My 21 yo son and 19yo GF plan to rent a house together

[Menomaddness]

This is a good thing generally, they've been together 2 years, spend a lot of time sleeping here and it's time. They both work but not in especially well paid jobs. About £45k income between them, but DS is on a decent career path. GF less so but she's very young.

Rent will be £1200 pm plus bills.

They do not have £1200 left at the end of the month currently, both spend money like water, but I guess when they have to they'll sort that out. DS pays keep of £200pm currently.

What worries me is the future. If they spend all this on rent, they'll never buy anything, but I also recognise that feels like an impossible dream anyway. An ex council flat is about £250k to buy here, so even if they saved 10 or 20% deposit, they wouldn't get the mortgage on their income.

However, I also know that as someone close to retirement with the mortgage paid off, buying young has made my current situation much better than it would otherwise be. I really can't imaging paying £1200 pm rent throughout retirement (more if they don't stay in a starter home forever).

Where will generation rent live as retirees?

Obviously it's a really long way off, but is there something of a time bomb for this gernation of young people?

Hang on, I missed this.

So you have the money to help him buy now?

Why on earth wouldn’t you? With properly values going up, surely it would make sense to get him on the property ladder now? Even if it was just a one bed flat?

Take the GF out of the equation as they might not last.

I’d be thinking about my ds and setting him up in a home of his own. Not seeing him spend money on rent when you can do that.

If his GF wants to move in, they can get a legal arrangement drawn up, which could be changed again if they marry.

I wouldn’t be thinking of it in terms of ds owning a greater share. I would be thinking about him alone.

But right now, if you could help him get on the property ladder, that’s what I’d be doing as an investment in his future.

That’ll be the day. Not sure I can believe that rents will ever go significantly down and stay down

Lots of people have said similar to this. But really? It's babying them. They need to learn to manage money, it's part of adulthood. If OP babies them now they'll end up at 25 or whatever still with no idea of how to deny themselves instant gratification in order to save.

One other thing nobody has mentioned so far. The young people's personal perspectives. They already basically have lived with OP for a couple of years. They haven't saved. Everyone is acting like that's some sort of accident. They're not looking to move into the cheapest home possible, a flat share, they're looking at renting an entire house for themselves. This doesn't speak to me of people who want to save. It tells me they're people who want to live in the moment. Given than nobody knows how long they'll live, I can't say it's a bad decision.

I suffered life altering circumstances with my health whilst still relatively young. If I hadn't lived my dreams as soon as I could, if I'd done the "sensible" thing and spent another 5yrs studying then denied myself everything while I saved like mad to buy a house, I'd never have got to live my dreams at all.

Well maybe the DS wants to move out and away from his controlling and suffocating mother. Maybe he'd rather throw cash at the problem and gain freedom than remain under constant scrutiny.

And if that's the case - then best of luck to him.

You just never know 😊 (I went to university just to escape my controlling mum!)

It's exciting. Live for today.

Would they not move together into one of the parents homes for a year, bank the 1200 they'd be paying on rent, t

If they are going to do this, they should seriously bank the total cost of renting, including bills etc. and live off what they have left. Then they would see whether they can live with that and have savings.

At that income level, they may never buy, rent for ever and needs UC or whatever is around by then to pay their rent in their retirement. Who knows what the match between cost of living and available benefits will be by then.

Many, many current home owners will be required to spend the value of their house in care fees. Suggesting the next generation can rely on inheritance for housing needs is a really bad idea.

Yup, you can never rely on inheritance.

My dad was going to leave me his house when he died. Then dementia came out of nowhere. That 250k has been eaten up by care home feee now.

I know so many people who are my age (mid 40s) who are putting a lot of hope on their parents leaving them houses, but you never know what’s round the corner.

I hope to be Euthanised when the time comes the thought of having to be cared for terrifies me and I worked in healthcare.

It's still a luxury. One that clearly they cannot afford.

Everyone needs to cut their cloth.

while I appreciate that OP hesitates to provide a deposit to help her DS to get on the housing ladder, because he owning more of their home is not a recipe for happiness, I'm afraid there is as equal and opposite risk that the 19 year old who has not yet 'found their place in life', decides that having DC and being what used to be called a 'homemaker' is the way forward.

This was an entirely reasonable expectation in my mother's day, when announcing your engagement at work was tantamount to handing in your notice, as married women were expected to 'look after' their husband. My DPs married in 1953, had a good life together with two children, living on one income, including those markers of affluence that are private schools and holidays. Having started life in modest circumstances, they left enough to their DC, yes, including their home, that their estate was required to pay IHT.

I started work in 1985, my first (joint) mortgage payment was paid out of my first salary. At the time, the upward trend in house prices seemed to be a generally good thing. Now I can only wonder what the next generations will do, given how the cost of housing as so far outstripped earnings. We bought our first house with £10K deposit and a mortgage of 3 times joint earnings, straight after graduating.

There is of course, nothing inherently good about house ownership.

I have cousins in European countries who are entirely happy to rent through out their lives. It makes it much easier for them to move around, conveniently in order to boost career prospects. The local laws governing house rentals, both the standards required and the security of tenancies, ensure that it is an entirely sensible choice, much like leasing rather than buying cars.

I honestly share OP's concern about the future for young people, all young people who will be the ones working to fund the companies in which my private pension is currently invested.

When we came to buy, although we could get a 100% mortgage our multiples didn’t add up and we were quite a lot short of being able to afford anything. This was before minimum wage, the internet and Rightmove,
We then spent a year working every job we could and not spending on anything that wasn’t completely necessary. It was the only way to make up the shortfall between the mortgage and the price of the cheapest , tiniest and grottiest studio flat we bought.

I think at one point I was doing 6 jobs (2 of them were classed as full time)

I have cousins in European countries who are entirely happy to rent through out their lives. It makes it much easier for them to move around, conveniently in order to boost career prospects. The local laws governing house rentals, both the standards required and the security of tenancies, ensure that it is an entirely sensible choice, much like leasing rather than buying cars

I am in rented atm and have heard in the past that renting is so flexible compared to buying but I don’t find that at all.

I think it is extortionately expensive and there is a lack of choice. To the point I am so fed up with paying out a huge chunk of money we are moving into a 1 bed flat I am just finishing renovating.

I think every time the government tries to penalise LLs all it does is make it more expensive and harder for those that rent.