To want DH to ask his dad if he would consider lending us some money so we can afford the deposit on a house...?

[josben]

hi, just wanted a general opinion on this... we are currently between houses (staying with my mum) and we probably need to borrow an extra £5,000 to afford a 4 bed house that we have seen in the town where we live.

But having paid off debts and moving expenses we are roughly £5,000 short of being able to afford a house we want... But DH does not want to ask his dad, and I can't ask my mum as she has no spare money...

I would rather not have to do it but if we don't I feel we will never find a house... we have been looking for 6 months!

We have never asked for or have been given any money from his dad before ...

The first time I had a bed to myself was when I went to uni at age 18. It wasn't great but I "survived" so hey ho, your kids will survive sharing a room. Buy a house you can afford and if you don't have the extra £5k it means you can't afford it.

By giving you very cheap rent, your mum did subsidise you and really you could have saved up then.

We were never given money by parents for anything including buying house - since you asked.

YABU. Either have your children share and realise you're adults and should provide what YOU think your children should have, or look elsewhere for a house. Why did you have three kids if you want somebody else to bail you out for an unneccesary bedroom?

Fuck me! Just seeing you're living with your mum - you have 3 kids FGS! YOU should provide a home for them. You shock me.

I am in awe of the poor parent who has to put up with a family of 5 staying for six months so far and gawd knows how many more months going forward. The ILs might think the £5k was cheap at the price :)

YABU. If you want the money, you should ask him. I think it's also unreasonable to expect that each child should have their own bedroom unless you can clearly afford it.

You don't mean lend do you, you mean give - because if you've been unable to save anything in 6 months of bloody cheap living, you sure won'tbe saving enought to pay inlaws back when you've spent more on the house.

I think you need to be nice to your mum, get a grip on your finances and move house when you've demonstrated you can afford the house you want.

If the bank won't lend you any more money, I presume it's because they don't think you would be in a position to pay it back. Given that you don't exactly have a brilliant track record of living frugally and saving carefully, I would say that there isn't a chance in hell of you being able to pay your fil back. Your DH probably knows this, and quite reasonably, doesn't want to ask for a £5000 handout. Very sensible.

Some people get help from their parents, many more don't - yabu to think this is the norm. It might be tough, but you need to live within your means.

Just an aside btw, and i don't mean to be rude, but you do sound very young - are we allowed to ask how old you are?

Agree with most of the other posters- like
some have said, you've been in a position to save for a while and you've known you're looking in a pricey area, but didn't put anything by? Crazy. Fair dos, you paid off some cards etc., kudos for that!

What I would suggest is, instead of looking for your "dream/forever house", get something smaller with the potential to extend. This will reduce the mortgage, allowing you to (hopefully!) save to fund a loft conversion or similar in the near future. It also means that if interest rates do go up, you have a bit of breathing space with repayments.

One thing that the last few years should've taught us is that overstretching yourself is a bad idea. The kids sharing a room for a few years isn't the end of the world, and infinitely better than watching their parents cripple themselves financially for the sake of an extra bedroom.

Owning your own home is a luxury
Having 3 children is a luxury, especially if you expect them to have a room each.

YABVU.

You are over extending simply by the fact that you are basing your sums on current interest rates.

They are minimal, for which I am v grateful! but they will go up again so your mortgage payments will go up too.

Buy a smaller, cheaper house and factor in a hike in interest rates in your budget.

Kids would rather share a bedroom than be in a B&B in 3 years because mum and dad took on a debt they couldnt afford.

you don't NEED a 4 bedroomed house you WANT one. Going into debt to pay for WANTS is the reason for a lot of peoples financial misery at this time.

....UABU not to mention entitled, spoilt, brattish and all the other stuff that deep down you know.

Op i don't mind admitting that my dad gave me tge money for the deposit. In fact he found tge house too, wonders just how much dad wanted me to move out of home . But that said it was £7k and tgat was the total deposit not extra towards and because he had seen a lovely little house, round tge corner from them, and felt it was perfect for me. It had to have a total refurb, central heating put in, wiring, replastered etc was not in a state to move in and I borrowed tge money for tgat from the bank and the house should be worth more than I got it for even with drops in tge housing Market. The thing is I never asked and had said I would pay him back when we sold the house. You haven't said how you would be planning on paying it back.

Honestly- if you have been living rent free for 6 months and still haven't managed to save, then it doesn't bode well. It sounds like you are going to try to push yourselves to the limit with a mortgage, as well as wanting money off your in laws. You realise interest rates WILL go up ?

If you haven't managed to save any money in the six months where your 'housing' costs are just £420 per month, how are you actually going to pay the mortgage?

Be very careful, work out what you can afford by adding on at least an extra 5% interest. Current interest rates here are at about 7% so we calculated ours assuming that at some point they would probably be around 15%.

Do I live in the biggest house in the best area? Nope, but it is just fine and even better than that we can afford it and afford to increase the offset a little each month so we pay less interest and also reduce the length of the loan.

Seriously aim for waaaaaaaay under what you think you can afford. Kids share, my two don't need to but they choose to because they like being together.

Don't ask your FIL for the money, IME money and family don't mix.

Never had any financial help from parents, have never needed it, DH and I met early on in our lives and spent most of our twenties banking as much as possible in preparation for the kids.

This is about want not need. You can,t afford a 4 bedroom house and that's the end of it really. Judging by how you handle finances I think you need to lower your sights a bit! A 3 bed needing some work may be better and you can do bits as you save

This makes me laugh, everyone mithering on about what you do and don't need. We could all manage in a mud hut if push came to shove but how many of you do ?
4 beds is essential with 3 children, for the downstairs space as much as anything else.

I know many people with 3 children but few with 4 bed houses! And most fairly well off too.

And I know many with 3 children in 5 bedroomed houses so that proves nothing at all.
I am all for smaller houses myself on the basis that the money you save heating and maintaining them goes on holidays but I would go crackers if my DC didn't have their own rooms personally, maybe the OP feels the same way.

Didn't OP say they've been paying off credit cards? it may be that they've been spending say £500 a month on this and have now got it cleared. If so, they wouldn't have had any spare money for saving until now, and they may well have made the more sensible long term choice anyway. Unless the cards were in 0% interest period.

I do understand the 4 bed argument in that it costs money to move again in the future. But if the DC are quite young, there might easily be a decade before the separate rooms issue rears its head. Fwiw, even teenagers don't actually require their own room. Its nice, but not worth messing up the family finances over.

Lastly, some 4 bed houses are in the lowest council tax band. My parents live in one. This is a very cheap area though.

The OP can feel however she wants.

Doesn't change the numbers, numbers don't care about feelings.

Of course it does it's fine if you can afford it. You may go crackers? Unlikely.I think it is preferable to have a life and not live to pay a mortgage.

Heswall, 4 bedrooms might be ideal for 3 kids, but if the op can't afford it, she will have to manage with less. Or if the space is non-negotiable, she'll need to look in a cheaper area. That's not mithering, it's just basic economics.

And the advice not to overstretch herself on the mortgage is very sound. Interest rates will go up, and if she hasn't factored this in, she may find that they struggle with the repayments. Yes, we could all manage in a mud hut if needs be, but I'd have thought a 3 bedroom house is preferable to being made homeless.

Laugh all you like, but we all have to cut our cloth according to what we can afford.

If you havnt saved anything in 6 months at your mums house, then I think you are over stretching yourself. 6 months of no mortgage you should of saved quite a bit. I agree about getting some sort of spending diary, where has your money been going?

I totally agree with your dh, he isn't willing to ask his dad, as you can't ask your mum.

My dh was given 10k at 22 to buy his first house, he paid his dad £500 a month until it was all paid back.

This is all about affordability not desire.