Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"Have you thought about buying?"...

182 replies

NickyEds · 27/04/2015 13:28

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?". Angry. 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?

OP posts:
blue42 · 27/04/2015 14:26

Not sure I understand the logic of "ending BTL would be a disaster. Where would we live then!? Wouldn't change the fact that we still couldn't afford a house!"

Houses wouldn't simply disappear if buy to let landlords came out of the game.

Skeppers · 27/04/2015 14:26

NickyEds We were looking for a bigger place to rent until recently (baby is due in August), but they were all shitholes compared to where we are (which is hardly palatial by any means) for at least £100 more per month. Wasn't worth it for a tiny box room's worth of extra space. So I do feel your pain!

And aren't letting agents just THE WORST? Slapping some pretty hefty regulations on their shiny-suited, hair-gelled arses would certainly improve the rental landscape...

Skeppers · 27/04/2015 14:28

blue42 There would be more houses available, but- at current prices- people still wouldn't be able to afford to buy them. That's what I was saying (probably in a very clumsy way!)

If our landlady sold our house, we wouldn't be able to live in it any more.

Original poster
NickyEds · 27/04/2015 14:28

I already live up North! It's just this attitude that there's a really simple answer to your housing problems, move or ask your parents. Grr.

OP posts:
mijas99 · 27/04/2015 14:29

I'm not sure what having a PHD in the States would solve. Try looking for a property in New York or Boston. The kind of places where you might need a PHD. Millions of dollars for a family house

London and the South East in expensive. Look Up North. Family houses for £100k there - and less!

Nottingham, Newark, Lincoln, Grantham. Properties cheap as chips and 1.5-2 hours to London

HelenF350 · 27/04/2015 14:30

100% mortgages and people borrowing what they can't afford is a part of what caused the banking crisis. That is certainly not the answer.

Nolim · 27/04/2015 14:30

Yanbu.
As it buying a house were easy. If someone ever tells me "cant your family help?" Or some nonsense like that they better run.

Original poster
NickyEds · 27/04/2015 14:34

Yes, some lettings agents are bloody reprehensible. One wanted £375 , non refundable with no guarantee we'd even be able to see the contracts let alone get the house. That was just to close it to other viewings whilst they ran reference checks on us (another £200). We have to move because, get this, our current house doesn't have plumbing for a washing machine and the landlord won't put it in. We've managed with the laundrette so far but figure with a toddler and a new born we need a washing machine. It'll cost us a fortune to put one in ourselves and the house would still belong to someone else and be too small.

OP posts:
blue42 · 27/04/2015 14:37

Ah, sorry skeppers, I probably didn't read your post properly.

But either way, increased supply would mean lower prices. I know plenty will argue otherwise, but it's a fundamental of any market, and one yet to be proven wrong.

HerRoyalNotness · 27/04/2015 14:38

And I think it's an incredibly unfair and unreasonable thing to suggest!

I don't think it is actually. If someones' top priority is to own, and they can't afford the area they live in, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest they move. however if you have other priorities, family/friends nearby etc... and your own home is down the list of priorities, then perfectly reasonable to stay put and rent.

As for, BTL, not enough homes. I did some research on this ages ago for another thread, there are enough homes, there are plenty of derelict homes sitting empty that could be refurbished and either rented out or sold. The difficulty is, there are not enough homes, reasonably priced in the areas people want to live in. They don't want to move. Fair enough, they don't have to.

What the country needs is to invest in creating jobs all around the nation, making other places desirable to live in with available work for people.

Nolim · 27/04/2015 14:42

Royal can you please share the research on the number of avalaible homes?

expatinscotland · 27/04/2015 14:43

' Look Up North.'

At least one of the posters is already up north. Hmm

This gets trotted out all the time. As if people can just ditch their jobs (which they need to get a mortgage) and shift just like that. And never mind where, or that you don't know the area and the 'cheap' family house could be in a shithole, never mind about school places, childcare, etc.

'Just move'.

BrieAndChilli · 27/04/2015 14:43

I get so pissed off that DH earns more than the average wage, and lots more than minimum wage yet 3 times his salary wouldn't get us a 3 bed semi here and we are no where near London!
All these new buyer schemes are ridiculous too, only available on brand new houses which are over priced and tiny, even a 5% deposit for a new 3 bed semi would be about 8k, with 3kids and all,the expense of private renting, etc we have no hope of saving £800 let alone £8000 and we'd have to move to a house half the size!
I really wish the national lottery would give out half million prizes instead of millions. More people would win and half a million would be more than enough to buy a nice family home and new car etc and maybe set up a business. That's our only hope. Or rent until the kids leave home then try to buy a small 1 bed flat possibly.
We are lucky (well we deliberately looked for a landlord that was a business landlord rather than an accidental landlord renting out their own home) so we know all being well we can live here as long as we like, we've been here 6 years and landlord owns 50+ properties so hopefully will never need to sell our house.

Charlotte3333 · 27/04/2015 14:46

I don't think you're BU at all, the housing situation in the UK at the minute is disgusting.

We were lucky enough that my Dad put down a deposit for my first house, on the basis that I paid it back when I moved. The tiny terrace he bought in 1999 when I was 18 for £47,000 sold in 2008 for £97,000 after he'd done a fair bit of work on it. It meant that when DH and I bought our current house, we were both able to put a sizeable chunk down as deposit. Without that help from my Dad I'd have been renting long-term.

expatinscotland · 27/04/2015 14:46

'They don't want to move.'

Who would if it's to an area with few or no jobs?

mijas99 · 27/04/2015 14:51

expatinscotland

So what constructive advice would you give?

I understand that AIBU is mainly for people just wanted to moan. Well, the OP is correct, house price are ridiculous in the South East of England. Not so bad elsewhere though actually. Depends exactly where you are. But if you can't save even £10k for a deposit then no you will never be able to buy. That is a sensible thing rather than 100%+ mortgages of the past

My DP and I moved out of London because we couldn't imagine working and paying millions for a family house in a half-decent area. I took my job with me and now live in a much cheaper area and have a much better quality of life

It is actually a clever solution that can improve your life no end

BlackeyedSusan · 27/04/2015 14:56

And they bitch to me about having to pay tax on their profits!

^ this would piss me right off.

even if you are one step further up the ladder, you still get the same from other people. I live in a two bed flat that ex still owns half of. one person in particular keeps asking why don't I just buy a house near to them...

I am eternally grateful though that although it is a crappy flat, at least half of it is mine.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 27/04/2015 14:57

Don't the Green party want to increase security for tenants in rented property and regulate the rental market similarly to some European countries in which renting one property all your adult life is very normal?

expatinscotland · 27/04/2015 15:00

She is already in the North, mijas. She has said she has made her peace with renting, but is frustrated as it is a ballache.

She was not soliciting advice on how to buy as it is out of her reach.

I commiserate.

Nolim · 27/04/2015 15:14

Mijas: it is great that you took your job with you. Not everybody can.

frikadela01 · 27/04/2015 15:14

The insinuation that you can get a family home 100k "up north" is annoying. I live in Bradford. not exactly the nicest area on the planet but even on the outskirts of a rather dodgy estate you're looking at upwards of 120k for a semi decent 3 bed that still needs woRk. 100k gets you a semi on the estate so moving up north isn't always the answer.

Skeppers · 27/04/2015 15:14

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase I think that, for me, would make life much more comfortable. There is definitely some regulation needed; the rental market is spiralling out of control in terms of escalating fees/rents being hiked disproportionate to wage rises (ha! What are they?) and inflation, etc.

The other comment I get from other people is "At least if your boiler breaks down your landlord has to get it fixed". This is true. However, our toilet broke last week (wouldn't flush)- we contacted the letting agent to send the contractor over to repair it. He came over on Wednesday, had a fiddle about, declared that he had to get some 'parts' and take the whole cistern off the wall to fix it which he wouldn't be able to do until next week- and he actually ended up making the problem worse, so now we have water constantly draining through the cistern into the bowl (we've had to switch the water supply off), so we've essentially been over a week without a flushing toilet. On the upside, I learnt a new skill- I am now an expert 'bucket-flusher'!

If this were our own house, I'd quite happily have forked out the £100 or so for a plumber to come the same/next day and get it fixed because at least then it would be done properly and not by the cowboy general handyman who works for the agency. OK, we could have paid out the £100 to get them in anyway but we wouldn't have been able to claim this back from the letting agent, and I'm sure that the landlady (who is actually perfectly decent and I think despises the agents as much as we do) wouldn't have been impressed with us having to take our own remedial action when she is paying the letting agents to manage the property on her behalf, including any maintenance issues...

GottaFeeling · 27/04/2015 15:27

One piece of advice I would give to anyone starting out in the SE now would be to look at careers that have a national payscale but are required all over. e.g. teaching, nursing, anything in the public sector really.

e.g. I work in the public sector in a job that is replicated in every town in UK. I live in SE and get the princely sum of £516pa extra "fringe allowance". A 3 bed terraced house here costs £300k. The same job in a town where a similar house costs £150k would pay £516pa less than mine.

Morelikeguidelines · 27/04/2015 15:27

This must be the property equivalent of "have you tried ginger biscuits? "

Skeppers · 27/04/2015 15:34

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"