To ask how you managed to buy a house?

[ditziness]

We pay close to a grand rent a month. It's of our friend's mortgages are cheaper. As a consequence it's very difficult to save. But save we must to tryand get a deposit. So we have to continue to rent

Stuck in a vicious circle.

How the hell did you manage to buy a house?

Any financial, deposit raising, mortgage getting advice welcome

Couldn't have said it better Fergus.

I'd like kids. But mat leave and then nursery fees would mean an end to the £1,000 we have just started saving every month for a deposit. (only at five grand now) And then a bigger place means even less savings...

I'm 30. It's house or kids for us. We'll have kids but in the meantime we'll kid ourselves we can save the 20% deposit we need for somewhere (2 bed flat down my road just went for £350k. )

And, before someone says "move out of London!", our friends, family and careers are here.

Exactly how much do you need to live in London? Because we earn good salaries and apparebtky we can't.

Well said Fergus.

Fergus I think you've hit the nail on the head

I know I'm supposed to say this (sigh) BUT my parents generation had it much much easier

Just like I have it much easier because I graduated/bought a house 7 or 8 years before my brother

The chasm between those three generations is huge - my parents lived off my dad's wages (just!), mum sahm.

Then I graduated, could just - just -afford to get a place of my own within a couple of years... if I'd left it 5 or 6 years later, the house price ratios and student debt would have been the 2 nails in the coffin for my plans.

That's it, really - but the real kicker is that my parents go on and on about their pensions being devalued! Which I know they have been. BUt they do forget they have had many many things that my brother's generation will never have.

It's like they don't make the connection between the legacy that they left and the generations coming after them.

I know DP and I can't afford to live here (London). We were earning appx 65k combined. Since having DS I've gone part time and most of what's left of my income goes on childcare. And we can't move out as cant currently leave our jobs and can't afford to commute in. That's why we're squeezed into one room at my parents' house.

I married a man that came with a house.
My dad advanced my youngest brother £50k of his future inheritance. Therefore when my dad passes away my youngest brother will get £50k less. This was the best way to give him the cash according to the solicitor. No way he and his girlfriend could of done it otherwise.

ditziness which area are you in? sorry if you've already said

OK, I can appreciate some people don't want to move out of London and I wouldn't dream of telling someone to do so, but could I just point out that a 2 bed room house down the road from me is going for £45,000. That's with a garden. I know your career, family and friends are nearby - but my DH lives 350 miles from his family and friends. People's jobs take them all over. Absolutely not my business, but cities are very cosmopolitan. Try Leeds, or Sheffield, Manchester, etc. and you may find you are able to buy. And you can visit family and friends. Being squeezed into one room of your parents house must be terribly difficult and stressful. Good luck anyway!

We only managed it (in outer London) because of advances on inheritances. DP had a granny who saved and saved ( I am still not sure quite how they saved so much given their working-class occupations.....) and his parents gave him a tidy figure after she died.

My parents did likewise when my lovely, single, frugal, childless uncle died quite young.

About a month before our windfall we had been seriously considering moving to my home town (in the north) and DP undertaking a 4 hour round-trip commute 4 days out of 5. Thank heavenly GOD we didn't have to do that in the end.

We had a 50% deposit in the end, but it is still tight meeting our mortgage on one salary (or two minus childcare deductions). We are not exactly living a lavish lifestyle altho we do go abroad for holidays and eat out once every fortnight or so.

I salute those of you living in one room in your parents' houses. If that were me I would have bailed out to another city far, far away from the south-east long ago. The time when you have young kids is fantastic for making new friends and a perfect time to move (before school starts getting in the way)

What's amazing is how hard it is even when you do have the generosity of parents etc. Yes, my ILs' incredibly generous 'advance' means we have a nice (though by no means flashy) house with a small mortgage, and that I can stay at home with the kids, for the moment at least (one is still pre-school). But we still find things pretty tight on one income (limited holidays, have to think very carefully before accepting an invitation for a night out etc), and that's after we both worked and saved bloody hard for ten years pre kids. God knows how we'd be managing if it weren't for the money we were given.

We had 50% shared ownership 2 bed flat through a housing association back in 1989. Shortly after we moved in the housing market collapsed. We were in negative equity for 13 years.
Were lucky that when we had to move (I'd had a third baby) that flats were in high demand in our area, and selling like hotcakes...however we had to move 250 miles away to buy a property within our means, because we still only had a 50% share. So in 2003 we bought a £45,000 house in East Yorkshire...where we still are to this day.(But happier, even though we still have to struggle for money.)
I really don't recommend shared ownership. Especially as the rent part has a habit of going up every year, as well as the chances that your mortgage will as well. It was actually a nightmare.

My parents gave us 30k in 2001 as a gift. We had saved the rest over 10 years by living very stingily while renting (between the ages of 20 and 30). We bought a decent, but not amazing, house with no mortage.

I am very grateful to my parents. They never mention the amount of ££ they gave me (and my brother and sister) as a gift. And they gave us (and my brother and sister) so much more than just money over all these years. Yes, I know I'm lucky (no boasting, just grateful).

Dh had a flat to remortage for £35k deposit, we both had good salaries and the mortgage people loved us for those qualities. We didn't overstretch ourselves, bought something (a 2 bed railway cottage) well within our limits, in 2004, which we thought had good resale value (nice area, garden, good transport). We then sold that two years later for a decent price and bought a larger house in a decent, but not very popular area nearby. Since then, the area has gentrified massively and had we been buying now, we wouldn't be able to afford our house - two kids, part time salary etc. I thank our luck and dh's property sense every day. Life in London would be unbearable without my little oasis (even when it's filled with plastic tat and splattered with food).

90% mortgage on 100k house in 1999. Joint income of 60k back then at the ages of 27 & 30 respectively so a rather conservative purchase in comparison to others at the time! We saved the deposit ourselves - life before dc so lots of disposable income. Now living in our 4th home worth approx 750k (recently completed major renovation & extension) with 200k mtg serviced by 6 figure household income. Our pattern is one of not overextending ourselves and overpaying but mostly by living modestly relative to our income.

DH and I managed to buy our first home in London this year without any help from parents or inheritance. We're in our early 30s. He's on a good salary, but more importantly, he's saved over half of his income since graduating, meaning he had to flatshare into his 30s, not spend loads on gadgets, not run a car etc. So he'd raised a 35% deposit. I am on a much lower salary than him so I would never be able to save as much as he has, and I can't flatshare as I have a dd.

My parents are on a much lower salary than DH and would never be able to afford to give/lend us any money if we needed to. If I'd married someone on a much lower salary, we'd probably have had to leave London, or at least move further to the outskirts. (And I have to admit that would probably have been a dealbreaker for a relationship for me...)

I bought my first house in 2001 in Bedfordshire. I'm from there, and worked in London anyway, so commuted.
I managed to save for a deposit by living at home with my parents, and working weekends to avoid going out spending money.
It worked with me, as sold my house in 2007 for more than twice what I paid for it. Moved in with my dh and reduced that mortgage considerably. Don't have any debts apart from that small mortgage now.

We've just bought a house. DH took voluntary redundancy a couple of years ago which gave us enough for 10% deposit on a modestly priced house, way way out in the suburbs of Sydney.

Mortgage payments are higher than our rent was, but not too much because we borrowed a lot less than we could have.

We lived a pretty hedonistic lifestyle pre-dc, and chose (I'm sure many would say unwisely) to spend our income travelling and partying instead of saving for the future.

We have two dc now and I'm a sahm. I don't think we would ever have managed to save a deposit without the redundancy. Consequently we're old for first home buyers (late 30's/early 40's).

I know DH regrets not buying in the 90's when he was able to though.

Borrowed £9k from PIL in 2006 for a 5% deposit to buy our first 1 bedroom London flat (year after we married).

Sold it 17 months later after it had made a 30%(!) return! I got a very well paid job (almost doubled salary to £60k). DH also promoted but not quite as much! Paid back PIL their loan, and used profit from flat and our new salaries for larger income multiples to upgrade to 3 bedroom house (in London, but not in a particularly good area). The market then crashed about 2 months later and it's taken about 5 years to get the house back up to the value we paid for it. However we have been over-paying the mortgage for those 5 years so we have about £100k equity in it now.

2.5 years ago we went abroad and have been renting it ever since, but soon we will have to return to it. It seemed like a palace before we left, but we only had one child and one dog when we left, now we have 3 children and 2 dogs! And one income as I stopped working to have the kids... eeek, not sure when we will next be able to step up the ladder...

Really little DCs dont care about living in a nice big house in a nice area. That is not for their benefit but yours.

The clear message from this thread is that to give your DCs the security they needyou need to sacrifice space, condition and area. As long as it is safe and not damp/infested they will be happy.

I bought my first flat within 6 months of getting my first graduate job. I used my graduate overdraft to pay the 5% deposit. I could see house prices speeding away from me and that if I hadnt acted fast I would lose my only chance. Friends who wanted to stay in their private lets in posh areas and holiday and party missed the boat and now have housing costs double mine.

But my first flat was so bad that some friends wouldnt even come visit. It was in a 'bad' inner city area and was tiny with artex everywhere, no heating at all, single glazing, no window in bathroom, non white bathroom suite, 20 year old kitchen, none of which I could afford to remedy. But it was so incredibly better then having a private landlord.

We have always had a direct debit that comes out of our account straight after payday and goes into a savings account - that way we can't spend it.

We did also manage to get a 100% mortgage (pre financial crisis, about 5yrs ago). Though we're not in negative equity it means we probably can't afford to move for another 5 years, but we still think it's better than paying someone else's mortgage...

In the mid 1980's, my DH and I saved £3,000 for a deposit (after renting for two years) and got an almost 100% mortgage buying a small terrace for £24,000. It needed some doing up, but when we sold it, we got £60,000, so after paying back the bank, we came out with nearly £17,000 each.

I put mine (we divorced), as a deposit on a flat, taking £2,000 for repairs, furniture etc. but the market plumetted in 1990 and I got out of the property before it went negative and lost all my £15,000 deposit :(, but at least I didn't owe the bank.

Rented for years, in what I would call very basic (partner now calls fridges!) properties, saved up again. Met someone who had also been saving, never bought and had rented. Pooled resources to buy a very rundown property, the plan to live in it and do it up. Suddenly his parents both died, which meant we suddenly had a little money to finish the house, we did however put off having children because we couldn't afford it, so we have an 8 year old and all our friends have kids going to Uni!!! It is now worth over £600,000. However, I would give it all up if I thought we could have his parents back.

We are lucky enough to have rich relatives who lent us 4 grand for the deposit. We had 3k saved up, my grandma lent us 3k, ILs lent us 1k. Our mortgage is £350pm.

We are in London.

DH bought his first property jointly with his brother in 2002 - DH was just out of uni, BIL was still at uni. Obviously, the deposit was money from their parents. DH had a city job and used salary to (over)pay his share of mortgage, and had a flatmate who paid BIL's share of mortgage. (Lucky BIL!)

I bought my first property in 2005, 2 years post uni. Had a city job, and I lived with parents and lived pretty frugally for those 2 years (combination of silly hours at work and natural frugality!), so was able to save a good deposit.

So, parental contribution has played a large part, either directly in my DH's case or in the form of free accommodation in my case. The other large factor is having a City salary and frugal lifestyle (= ability to save a lot).

I'm afraid my honest answer is that I married someone with money. Although that's not the reason I married him, obviously. I'd never have afforded it by myself.

Saved a lot - 1/3 of salary for years 5 +, had family money mixture of gifts and inheritance. Also bought in a cheaper area - spent less on house here than friends spent on one bed flat in London - and a house that need a lot of work - not sure that was a good idea in end as its cost more and taken longer than we first thought.

We were both over 30 as well and both avoided tuition fees. We couldn't wait any longer as DC were getting to school age. We couldn't wait to have them as I was warned there may be issues conceiving - which turned out to be wrong but we didn't wish to take the risk.

We had 40 K in the end and the first few years after buying were bloody hard financially still.

We are now stuck still doing a house up which has gone down in in value which we are still having to spend money on to get a decent value to sell it. We are also worried about how we'll afford the next house where DH now works which we be a lot smaller and cost a lot more. It hasn't stopped being bloody hard yet.

ditziness - if you are in London I suggest you start looking at jobs outside for one or other of you and think about the career impact. The wages would be less but the cost of living and cost of accommodation might well mean you'd be much better of financially. TBH most people I know who did stay and have DC in London end up moving much further out then facing silly commute times or moving the jobs to other cities- for house sizes and school reasons. Not sure how common that is though.