ex council terrace that is nearly twice the size is £100-125k.

but can’t move area due to the location of our jobs

move your jobs so you work outside the SE and still earn a decent wage but houses are much cheaper and you don't have to live like sardines

Saved money since I left school. Went without luxuries or anything I couldn't afford. Bought a fixer upper in a cheap town. I don't particularly like the town but it got me on the ladder and my house has gone up a lot in value.
However I could never have afforded the prices you are saying. You need to look at a cheaper area somehow, or something that needs loads of work - an auction property perhaps.
Ultimately you're not looking at first time buyer prices and need to compromise.

I only had a part-time job but it was supplemented by various top-ups. I saved all my salary for eight years and then invested in assets which did really well, so I was able to buy my London council flat with RTB discount. No parental help at all.

The state of the the comments on this thread!

Great so you all lived on Sir in the woods while working 4 jobs for 10 years. Well done!

The point is what is going on in our society that means you need to do these things in order to afford something as basic as shelter?

Honesty I'm embarrassed for all the pp's who seem to think because they had to do this it's acceptable. It's very mean spirited and doesn't recognise how disfunctional the housing market is here.

I think this is part of a wider social attitude problem. Because I had it shit so should you. Rather than recognising no one should have it shit

I bet if you moved to Scotland you could buy a great house and have a few years of not needing a job to live off what you have saved 🤣

Moved away… 50 minutes away… and commuted back for work. It’s hard for everyone unfortunately OP, you just have to start somewhere…

But anyway to answer your question: we do have family but didn't get any money from them for house purchases.
We both opened a help to buy ISA so we got a top up of our deposit.
I had a redundancy payout with a new job lined up so that was a lump sum of savings and then we sold both our cars and bought one cheaper one so that was another lump of money.

But we bought our 5 bedroom large house with swimming pool for £240k so it's nothing like what people need to try and save for in the pricier English places

The key when getting on the property ladder is to buy as young as possible. Rather than save a big deposit for your perfect home that will take years to save whilst the market is moving ever further away from you.
For example a flat or terrace that needs work . If you are younger and don't have big commitments like kids , or a job that keeps you at work for hours , you can spend evenings / weekends doing it up.
Sell it after a few years , buy somewhere else slightly better , but still needing work . Repeat .
By the time you are on property No.3 you could be only in your late 30s and have a decent home .
We did that , and was mortgage free by our early 40s .

I often feel like I'm living in a different universe when I see these posts as saving for our house was very easy - but then I realise that we were just lucky in a few different ways

Bought a year ago aged 22. I graduated age 21 with no savings and some overdraft debt as I'd had a very fun time at uni lol. Worked full time for just over a year earning £18K, husband earned £26K at the time so yes I do feel grateful that we had decent jobs but it's not mega money. Between us we were able to save well over £1K a month without even trying tbh. But I am quite good at keeping expenses low as I was brought up by a very thrifty family

so it only took us a year to save up the 10% deposit + fees for our £120K three bed semi. My mum gave us £1K admittedly which was very kind of her, but at the rate we save it only helped us by a month.

The major thing that makes a difference is the location. We live in the north. You say you can't move because of work, but I think that even with a significant wage cut life is more affordable outside of the SE, so it's swing and roundabouts. I'm also shocked that you say that there's nothing under £650K and that your friends all got £200K gifted - that's insane! It sounds like your friends and perhaps you also come from very wealthy families and that's skewing your perspective. Maybe you need to set your sights a little more realistically?

It isn’t acceptable neon

I say that as one of the ones upthread who worked every hour god sent and budgeted every penny.

It isn’t acceptable but it is sadly necessary. I live in an area that has difficulty in housing single people because there are too many families needing somewhere to live.

When I applied for social housing after leaving the forces, I pretty much got told I’d be wasting my time. Or waiting for a retirement flat. I was in my 30s…. (You can see how many of us end up on the street. I was one of the lucky ones thanks to my parents)

Houses here are relatively expensive. I wasn’t able to buy a reduced cost home. Priority for those went to people already living in social housing.

The long hours/multiple jobs? I did it because I had to. Not because I felt like it or wanted to. I know it doesn’t make it right but it was right for me.

I have been the first woman in my family to buy a house in my own right. That is sad to just type out.

It is rubbish. No question. But for me it was that or nothing.

I don’t think any of us are looking for pats on the back. Or gold stars.

I for one was just acknowledging how hard it was to achieve. I wasn’t being mean spirited. The sacrifices I made were huge. They had to be.

@minatrina, if you had read the OP properly, it doesn't say that there is nothing under £650K, it says 2 bed bungalows are now going up for £650k.

Bungalow are few and far between and there are people who are specifically looking for a bungalow, as opposed to a house or flat.

Supply and demand pushes up the prices.

The point is what is going on in our society that means you need to do these things in order to afford something as basic as shelter?

@Neondisco
I get your point. But op isn't trying to afford basic shelter.

Yes, some of us should have had to do some of these things. But that's not reality.

If OP wants something out of her, current, reach. She has to make compromises.

People who live in similar areas are pointing out that OP, can get somewhere cheaper.

There's never been and never will be a time where most people can just get the exact house they want, when they want it just 'because that's what I want'

If op needs a bungalow, in the area she is looking at she it going to have to save more and quicker. If that's not possible, she needs to review the area and what type of property she is looking for. And look for alternatives.

The reality is, that most people have to compromise to be able to buy a property. I don't want someone to tell me well done and think I did something amazing. But op asked a question of what people did.

These are the things we did.

[quote KirstenBlest]**@minatrina, if you had read the OP properly, it doesn't say that there is nothing under £650K, it says 2 bed bungalows are now going up for £650k.

Bungalow are few and far between and there are people who are specifically looking for a bungalow, as opposed to a house or flat.

Supply and demand pushes up the prices.[/quote]
I can read, I assumed the OP was only looking for bungalows at a minimum. I still find it shocking that there's nothing* going for less than £650K - not saying I disbelieve her, I'm just shocked. Which is why I suggested moving area might be the way to go.

*as in, nothing going after filtering out flats

Hi
My parents moved from Brum to London in 1979. There was no internet to know what house prices were.
They had detached house in Brum/4 bed and garage. They got 2700 for it, Dad was working in a factory near NW3 London, they started looking at buying an ordinary terraced house and got guzzmped twice. They started looking at big 3 bed houses stating at about 31k but ended up paying close to 35k. Even those that worked with dad did not beleive what he had paid as people did not have the info like they do today and family that came over from Brum to see us honestly thought we were joking. Prices went down slightly afterwards and remained stady for a several years.

They had no one to give them money for a deposit etc and did not want help as they were offered loands interest fro of about 1k eack from their parents.

One of my siblings bought a house a few years ago in london and saved up a deposit of 100k

so you have to work, save, spend wisely and not try to run before you can wlak.

You compromise on what property you buy (say small flat instead of house) or the area. You say you can't move areas because of your jobs...in reality in the SE a huge proportion of people commute over an hour, as they simply can't afford somewhere close to work.

We were in a similar situation and our deposit was getting smaller and smaller despite saving like mad. In the end we moved 45mins even further out of London - the train fare and wrap around childcare is expensive but really we had no other options.

@ForeverInADay

I think it may be your expectations OP - perhaps lower the bar?

There are perfectly ok flats for 300k in zone 2. Houses further out but still in travel cars zones.

Exaclty. We have friends that wanted to buy where they were born ie noth west london but can't afford the 700k plus prices so the head towards se london and but something for about 400/450.

I know no one in London who bought without family help. No one.

@Neondisco

The state of the the comments on this thread!

Great so you all lived on Sir in the woods while working 4 jobs for 10 years. Well done!

The point is what is going on in our society that means you need to do these things in order to afford something as basic as shelter?

Honesty I'm embarrassed for all the pp's who seem to think because they had to do this it's acceptable. It's very mean spirited and doesn't recognise how disfunctional the housing market is here.

I think this is part of a wider social attitude problem. Because I had it shit so should you. Rather than recognising no one should have it shit

I don’t think anyone’s saying it’s acceptable. I didn’t work 5 jobs and 200 hours a week, I just happened to have a good enough salary to get the mortgage I needed and prioritised savings over spending on luxuries to buy a flat with no help. However I’m actually a pretty hardline socialist and my preferred housing policies are very radical - I’d like caps on house prices, a ban on owning more than 2 homes per person, a cap on the price of new build houses and more social housing built, empty properties reclaimed by the state and higher inheritance tax, to name a few - all things that would disadvantage me as a homeowner but level the playing field for everyone else. I don’t care about profiting from my purchase - I might not have had financial help but I certainly have the luck and privilege of being able bodied and intelligent enough to work my way into a job that afforded me a mortgage. It should be possible for people on minimum wage (oh, let’s raise that significantly too) to easily purchase a home if they wish, so no I don’t think a home being a “reward” only the “hard working” can achieve is right at all.

Your problem is the area, not how much they are (if that makes sense).
We live in the SE, a young couple I work with (late 20s) are buying a fab 2 bed for 270K. They earn 45K between them.

@Neondisco

The state of the the comments on this thread!

Great so you all lived on Sir in the woods while working 4 jobs for 10 years. Well done!

The point is what is going on in our society that means you need to do these things in order to afford something as basic as shelter?

Honesty I'm embarrassed for all the pp's who seem to think because they had to do this it's acceptable. It's very mean spirited and doesn't recognise how disfunctional the housing market is here.

I think this is part of a wider social attitude problem. Because I had it shit so should you. Rather than recognising no one should have it shit

I get what you're saying- i agree it's completely unacceptable.

But we have to be pragmatic here. This is the world we live in.

I'm so sorry it's difficult for you. I only know 2 people who got help buying houses, the people I know are all crazy savers and we were lucky that we found a fixer upper in the middle of nowhere that went to auction by the bank. Best of best of luck OP it is so so hard