"Have you thought about buying?"...

[NickyEds]

As in a house. We're currently (and increasingly desperately) looking for a new house to rent. In our area stuff comes up, is viewed and goes within a day. We're on all the usual websites every day looking for somewhere suitable. The last house we viewed and applied for, 14 other people also applied for and we didn't get it.
If one more person says "If you're having trouble renting, have you thought of buying??"...GGrrrrr. Yes we have thought about it. We don't have thousands of pounds sat about. It's not an option. The question is usually followed by "Can't your parents help you out?". . Maybe they think that the thought has actually never occurred to us and they're genuinely being helpful but AIBU to scream in the face of the next person who says this?

[PooSweats84]

I can totally sympathise OP. We live in a HA property (lucky in some ways I know) but we have absolutely AWFUL neighbours and feel trapped, we're desperate to get out but have no option but to stay. All we get is, why don't you buy somewhere? With what?! I'm a full time carer to my son, OH is a nurse so his pay just about covers bills and for us to have some sort of minimal life outside of the day to day stuff, no family support, never mind family offering handouts! We can't even afford to privately rent as the agents fees for that are extortionate now, and that's before throwing in one months rent and deposit up front! We don't all have thousands of pounds stashed away for a rainy day!

[LotusLight]

Most landlords in England own their own home plus one property actually so I doubt that would make much of a difference and everytime we've let out and when my daughter did we raked nothing in and made in rent only what the mortgage cost!! So there seems to be a huge difference between what tenants think and landlords actually made. We also sold two buy to let flats for 50% less than we paid for them in the 1990s property crash too although I accept few people get timing as wrong as I do.

If the person I suggested above buys the 2 bed for their retirement and carries on renting they are landlord. I don't think we really want to stop that. Also if a mumsnetter has to move from Leeds to Newcastle and keeps the leeds house and just rents in Newcastle she is a landlord.

We could certainly restrict the numbers of properties people can own but people with 10 members of their family could simply put it in family names or use a limited company or friend. Most pension funds will not invest in buy to let in the UK as it makes so little profit particularly in London as property prices are so high that letting yields are less than elsewhere although you hope for capital gains. Mind you where I live in outer London prices have dropped 1.6% in the last 6 months alone. It is not a one way bet and in fact women tend to make most in life where they are prepared to take on some risk.

[WyrdByrd]

I think there needs to be control over BTL.

What winds me up is there are so many landlords with well paid professional jobs snapping up properties & raking in even more money that they don't necesarily need.

If there were a law whereby anyone could only own a set number of properties in addition to the one they live in, or landlords were only allowed to make a certain amount of income before having to choose to either retain their job or become a full time landlord, it would free up a huge number of properties, reducing demand & lowering prices.

Will never happen as too many people in power probably benefit from the status quo.

[LotusLight]

My father died just after he exhausted his life savings on at home dementia care though and what isn't left about 40% tends to go in inheritance tax to the state, bless its little heart... to spend on foreign wars and wasted foreign aid and over paid state officials.

The idea is that you buy a place and let it out and the rent covers the costs so it does not actually cost you anything. that's how my first child bought and now has moved in 2 years on as her pay went up and she could afford a normal residential mortgage. (No children yet though so no childcare costs).

[GuybrushThreepwoodMP]

We will be able to buy one day. We are lucky enough to both have parents who own their properties. So... for people we love have to due and then we will be able to buy. A morbid thought but actually it does mean we will be able to buy one day and have something to leave to our children. But we'll probably be in or 50s by the time we buy something.

[GuybrushThreepwoodMP]

We couldn't afford mortgage repayments and rent at the same time!

[Newbrummie]

I think that'll be my plan - clearly prices are never again going to be 3 times my salary for a house that would be suitable for me and the kids so at some point in the nearish future I'll buy something that'll do for little old me - probably not in the uk and load the difference into my pension. Those worried about not leaving anything to children I honestly think life insurance for a tenner a month is more useful to them anyway, cash is flexible and there's no estate agents fees, solicitors, people taking advantage of them wanting to sell quickly etc

[LotusLight]

I agree with both of you. In fact I was telling the twins this week that inter-generational comparisons are never very fair as all any of us can do is cope with how things now (which tends to be a veil of tears for most people except the lucky few in most generations).

if we look away from "fairness" or a human right to buy a 4 bed in a nice area without working one's way up or whatever and just look at where we are now then the route for many to buy is hard work from a young age and buying something grotty in your 20s when your friends are going out to meals and living it up and buying coffees in starbucks.

It can also be about positive attitude. My daughter rang today. Someone had been talking to her about their new business. Her colleague had spoken to them too. Her colleague said it had made her realise she could never do that. My daughter had thought the opposite - how inspiring that could be me.

Some of us will want to suffer now with children in tiny places we own and others will want bigger rented places but only renting for life.

Guy could you not buy the 2 bed now and let it out so that if renting turns out bad for you or once the children leave you have something to fall back on which you own?

[Newbrummie]

Equally no point in comparing apples with pears with the whole my parents bought their 5 bed detached for 2 crowns and a bottle of shandy.

[expatinscotland]

It's not the 70s anymore. Or the 80s. It's now. No one fucking cares how there were no microwaves and outdoor loo's 40-years-ago, time has moved on.

[GuybrushThreepwoodMP]

We have a decent income and rent.
If we repaid monthly mortgage the same as we pay in rent, we could borrow approximately £90,000. We have enough savings to bring that up to enough to buy a 2 bed flat terrace many miles from the city centre (south east). We have 3 children. We rent a lovely 4 bedroom detached house 20 minute cycle from town.

Buying is not a feasible alternative when it would require such a huge sacrifice in quality of life.

[LotusLight]

prop made me laugh....

Don't assume we have good broadband in outer London! First of all we have just about no mobile signal in this house. Secondly we are 4 miles from the telephone exchange so broadband was hardly 1 whatever it is. We spent 10 years trying to find out how to get faster broadband. Open Reach said if we could raise £13k from the immediate neighbours (we each aid something like £300) they would pay the other 2/3rds of the cost to get the right kind of power to the local box and I raised the money and the neighbours were great - lots of people paid (even though had they not paid they would still have had the same chance to buy the service) and now I get 17MG download speed so at last about 15 years after most people in cities I can watch iplayer on my pc.....

Housing has always been a major issue everywhere. In the UK Scotland in fact we had enclosures, didn 't we and people turfed off land then later improved crofter rights. Then much later slum clearances from cities when we could afford it after the industrial revolution, then lots of the area where I live outer London had lots of building in the 1930s with people moving from inner London and tenements to houses out here and maisonettes and commuting into London for work. Now yes it is very expensive to buy in London or even within the M25. It is about £185k near me to buy a first flat which is not cheap even with 2 full time London wages. Houses cost more - the first 3 bed terraced we bought out here costs about £350k now. You coudl still do it on our trainee lawyer and teacher wage though as interest rates are nearer 2.5% than the 12% we paid 30 years ago.

[propelusagain]

I live even further than the North- in Scotland.

We usually marry within our immediate family, eat small rodents and soil. We do have at least one person in the village who can read though. There are no cars so our children are safe, but life expecancy is 24-most of us have had 7 or 8 kids by tha time so it's not an issue.

[Balanced12]

I live 'up north' and I would rather pay a fortune renting in a rural nice, the cheap housing comes hand in hand with misery.

Everyone around you is miserable, the houses are falling to bits no point in improving your terrace as next doors landlord won't (damp come through e.g broken guttering). People drinking in the front gardens and kids screaming and scratching cars. So you will never sell it so you are then trapped in that misery.

Be there done that don't recommend it!

[Unescorted]

The housng market is dysfunctional for many reasons and they vary across the country.
In the "North" there are areas of low house prices due to the poor transport connectivity and low wages. You can get a house in Nanthead for a fraction of the price of one in London but you would still struggle to pay the mortgage as there is very poor broadband, one road passing through, no train and buses only run a limited timetable. There is no employer within 20 miles.
Further South in the Eden Valley second home owners have pushed prices so high that there is no hope for a person on a average income for the area being able to afford a house.
Further south still in Pennine Lancashire it can take you 4 hours to travel to the cities for employment, and again broadband connectivity is poor. Local employers pay lower wages than in Manchester. This is an area of many empty homes, but the housing stock is of poor quality (I know of a terrace where the back wall fell down when the downstairs extention was removed on one of the houses). To bring them up to a habitable standard is more expensive than pulling them downand rebuilding. Until transport is improved this is not a financially viable option. Additionally the empty houses tend to be 2 bed terraces and the prices of 3 bed and above are expensive.
In the Cities (and commuting distance) are high - in our area a 3 bed property is around 300K. 4 Bed 500K.

I don't think BTL landlords are the whole issue, although many bought with mortgages that were too high & have to charge a rent that will cover the expenses and provide a yield. The house is occupied at least. I have seen some research that suggests that houseprices have less to do with availability of the property and more to do with the amount that banks are prepared to lend. Unfortunately they lend a lot for BTL mortgages as rental yields are high and in the '90's and 00's people were able to borrow 100% on self cert mortages or high salary multipliers. This pushed the house prices up - and when banks closed the door on these products it left many people without the means to buy a house. Therefore rents increased and BTL landlords (including pension funds, individuals, corporate bodies) are able to borrow more to buy houses because the yields are higher.

[LotusLight]

In the 1970s in 3 years (I was at a school) inflation went up 60% over three years!! You can hardly imagine now. We had the 3 day weeks, power cuts, were using gas lamps and the coutnry was called out on strike all the time. It was chaos and people started leaving the country as tax rates were so high - my father was paying 65% upper rate on NHS income and 15% more than that on his modest buildling society savings income! So yes the 70s were an interesting time. Wages did go up and those who bought before 60% inflation found that after the 70s property crash (in which by the way loads of people lost everything) there were big rises and yes people made money. However things always do go up and down.

In the early 80s my children's father was a teacher. They could recruit no one in this bit of outer London because of house prices so they had to provide school flats. When I was pregnant with our first I was living in one and we were sleeping on a mattress on the floor not that that does anyone any harm. We did buy that same year before the baby came and the midwife was so surprised we owned rather than bought she questioned me about it on a home visit.

[SevenAteNine]

LotusLight: where in the country are you? My dad qualified as a teacher in 1974. On his salary, he bought a 3 bedroom house in Henley on Thames. No help from parents, or spouse. This exact same house sold last year for £550,000.

[mumto3alexa]

I don't think you need to stop partying. I have only just got in for the night. Most people aren't finished going out in their 20s. I am a mum to 3 and I am no way near stopping partying!

[TooOldForGlitter]

I feel your pain OP. It's like a battle that will never be won. I bought a house in 1999 with my now ex husband. It cost £42,000. It sold when we divorced for £145,000. It was a two bed terraced house in Lancashire. Had he not remortgaged it beyond the limits I'd perhaps own another home. As it is, ive been renting for years. Paying over 65% of my salary on rent. Affording a mortgage deposit? It's a dream!

[SevenAteNine]

If you stayed with your parents until the age of 26, is it really fair to say your parents didn't help you to buy your first home?

[LotusLight]

I know. I never say it is easy for young people - it isn't but you tend to find those who have bought have tolerated some things others might not or bought in areas people might not like or started with some grotty one bed in an area their friends would not even dream of renting in.

[skinoncustard]

Mum, Lotus & Capricorn76 .

Well done, it just goes to show that with a bit of forward thinking it is still possible to get on the 'ladder'. The idea that ' you can have it all' without any sacrafices still persists.
Life is all about choices. Some choose one way , some another.

[Capricorn76]

I started saving 50% of my wages when I was 16 and working a Saturday job in McDonalds. I went to a uni in my home city to avoid high student debt. I was actually ridiculed by some of my peers because I stayed with my parents until I was 26 by which time I had enough to buy a 1bed in a non fashionable (at the time) area in Zone 3. I still had a life and partied but I had a longterm view and saved accordingly. My dad always warned me against using my wages to pay off someone else's mortgage.

A lot of my friends wanted to live entirely in the here and now, moved out of home really young when they could've stayed at parents, went to a far flung uni even though there were similar courses nearer to home, did expensive gap years, upon leaving uni had to rent in the most fashionable places or wouldn't buy in the previously uncool area I bought in to get on the ladder so stayed renting and now they can't buy a home as the market's got away from them and they don't have the deposit.

Of course some people will never afford to buy home e.g. a single person on NMW for example but the people I'm talking about could've if they'd made different choices 20 ish years ago.

[Newbrummie]

How fucking ridiculous is it to have to start saving at 14 for a house though?
I have pensions for my kids so I have given a lot of thought to compounded interest but really nice as it is to be mortgage free by mid thirties I do think you need to have a life too ... Certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from travel or even a bit of partying

[LotusLight]

mum, yes. I graduated when I was 20 whilst friends were clubbing it. Bought before I had a baby.

None of us are saying it is easy for anyone but it is worth planning ahead if you can. I suppose I am saying to a potential first time buyer try to be younger than 36. Don't have any gap years, work really hard, don't do the party phase until you have the money, don't have babies until you can afford to have bought, work hard early on and aim to buy in your 20s.