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

Our parents helped us with the deposit for our first house. We made 10k when we sold it in 2006 (which was tiny compared to what the previous 2 occupants had made out of it) which went towards the deposit on our current house.
6 six years later we'll be lucky if it is worth the same as it was back then. Our replayments are manageable, but the thing i don't understand is that it always costs money to get the mortgage deals and we always get them for 25 years so how does anyone actually pay them off? I feel that ours is going to be stuck at 100k forever. Am I being thick at not understanding this?

Also i keep wondering if renting could actually be better. we have all this stress to buy a home but what happens when you're elderly and you have to sell your home to afford care? We might not have anything to pass on to the kids and then what was the point of all the pain? We live in an ex local authority house and a lot of the elderly here have really good care in their homes provided by the state, would that be possible as a home owner? I don't know. i find it all very confusing and depressing.

Like others, a combination of luck and frugality.
I lived in shared houses when I started work, paid off the money I had borrowed to go backpacking then saved enough for a small deposit and the fees. Bought my first flat in 1996 for £72K, overpaid what I could on the mortgage and sold it about 8 years later for £250K.

OP as someone else has suggested, have you thought of looking for a shared ownership property through a housing association? You would buy a % for example 25% and then pay rent on the remainder (75%). You can increase your % share when you are ready by buying more of the ownership off the HA. Provided you pay the mortgage on your share and the rent on the HA share no one can ask you to move because you are an owner.

Otherwise you are going to either have to accept the fact you are going to live in rented accommodation or reduce your spending where you can.

Some info on shared ownership from one of the big providers in London
www.nottinghillhousing.org.uk/sales/about-shared-ownership/what-is-shared-ownership

I've bought a lovely house.

It has three bedrooms, a nice kitchen and bathroom, a spacious lounge. All the windows have little shutters and there is a nice balcony.

It is also made of wood and about two feet tall and my daughter has a very nice family of wooden dolls in it.

Thank you all, it's a very interesting thread.

I get the talk about frugality. We are frugal already or we couldn't pay our rent. Like I said the Main way we can be more frugal is to live in a really cheap crappy house. Difficult to do with two wee children, feel bad that they'll have no space, no garden and will go to a bad school. If only there was a way to rent that was stable, and that you had some control over then I wouldn't care.

The place we moved out of yesterday was infested with mice, it had been since we moved in 8 months ago. Nothing we did got rid of them, as the floor boards and skirting boards were in terrible repair. Landlord would not repair or investigate the source of the mice. Eventually we started getting bitten by mites living on the mice, had to endure infected bites and dermatitis on our children, wash or throw away everything we owned and put up with the stress and anxiety. And pay nearly a grand a month for it. And still the landlord wouldn't repair the place. We had no choice but to move. Horrible.

Yes looking at social housing and shared equity schemes, thanks. No family with money to lend sadly. Wish I did!

I bought my first place four years ago with shared equity. Couldn't have saved enough for deposit otherwise...

Lived frugally for years to afford mortgage. Sold flat, made enough from mortgage payments and increase in value to out a deposit on a house down.

Look at National Trust lettings and if you do rent again, go through an agency and get a deal for a long-term let. The house we moved out of was then rented to a retired couple who, in return for signing up to live there on a long-term lease, were given permission to paint the walls, do alterations and got a great deal on their rent.

Also, if you are with an agency they have a greater obligation to fulfil the terms of the contract, which includes maintenance and repairs.

Got a highly paid graduate job and bought straight out of Uni (first year of employment). Put down a deposit I had saved. Have since bought and sold a couple of times after meeting dh. We've been lucky that prices rose as they did and we were able to cash in on that. We now have a family home that is perfect for us. To summarise it was a combination of hard work and luck that got me on and up the housing ladder. I do realise that the same luck is not there to be had by first time buyers anymore.

The last two places we've rented have been through agencies, as I had had enough of insane private landlords. Thought that an agency would be more professional, and have to enforce standards. But sadly not. They have no power to make a landlord do anything. The last agency I was with said I had two choices, put up with it or hand in notice. I was sending them pictures of the bites on my baby, but all they did was accuse me of wanting to "live in a bubble" and being unrealistic. The tenancy before kept our thousand pound deposit for redecoration. We threatened legal action and got it back eventually. I hate landlors and letting agencies. Never had a good/ sane/ caring one.

Oh ditziness that's awful! Insist on speaking to current/former tenants before moving into a rented place as they'll be the only ones to tell you what the landlord is actually like! That was a lesson I learned the hard way at university but its stood me in brilliant stead ever since.

Luck in our case I think. DH bought first flat in 1986 for £52K with a small deposit, we sold it for £90K in 1987 when we married and moved to a flat we had both chosen. We then did lose money on the second flat when we traded up to a house in 1989. That went into negative equity for a while and we ended up selling it for less than we paid to trade up. Our current house has doubled in value to around £500K and thanks to the hard work of DH and a good business deal 6 years ago we cleared the mortgage and own it outright.

Anything I inherit from my family is going straight into deposits for the kids as there is NO WAY they will be able to save enough for for a deposit for ahouse down here in the SE without some help.

Sounds like you need to make friends with CAB if you are ever in that switch again.

That is terrible.

We've rented 4 places together and one on my own before I met dh. None of them were very bad. We had one or two issues but nothing like what you have experienced dinky. That is VERY bad luck and it's little wonder you've been put off. There are groups that are currently lobbying the government for more rights for tenants. Because less people are able to get mortgages, the rental market is buoyant and this has resulted in unscrupulous landlords taking advantage. The government should do something to safeguard renters but currently there is nothing in place as the law favours the landlord it seems.

The National Trust have a good reputation as landlords, perhaps see if there is a property to rent nearby?

I had an angel on my shoulder to get my house. Saw ad in paper for a reposession at £15,000. Booked appointment to see it, had first refusal, loved it. Secured it with a £750 deposit and mortgage is currently £88 per month. This was in 1997.

I would NEVER be able to buy a house now. I count myself lucky every bloody day.

Kaytola, that is a a fab story, I loved it! Would be great if more people could have luck like that.

We bought a 1 bed flat and there is me, DH and 2 DD's. Me and DH slept in the living room for the 1st few years, then we extended it to a 2 bed flat and we will convert the loft next year so we have a decent amount of storage. Bought in 2008 for £100k with a 3% deposit

Now the thing is it really ISN'T 'you pay a grand and get an ok house and you pay less and you have to live in HELL'.

I live in outer London, it's about half an hour on the bus and train from my house into central. My area is lovely. The road I'm on is lovely. I live in a 2 double bed maisonette with garden and big lounge and kitchen/diner, the people who used to live here had 2 children and I'm here on my own. I've just had a look on RightMove and there's lots of similar flats that are on for under £1000, and we're talking PROPER commuter belt here- if you moved further away from commuter central it would be cheaper and still nice!

I bought my flat in 2009, as a single person, yes I had to save the £30k deposit, my flat cost me £175k and I didn't have inheritance or anything like that. How I did it was I saved. I never stopped living like a student. I continued to think as if everything was an extravagance, and I was able to buy this place.

Like a lot of others on this thread we bought a new-build 2 up/2 down in 1983 with a 10% deposit we had saved up while we were engaged and both living with our parents, and earning only £3k each.

Our house was on a bland estate with no facilities - certainly not what I'd have picked had we actually had a choice. Our peers were travelling and partying. We spent our 20s having babies. (seemed like a good idea at the time).

We moved into our second house 2 years later, and increased the mortgage. Sadly we had a NFH next door and a very stressful few years. After 12 years there and 4 babies we were falling over each-other and moved again to a slightly bigger place. Still not able to quite stretch to the sort of house we actually wanted.

12 years later we had to relocate for work, so now we are at the time of life where we should be mortgage free and enjoying ourselves we have a huge mortgage and loads of debt. And an unplanned 5 yo. And we are living in a smaller house in a shitty area, and our DD goes to the crap school. Not what we had in mind at all, since we have moved from the "nice" area of our previous town next door to the oversubscribed school she'd have been guaranteed a place at.

But you can't always control your circumstances. You just have to make the best of it.

I think a lot of it has to do with your frame of mind when your income increases.
I have lots of friends and a acquaintances who earned very well young, and they got into the habit of spending a lot on clothes, going out, latest gadgets, flash weekends away etc etc. They still do that even though they now have DCs and all the associated expenses.
DH and I couldn't afford that stuff when we first met, and so our expectations of day to day expenditure have stayed fairly static over the years we have been together. Now we are totally focused on paying off the mortgage, saving for the future. Our income has increased but we are not of a mind to spend it, whereas even 5 years ago I think we would have been.

OP - have you looked at renting from an (aristocratic) estate? Friends of mine have done this and the standard of property and maintenance is fantastic. I believe they also have the right to stay there for as long as they want.

DH inherited in his 20s; the terms of the Will were that he was to use the money to buy a flat, otherwise I'm sure he wouldn't have.

It helped that 30 years ago property was a more sensible price.

When we sold the flat, my mum sold hers too, and we all moved from London to the south west. That helped, too. We'd never have got a house with a garden otherwise.

I really resent the fact that, to have any chance of buying, I will have to live like an utter pauper. I work hard and earn a decent salary; I feel I should be able to have a reasonable standard of living AND the possibility of owning my own home before I'm 49. The system is shagged.

We're renting - DP was made redundant last year & is now self-employed. No bank will give us a mortgage, despite having a 6-figure deposit.

Our rent is 1K a month - lower than the going rate for the area - and lower than a mortgage would have been. We rent a lovely 4 bed house in a good area, where the schools are excellent. We could never afford to buy the house we live in.

Next year, we are hoping to buy - provided DP can generate enough work to justify being made permanent instead of consultancy-self/employment.,

Yes the system is shagged . I agree.