to own a property you have to work before children

[oohlaalaa]

My cousin was bemoaning the fact her and her husband are still renting, my mum said to me after that's what happens when you have children young. She should have worked for a few years first, to get savings / mortgage.

My cousin did a degree in social work, and as soon as she graduated she and her now husband got engaged, travelled for six months, then married, and soon after that had two children. They had their first child at 23 and 24. He works full-time, but not in a very well paid job. Cousin has two lovely children and works part-time as a carer. They live in a sweet little cottage, and although they have to be frugal, always seem very happy.

Is my mum right? My mum feels that her niece should have worked and saved for a few years, before children. Mum's view is that her niece chose to have children young, and so has to accept renting for foreseable future.

My mum and Dad married at 21 and 22 respectively, but delayed children till they were 29 and 30. My parents reckon this was the best decision they ever made, as they paid off a large chunk of mortgage (my brothers the eldest and he was born in 1980).

I've been broody for years, but DH has kept delaying children due to finances. He has agreed to start TTC next year though (I'll be 29, and he'll be 34).

Do you agree with my mum, or is she being judgemental?

I was 27 when I bought a 50% share in a small two bedroom flat with a friend of mine. Had my first child at 38. I agree with your mum.

Am a wee bit tired of people moaning that they can't afford to buy an average 3 bed semi for their families on their average salaries. Well, guess what, neither could we when we started out. But we could afford a small flat in a shabby area and commuted in to work on second hand bicycles because we couldn't afford the bus fare and always made our own lunches. Bye eck as like.

What's wrong with renting?? Far cheaper these days than having a mortgage round your neck.

Bibbity I would be dead happy with a shabby one bed flat, trust moi. Agree that 'tis annoying when people seem nto to realise you have to start somewhere.

ANd before anyone says "Well why don't you leave the city you belong to and everyone you know and love and the history of generations of your families and think about moving somewhere cheaper" - we are, indeed, thinking of doing just that. With great sadness though.

Thepower - I actually quite like renting. But it's a bit unsettling knowing that you can be out on your ear given little notice, and of course one doesn't want to rent into retirement/dotage.

Also, I am sort of sick of magnolia

I live in hope the government will wise up to the fact that we need better regulation for tenants, and can have a more European style set up with very long leases/better security/the ability to put shelves up and whatnot.

What your mum and dad did a generation ago is pretty much irrelevant as the equations for owning property have changed so much. I live in London and despite working for 10 years now, if I was to wait til I could own a house before having children I'd be in my 50s and infertile.

Reading these reports of 'I got a mortgage at 23 on the basis of my temp/minimum wage salary' seems like stories from a far away fantasy magic wonderland from where I'm sitting.

JodieHarsh, yes, we should at least be allowed shelves

The value of a 2 bed terrace (busy main road in an industrial part of town) similar to the first one we bought is now £60,000. That is about double what we paid. So a couple leaving school at 18 but continuing to live with their parents would need to save £1,000 of their salary each for 3 years to put down a £6,000 deposit at 21. If they had a joint income of £22,000 at age 21, they could buy the house for 2.5 times their income and have a child at 22.

It so personal - there's no way you can make sweeping statements about 'the rights and wrongs' of it...

I know right?

We've been renting for so long now that I kind of don't care. The walls are covered in pictures and I shamelessly breach my tenancy contract by

I live in the south east, of Scotland though to be fair, lol.

I think it's house prices that are the issue, which of course is hugely affected by where you live. I'm in a 3 bed semi and I know they go now for about £120 k. Like I said we bought it 10 yeats ago and it was loads cheaper then.

I also bought my first house when i was 18, no deposit etc, we moved up the property ladder. When i say 'we' as i was a SAHM, the mortgage on our last place went in my DH's name. We were of the generation that was mis-sold an endownment mortgage, when my DH became ill, it all went pear shaped (to complicated to go into), so i have ended up renting, did so just before he died. I don't know if this could still happen, though, but most of the people i see via my voluntary job whose life has been torn apart, has been because of illness.

You don't own your house until it is paid for, the lenders do, you only get to remain in it whilst you can pay the mortgage, if it works out, you are very lucky, but there's no guarantee.

Many are forced or want to take low paid jobs, rather than be out of work, so they cannot borrow enough to buy.

Where i live, houses don't sell, so there is little point in starting off small, that does not work in every area. I also, wish we could have a better renting system in the UK.

MillyR I don't think there are many places where you could buy a house for £60,000. I've just had a look on rightmove and in my area prices are between £114,000 and £156,000 for a 1 bedroomed apartment. We are in the SE but not too near London.

There are a lot of towns in the North where you can be in commuting distance via public transport of major cities and buy a two bed house for under £60,000.

I agree with her in that yes, having children very young before you can afford to buy a property may mean you won't be able to. After all, children keep costing don't they?

I'm not sure she means it to be judgemental - it's just stating a fact surely? If you have children before buying a property and aren't in a very well paying job, then you are unlikely to be able to save a deposit.

Only really now - obviously situation was different a few years ago when you could get a mortgage with no deposit

I think that your Mum is speaking with outdated information. Before the recession and the crackdown this would have probably been quite true, now though it is quite wide of the mark. For instance, to buy a house worth £150,000 now (less than the average price of a home I should say) most banks will ask you for a deposit of £30,000 before giving you a mortgage. So whilst a lot of couples (myself and DP included) can afford the mortgage repayments, the cost of living is so high now that even though we spent many, many months living off the bare minimum, putting on jumpers instead of heating, paying minimum in rent that we could in our area, buying the value food instead of branded stuff, we still can't afford the deposit. It would take us at least 10 years of living on next to nothing with our combined salary. This is the situation most people in their 20s are facing now. DP and I decided in the end that we weren't going to put our lives on hold for a house that we were unlikely to ever be able to afford and are now happily renting and expecting our first baby.
Unless you have parents who can help you out or are able to live with them rent-free for years whilst saving a deposit, a deposit is just beyond the reach of most people now. I expect that your cousin and her husband are probably very aware of this and have come to the same decision that DP and I did.

Milly that's also supposing a genuinely extraordinary single minded-devoted pair of teens, who presumably have no debts, and are blessed with parents who will bear with them living with them for years, and live in a majickal land of property for tuppence

I guess it's possible but it's very, very far from the norm.

Thepower, renting is not cheaper. Our mortgage on a 3 bed semi is 150 per month, if we were renting it, it would cost at least 1500 per month. Even if interest rates went up to 6%, our mortgage would still be less than renting, at around 850 per month.

the problem with renting is that you can be slung out with just 2 months notice so isn't stable for bringing up kids.

we rent. ds was due to start infant school in sept, LL gave notice begining of august, there were no suitable houses available in the area so we have to move miles from the school. now we have to hope we can get him into the new school in sept at short notice, although why bother, we could be on the move again in 6 months time.

And yes there are houses you can buy for £60k (ours was bought for £85k 5 years ago) but that doesn't mean your salary is necessarily proportionate, or that cost of living is way below another more expensive area!

It is normal in my family Jodie. We all live in Northern towns and expected to have children young so behaved accordingly. I think it is quite normal for children of 21 to still be living at home. If anything it is more common than it was a generation ago.

I've just looked at where my brother lives and a 3 bed former council house is £35,000 and within easy commuting distance of two cities.

I agree that if you want to buy, you probably do need to work before having kids, and also acknowledge that if sacrifices need to be made (and I include looking at cheaper areas in that). It is tough though

We were very lucky that we bought when we did.

DH bought our first house aged 19 & 20. DH worked and I had worked full time for a year before starting uni - what I saved from my wages covered our deposit.

We then bought our house and I continued to work 22 hours a week while at uni and full time in the holidays - my student overdraft, loan and credit card went on covering any shortfall, so I still ended up with the same debt as if I had led a more 'traditional' student life.

The only thing my parents did was pay my fees (in the days of £1400 a year fees, but they had to be paid up front) and occasionally lend us £50 till pay day.

It did mean a lot of compromise - rarely going out, certainly forgoing any kind of traditional student life - but it was totally worth it.

When I graduated, we then continued to save to get married a couple of years later and didn't have our first DD until I was 27.

As for Jodie's list, the only one of those that was true for us was the first one.

Milly do you live in a Catherine Cookson novel?!

Sorry, I'm being cheeky. I realise people do things differently. But 'tis a whole nother story when you got to uni, get up to your eyes in debt through no fault of your own, and cannot save so much as tuppence owing to debt repayments that total the rent of some (general financial advice being that it is better to pay off debt than to save, since the interest paid on a debt is higher than that accrued on savings). And it's not my bloody fault I'm a Londoner. To buy a very small 2 bed flat in a rough area we would need a 20% deposit, totally (in the case of the flat we currently rent) £60k. Yes: SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS.

Meh . There are worse things in this world than magnolia walls.

at "big fat swinging bollocks"

I agree with that marvellous phrase.

We are renting, and yes it's a shame we don't own, we'd love to some day, but then I think that if we had waited longer we wouldn't have the DCs we have now! We figured if we'd bought a house first then we both would've had to work FT, and it was important to both of us that in the early years one of us would be a SAHP (it's been me until recently, we've now swapped). Not a judgement at all on others - lots of my friends are living at home until they can afford a mortgage, but they don't want DCs for a while anyway. But we made our choice and I'm happy with it, we just want to doss about with our babies for a while and have modest fun together rather than worrying about a mortgage. :)

I'm just waiting for someone to say "I ate nothing but cowpats for a decade so I could buy a flat in the poisoned deserted lands adjacent to a damaged nuclear power station, and so we'll have none of your moaning missy."

And I do conceded that I eaten nothing but cowpats for a decade I would possibly own a shoe cupboard on Murder Mile in Clapton, and be able to wear skinny jeans. I'm a fool to myself: really I am.

Well, the average house price in the UK - for the whole country - is £228,095. The cheapest houses on average are terraced houses at £187,006 so MillyR's teenage couple buying a house for £60k would be as rare as hen's teeth, really. Also, their £6k savings wouldn't be enough for a deposit. They'd need £12k at a minimum and then probably a further £6k to pay for fees, any house repairs/maintenance and some furniture, even cheap stuff. That's one very wealthy teenage couple! I had £1,500 savings when I left university, saved up from a part-time job in a bookshop, and thought I was rolling in it. Most of it disappeared on paying a deposit, rent and just getting by in the new city I moved to for my first graduate job. That's more akin to the reality of life for most young people I know leaving either school or university.

I think a lot of people are out of touch with how priced out most young people in the UK are now. You could work for 10 years, saving and planning and putting off having a family, and still be no better off than a couple who had children at 22 and are still renting 10 years later. We put off TTC for a couple of years longer than we hoped in order to save up a deposit for a house without family help. It was stressful and not something we wanted to do but renting is so insecure, I couldn't contemplate being turfed out at e.g. 8 months pregnant having to look for a flat like some character from a Victorian novel. We are now expecting our first in October and have almost finished work to the house we bought last year, nursery ready to go etc. I regret waiting as long as we did sometimes (now aged 33 and 31) but don't feel like we had much of a choice, really.