to feel screwed over by our society, can't afford a home, can't afford children, can't afford car

[Lauranda]

I'm in my early 30s, had a great up bringing, do a job I like and got married last year. I do feel very lucky.

However where we live in the south east, all we can afford to rent is a badly converted 1 bed flat with a damp problem. Can't really save much and are very economical with our money so can't see ever affording anything bigger and could never bring up a child here.

My parents managed to get a large 4 bed Edwardian house on one sallery when I was growing up and dads job level was about the same as dh. No way could with double sallarys afford anything near that lifestyle.

Parents keep saying my time will come, but looking at the statistics that seams very wishful thinking. Parents have kindly offered 15k to help get a house but to be any use would need much more than that and to pray interest rates never rose much.

Am I alone in just being unable to afford children even though we both work full time?

Sorry OP, but I would have done my best to buy a 1 bed or studio flat before now, if you have both been in work for the past 10 years.

Have not read the whole thread but is that your DH runs his own business? If so, you must be aware that this tends to put mainstream mortgages out of your reach. I was well aware of this at your age and ensured I was in my job for a year before I applied for my mortgage.

I hate to say it but I also deliberately studied for and went into a well earning field.

I do sympathise with you a bit, because I think people whose parents simply give them lots of money will always help push prices up, but I don't think you have exhausted all your possibilities and avenues by any means. I echo that a 4 bed house for a first time buy is unrealistic.

In the long term it sounds as if you will inherit a very nice house (or at least a share if you have siblings) and then you will really be sitting pretty - particularly if OH gets similar from his parents too. Compared to people like me (single, childless, mid 40's, poor health, no inheritance to come, no pension, no home, no career) you are doing very well indeed. It may not seem like it but you will have kids one day (maybe soon :) ) and you will have a future :) It doesn't feel like it though, and its not helpful for your current situation. I totally understand why you feel screwed over. I lost everything when I was too sick to work, and having been stupid enough to have bought a property and saved, I was not entitled to benefits so I had to sell my home, move up north away from all my friends and support and try and eke out a living for as long as I could. If you enjoy your job you are truly blessed as it is awful to spend 10 hours a day doing something you hate with the time not at work worrying and stressing about your next shift. I have a job which sucks the soul right out of me and feels like the 9th circle of hell, but in this economy I feel very lucky and grateful to have any job. If you are desperate to get onto the property ladder then this may mean giving up the job you enjoy for something better paid (if this is possible) and OH may have to give up his business for a salary. Otherwise being self employed will make it very hard to get a mortgage. Saving for a deposit is not as easy as people make out even if scrimping and saving - particularly if you are trying to put money into a pension too. You really need to contribute a LOT to a pension to expect any sort of standard of living in old age. How can any person/couple can hope to buy and pay a lot into a mortgage and have a good pension too these days without substantial parental help and/or 2 very well paid jobs, I don't know.

I also really don't know where people get these cheap house prices from. Fixer-upers that existed in our parents time simply don't seem to exist any more. If they do and need structural work there is no way you will get a mortgage on them. If the house is basically sound but need updating then one of two things happens. One: The current owner wants to maximize price so paints all walls magnolia - with the exception of one feature wall in the living room which is covered with very bright flowered wallpaper (usually red) - and also mandatory are repulsive new carpets at the very cheapest price and quality with no underlay. They then seem to think the house is now at the top end of the market as it is refurbished. Alternative Two: The property really does need updating - but everyone is looking for a cheap property to update and a bidding war starts. It then ends up as expensive as nasty cheaply refurbished property. At least there is no need to rip up the brand new but unbearably awful new carpets though (I hate waste). Most ads I have phoned about there have been offers of £20,000 to £30,000 above the advertised asking price - and this is on houses advertised at £50-£70,000 so another £30,000 on top is actually a lot and pushes it way out of price range.

What we need is a variety of affordable housing either for rent as council houses and so they are secure places to live that feel like your own home or more affordable houses to buy. Not just nice social housing reserved only for couples with children but also decent places for single people too with a bit of space and even - shock horror at being so entitled - a garden. Homes people actually want to live in and not just tolerate as they are cheap. Renting in the UK is awful as its so hard to have pets, decorate or really feel at home so I totally understand why so many people in the UK want to buy. I hope to buy again one day. I am also putting my name down for an allotment as it seems the only way for a single person not to be cooped up in a tiny space and actually have some outside space to call their own. Perhaps by the time my name comes up on the waiting list I will have saved enough for a 2 up 2 down with a little yard :) I don't care how bad the area is as long as the neighbors aren't too noisy, I can safely get from my front door to my car without feeling threatened and its mine :)

I feel screwed over. I've had to move from the expensive south to the cheaper north. On paper that looks very sensible. But in reality it means I am now over 200 miles away from my family, which nearly broke me after having dd, having to say goodbye to all my friends from over the years and it means starting all over again in my 30s. It also means kissing goodbye to the career of my choice, which i loved, and just going for jobs that were in my capabilities and the right money. I spent 7 years in a soul destroying job and trying to save enough money to 'go home'.
It's very easy to tell people to move but when you realise what it actually entails it's heartbreaking and for a long time I was very isolated and very depressed.

Gennz - I work in care and my friends and I have our own places in the south, but not in London and we all have 2,3,4 children in our 20s/early 30s. Its entirely possibly not in London.

Another thing is dont you think it makes sense to move somewhere cheaper now as if you have numerous children then they are going to be in just the situation you are in 20 years time so if I was you I would move. I moved from 250 miles more North than I am now to the South, and my parents, brother and nan all came with me so its cheaper for my children to buy a house when they grow up

It's not just a London problem though Jasmine - it def wouldn't be possible for a carer to buy a house in the city where I live, unless her DH's business was doing incredibly well.

Come right to the south coast loads of 2 bed places 80k. There are studios/1 beds in same block in town 25k/35k. You need to widen your search op, although my mum turns her nose up at the cheap flats there is nothing wrong with them. Its not the greatest area but thats in comparison to other areas here.

If you ever saw Bill Hicks talk about crime in uk and the 'hooligans knocked over a bin in Shaftsbury thats what my area is like!'

I happened to look at the property insert to the local rag last night - I usually try to avoid it - and it looks like prices in my town have on the back of the London bounce taken a stratospherically new turn of crazy - the 3-room 2-bed "fixer-upper" workers' cottages (lean-to kitchen, ground floor bathroom, not updated, damp, dark and tiny) are all now on for 400k, not the previous 335k+. I mean, 400k!! For a three-room hovel, quite literally!! Surely everyone has to admit that's crazy. That's apparently aimed at people with a household income of over 120k (and why would people who earn that much want a damp three-room hovel?) Now surely people have to admit that's insane.

And it's much worse in London. Some friends of mine just bought - recently married couple in their thirties, one a city solicitor, one an in-house lawyer for a media company, both earning comfortably over 100k each. They bought an ordinary 3-bed terrace in an outer zone in London. People who sold it were a retired postman and his wife who didn't work. House was 790k and they can only afford it because her brother, also a solicitor, is moving in with his girlfriend and paying them rent. It was the fourth house they'd offered on but they kept getting gazumped. These are crazy prices. In the 1970s-1990s were small terraced houses in zone 5 only affordable by city solicitors on many times the average income?

Melonbreath's situation is what I was trying to say upthread

The housing situation is a problem in this country

Part of what has happened is because High Street banks have lent a huge amount of money = more money sloshing around = in part, higher house prices.
There are now a lot of people who have multiple houses, and those whoa re priced out of buying. The classic, rich getting richer.

The other thing the website that I alluded to upthread said, was that if you do have a house, about 49% of your income goes on it, compared to 17 1/2% in the mid 90's. Which means, from that perspective that there is a lot less spare cash to spend - again a problem, when in effect those people are making the banks richer by paying them all that interest.

I very much doubt the in-house media lawyer is on over 100K! Maybe 60 - 70.

just to give you some perspective, in case you are interested!

This house will probably go for upwards of $NZ1.3million - about 700,000 quid. It's not only a London problem!

www.customresidential.co.nz/properties/CR5409/

In the nicest possible way at least you have parents who can help OP!

DH and I moved in together (rented flat) aged 18 and saved up for 10 years to pay for our own wedding and then our deposit on our first home (2 bed flat). We live just inside the M25 so I do under tan what the prices are like here. We just had to get on with it and manage. We had no help financially from anyone and DH was made redundant when I was 12 weeks pregnant, but we just got on with it.

We bought our house 2.5 years ago for £172k
We have had to spend £10k on it sadly as it needed a lot doing to it (new boiler, kitchen etc)
But...
Since then prices seem to have gone mad again!
Houses are selling on my road within a week of going on the market.
There is one the same as ours, but much more dated, that has just gone on the market for offers over £230k
Mad.

This is true - East Kent (well, bits of it) are still very cheap, and up and coming. The problem in these areas is that everywhere else is expensive so if you leave, you have to downsize.
The fact is, there is never a perfect time to have children - until you have one you will never be able to afford it, then when you do, you will probably be permanently skint, so you have to work out what you want most.
Two years ago, I was earning nearly £30,000 a year, commuting four hours a day and missing bedtimes several times a week. Now I earn £9,000 a year, drop my LO off at school and pick her up every day. We're not as well off, but I wouldn't go back to the old way for ten times the money.

Oh, and for comparison...
We bought our first house in 1999 for £54k - the deposit was 5% - £2.5k :)
When we bought this house we had £20k for a deposit and we struggled to get a mortgage with "only" 10% :(

Gennz she certainly is, though I can't say which organisation she works for as too identifying, but she definitely doesn't earn 60-70k :)

I stand corrected! Salaries are better than I remember.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2619599/An-Englishmans-home-chauteau-A-magnifique-mansion-France-semi-Surbiton-prices-tumbling-Channel-YOU-choose.html

Interesting article, the already cheaper French prices are falling. The photos show how crazy the UK market in. Surely it has to burst and that would benefit society?

There was many a time, that you could save up to afford the deposit and house.

That is not the same currently.

And that is a sad situation.

I have been questioning for years how long the situation in the UK is sustainable for. I dont know the answer.

I agree with Gennz - even in the south east an in house lawyers pay is not terribly high compared to private practice firms. Unless it is one of the top firms, in private practice it may not be over £100,000 either.

The only other option, depending on your professions, would be to consider a move to a tax free jurisdiction overseas for 3-5 years, rent the smallest studio you can, not go out and just get your head down and save, save, save. There are 2 of you so you wouldn't be alone, and to be honest, a move to an ex-pat community overseas is actually FAR easier to make friends than a move to another location in the UK. I am considering a move to Dubai for this reason. Expensive to live but I wouldn't say much more so than London according to forums I have been on. In the last 6 months I've been out socially twice and I am very frugal (my car cost £400, I don't have an iphone just a 10 year old model (still works!). I don't even own a TV - all to save money. I only need a little place for me and my 2 oldish cats. £2000 per month salary v £5000-£8000 per month makes a big difference on how quickly I can save. Even budgeting an extra £2500 a month extra for cost of living - I am still saving £1500 a month minimum and if I got a mid range job - say £6500 a month - I would be saving £3000 a month.

May be totally out of the question as depends on what OH does and your view on spending time abroad. Unless you have another career (e.g are qualified as a nurse but work in care as you prefer it) care will not pay so OH would need to be well qualified in something else to be worth it as there are also large start up costs (such as 1st years rent upfront- though a good company should loan this to be taken out of salary).

x post with Lauranda!

Perhaps I should say that it is not the same currently, as by the time you have saved £50k, the house has gone up another £50k [mass generalisation]

Rab - thats the problem we have. We can really cut down on everything and live like paupers To save 500 a month, but prices are rising more than this a month! Very depressing.

BengalCat obviously I can't out her, but she recently moved from having been at a big US city law firm to go in-house at a rather high profile organisation in a very lucrative (and glamorous) niche area of the media. It was a very good job offer!