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

We inherited 15k from DMIL when she died. It was the only way we could have ever afforded to buy. It makes me very sad that in order for us to give our DD a stable home she had to never meet her grandmother. But at the same time, I know she'd be so happy that she was able to help us out like that. It's a fucked up world where two professionals in their late 20s who've been saving for years and years still couldn't buy a house without parental help.

DH and I each had 5k savings when we got married. That was the deposit on our first tiny 1-bed flat in 1999. We have moved 3 times since then, now in a 3 bed house, won't be moving again if we can help it.

Bought in 2007 when mortgages were handed out like sweets. Lived with parents before getting married, so no major outgoings, although we both had badly-paid jobs tbh (to give you an idea, our mortgage for a two bedroom ex-housing association flat in a cheap area of the country was 4.5 times our joint income). We each saved up around 1/3 of the deposit of 11k, then parents and grandparents stumped up the rest by way of wedding presents. The recession coupled with our tracker mortgage has meant that it remains cheap.

It's going to be very hard to move to a family home, though, as we want to do in the next couple of years.

The area you live in does matter to small children. It arguably matters more to them than to adults, because everything you do is within walking distance: so you take them swimming, to playgroups, to the park, to the local shops, to the library etc, all day every day (as opposed to working adults who hop on a bus or train and spend most of their waking hours wherever they work and maybe go out a lot in the evenings).
There is a huge difference in quality of life for those little people who are so close to the texture of their physical surroundings. I grew up in Merseyside in the 70s and 80s and everything was broken, graffitied, literally shitty. There were boarded up windows, whole rows of shops closed up and smashed up where no one could run a business, needles on the ground at playgrounds, overflowing bins, litter and dogshit everywhere, it was depressing. I don't want my children to live in a place where everything is either locked up or smashed up. I don't want my children to go to a primary school like mine.

I bought my first one when I was twenty two so a while ago.
I don't know if they still do this but worth looking into but when I bought they took the amount between what the house was on the market for and what I offered and made that the deposit as "seller pays deposit"
I.e. the house was marketed as 29,000 I offered 26,000. So there was a 3,000 deposit paid by seller.

I wouldn't disagree vezzie - the area we bought was no where near that bad and we did considered the amenities when we bought. Though since then some of them have gone.

Its not so good as they get older, secondary still bad despite new staff and new initiatives, less activities in immediate area for their ages and public transport buses and trains very expensive. Starting to have doubts about how good the teaching actually is at the friendly Primary. Don't feel it safe for the DC to wander round by themselves - something they''ll want to start doing in a few years.

So definitely be cautious about cheaper areas - but there are good places with good quality environments much cheaper than London prices.

We were lucky enough to buy in 1996,when prices were very low.We had a huge 3 bedroomed period house with a 100ft garden and it cost £45k.I remember panicking about the huge sum of money we had borrowed,which seems silly now.Dh had £5k saved as a deposit and the mortgage was £220 a month.We lived there 10 years,did it up and sold it in 2005 for £145k.

We used that money to buy a very dilapidated house in a lovely village in the area I grew up in,and are very slowly upgrading it.We are overpaying the mortgage and hope to be free of it in the next 7 years.Each time DH has a pay rise,he puts the 'extra' money into savings rather than raising our living standards/buying more stuff.I'm self employed and have an irregular income so don't manage to save much,but we live within our means.

lived with parents and then saved the same amount as it costs to live (i.e. mortgage, bills, etc) each month. soon saved up a hefty deposit and also had no 'shock' when we did move in as we had been storing away that money anyway.
Have friends who move back to their very understanding parents between house purchases as well so they can sell up without a chain and buy a do-er upper. Its not easy but well worth it.

Cassandra, it was margerykemp who said rather sniffily, "it is for your benefit, not theirs" - I really disagree, I knew people when I was growing up whose parents wouldn't let me take public transport to visit because they thought the area they lived in was unfit for teenagers to wander about in, and their children were like princes in the tower, isolated lonely de-skilled intellectuals surrounded by wood panelling and music rooms inside, and smashed up desolate streets outside, being driven everywhere or not going out, just because their parents wanted 6 bedrooms and somewhere to put the baby grand when they could have got a nice semi on a semi-decent bus route and their children could have gone out under their own steam now and then.

I'm agonising a lot because we'll be doing school applications soon and thinking about schools and children's social lives gives me The Fear.

Bought our first flat in London 1999, with a £5K deposit, which we'd saved and sold in 2003 for a 77K profit. Used that to buy our 3-bed semi just out of London, where we still are. Can't move yet, but will move when I am working again.

vezzie I didn't read margery's post as saying kids don't care at all about area or big house. I read it as saying kids would prefer a secure i.e. owned home which is smaller/in a worse area, rather than a rented home which is bigger or in a better area.

Don't know if I agree or not really. I don't have much experience of renting, and none with kids, so no idea what the downsides are.

I agree with you that if it's a choice between smaller home in a better area or a bigger home in a really bad area, I'd choose the former.

We both worked two jobs (daytime and evenings and weekends) and saved and saved and saved. Saved £17k over about two years (3k was inheritance after family death) which was 10% deposit on our first (small, needing total refurbishment, in non-trendy part of London) flat. This was in 2004. We have moved twice since then (first to a small house in London with a much bigger mortgage, second to a much bigger house in Norfolk with a much smaller mortgage!).

If (big if) nothing disastrous happens to our finances we should be mortgage-free by the time the kids leave home. At which point we will sell this house, buy a little bungalow and spend the remainder on gin.

We bought our flat in 2007 with no deposit but took out a 125% mortgage to clear some debt too. Worst decision we've ever made. We're now stuck with about £30k negative equity so can't sell. Then MIL passed away and we used DH's inheritance (not a lot) as a deposit on a house. We've now got the house and the flat but the flat costs us a fortune. We're hoping that eventually we'll break even on it and sell it but we got a 35 year mortgage. Wish we hadn't bought it.

I opened a bank account and started saving (very small sums) when I had a paper round aged 13 years old then I had part time jobs in restaurants / call centres etc while I was a teenager / at uni and continued to save small amounts. So saving has always been something I have been brought up to do. I was also exceptionally careful with money while at uni and hardly ever bought new clothes and stuck to a really tight budget for food and socialising. This meant I managed to leave uni without any debt (except for student loan) unlike a lot of my friends who had large overdrafts to clear.

When I left uni (in 2005) I got a decent job and was able to save larger amounts. While I saved I lived in shared houses with up to 4 other people to make renting cheaper rather than renting my own flat and was really careful with my money. By 2011 I had saved enough money for a deposit and was earning enough to get a mortgage for the balance. My house is only small (two bed terrace) but I am proud of it and the fact that I managed to get on the property ladder all by myself with no help from anyone.

Tips that helped me with savings include: (1) to transfer money from my current account into savings account on pay day (ie. before I had chance to spend it!), (2) to work out a weekly / monthly budget and stick to it, (3) only to shop for clothes (a weakness of mine!) in discount stores such as TK Maxx or Ebay and only to buy stuff I will get a lot of wear out of (so not high fashion items that I will only wear once) (4) to sell all clothes I never wear anymore on Ebay.

Had my first child in 6th form aged 18, and lived with my parents. Went to Uni the following year and lived with my son in typical rented student flats. Met new partner and was pregnant with DD1 when I graduated into the 1993 recession.
Both unemployed, we returned to my home town where the local council nominated us for a 3 bed maisonette with a local housing association. This was a nice property in a lovely part of town, but it was pokey and had no garden.
A year later, DP got his first graduate job in London. He stayed with his parents and came home at weekends. Luckily, the housing association operated a scheme where they offered a grant of £10,000 if you bought a property and vacated theirs.
We couldn't afford to buy in London, but we bought a spacious 3 bed house with a large garden about an hour's commute away. We bought in 1995 and it cost £47k (£37k after the housing association had paid £10,000). We were very lucky.
Since then, we've created 2 additional rooms via a loft conversion, but we resisted the temptation to trade up in 2007 (just before the crash) and I'm so glad that we did!

I bought my first house with my DP nearly 10 years ago when I was 23. We'd both been made redundant that year, found other jobs quickly so used the money along with some savings to put down a deposit. We sold four years later when the prices had come down and although we didn't make much on our house we were able to afford a much bigger house and build an extension on it.

Didn't bother getting married, saved a fortune! That covered stamp and move costs.

Also DP got a really good redundancy deal and that was most of our deposit.

Yes we had a really cheap wedding (under £3k for everything inc honeymoon) as our priority was saving for a deposit.

We bought 8 years ago with a 100% mortgage in the days when they were available.

Sorry haven't looked at the whole thread, but have you looked at Shared Ownership OP? By the time you've paid rent and mortgage your outgoings might be similar to your rent, but part of it is going to the share you will "own". You can buy as little as 25% share, and you only have to raise a deposit on that part.

When DD (age 11) told me she was getting a job at 14 to start saving for a house I thought she was being very forward thinking. Now I realise she'll have to.

Gosh so depressing. Not sure I want to spend years living in poverty in a shit area just to become part of this broken system.

Currently looking at communes.

What are the rules on squatting these days?

Bought out 1st flat at 19 years old with DP. This was 2005. Deposit was £3k.

Sold that in 2010 and bought our house that we live in now having used a large £40k equity from the sale of flat.

Not all areas have been affected with reduced values.

We are now looking to move again 2 years after buying our houses and 3 agents have valued it at £65k more than we paid for it. That coupled with the deposit we had already put down means we are in good position to move again.

I used to regret buying our first flat at such a young age, but I'm very glad we did now as none of our friends are on the ladder yet and 99% still living with patents.

At 26/27 years old, I don't think that's a good thing

Not quite sure why I keep coming back to this thread. It just winds me up every time I read "...and it's gone up £50k in the last two years" or whatever. It's insane. All valued by estate agents and validates by banks etc. Broken system indeed.

Enjoy your profits for doing bugger all.

Yes, I am bitter!

We have always rented, been in the house we are in now for 5 years. I am nearly 40 and DH a bit younger. We have never earned much but save every month in order to be able to buy at some point. We can't borrow anything from family as they have no money to lend.

I do swing from being desperate to be in our own place to thinking what is the problem with just staying here and saving money (shabby Victorian semi with no central heating but cheap rent in a fab area with fab school almost next door and near to my work and Dh's). I know a few people at my workplace who are in the same position.

Was on a keyworker scheme in 2007 as I am a teacher but the funding ran out very quickly. You could borrow between 20% and 40% of the value of the property as a loan.

Also, because I have never had a mortgage, sometimes the thought of borrowing so much money freaks me out.

Saying that, we have paid out landlord £30,000 in the last 5 years which could have been a mortgage being paid off.

It does worry me sometimes and i would love the children to have a home that is ours.

FatFaced Not me, I spent around £40k closer to £50k doing up my house, which is currently for sale, and I'm struggling to make that back, let alone a profit. Estate agents seemed to be confident it would be worth £40k more than I originally paid for it, but no-one seems to be buying.