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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you are under 35

239 replies

Marmaladedandelions · 27/04/2015 16:09

How you could afford to buy a house?

This is a genuine question: I have noticed a lot of people talking about how they can't afford to buy. I must admit that most people around my age (33) own.

We originally had a mortgage with money my dad gave us. Things have changed now due to inheritances but that was how we bought our first place, in 2005.

How about you? :)

OP posts:
Original poster
Marmaladedandelions · 27/04/2015 17:21

What's struck me is how impossible it is with no help and if single.

OP posts:
m0therofdragons · 27/04/2015 17:23

We had a 100% mortgage so no need to use savings. Lived in that house with dh for 2 years when I was 22 then we both got promoted and sold for 20k profit which we used to move to a bigger house and used savings we'd made over the 2 years to pay fees etc. When we first bought in 2004 dh and I had a combined income of 27k per year so not masses of income.

KingJoffreyFanciesDarylDixon · 27/04/2015 17:24

I was left a large inheritance.

Wouldn't have happened otherwise.

m0therofdragons · 27/04/2015 17:24

Couldn't have done it if single but we didn't have any help financially. I did save lots when I lived at home in my late teens but saying that we also had fab holidays.

Thurlow · 27/04/2015 17:24

Bought at 30 and 32 in 2011. DP is very good with money and had saved up. I borrowed from my dad Blush Glad we did buy then - sort of forced into it by an unexpected pregnancy - as it seems it was the last few months we could have afforded anything reasonable in the town we've moved to. In theory the money from my parents is a loan, but it's unlikely we'll realistically be able to pay it back.

AuntyMag10 · 27/04/2015 17:25

Dh and I studied, good degrees, jobs and that's how we did it at both 26.

LumionaMoonsplash · 27/04/2015 17:25

We bought when I was 21, our first house was 65k in 2002 we had a 5k deposit, sold it in 2006 for 110k. Luck of the property market. However the house we own has dropped by 20k since we bought it and our income has dropped so couldn't get a mortgage to move up so a bit stuck where we are, luckily we like where we are.

oneofthosedays · 27/04/2015 17:26

DH and I bought our first house when I was 22 for £37.5k (NW UK terraced fixer-upper), stayed for 7 years, sold for £55k and decided to move back to our home town. In order to do this and keep our housing costs as cheap as possible we own 25% of a shared ownership property. We overpay the mortgage we do have and are saving to buy more of the property. So in my eyes we took a step down the ladder but it was totally worth it for the better area and bigger garden. We would struggle to buy a full price property in our home town!

NickyEds · 27/04/2015 17:26

What strikes me op is how some people who have had help or bought years ago don't seem to realise how impossible it is! I'm on another thread about it now. I hear people say "can't your parents just help out?" as if it's a given. Or "Gosh, isn't renting expensive! My mortgage isn't as much as your rent!".

Wibblypiglikesbananas · 27/04/2015 17:27

Interesting thread! I think it really depends where you buy. I grew up in the north but bought a flat in London in 2007. Deposit was a combination of mine and DH's inheritance and a little from parents. We had a 10% deposit on a £300,000 property. Both sets of parents thought we were insane (particularly since I could have bought a house in my home town for about £50,000).

Roll on 7-8 years and said flat is now worth £400,000+. We will sell it later this year and move further out of the city.

I have friends who bought in the north for £20,000 back in the late 1990s. Two up, two down terraces. A couple did really well and sold a few years later for £80,000 or so.

Swings and roundabouts and more luck than judgement if you happen to profit in most cases, I think, us included.

AndHarry · 27/04/2015 17:28

I'm 27, DH is 30. Our deposit for our house came from money I had saved and a big contribution from my parents.

NotADaffodil · 27/04/2015 17:29

Pure luck!

Completed on our first home about a month ago but we really didn't think we would end up buying when we did.

We had been saving hard for a deposit but with high private rent and increasing house prices it just seemed to get further and further out of reach. We had all but given up on the idea but then a house in the perfect area came up at a bargain price. Miraculously some shares of DH's shot up in value so sold those and with a bit of help from parents we managed to scrape together enough deposit to buy our house.

Our house needs so much work, it's a complete shithole at the moment but it's our shit hole and I love it Grin

Wibblypiglikesbananas · 27/04/2015 17:30

Agree Nicky - would have been impossible for us without help. Sadly I will inherit again later this year and I'm going to put money aside for my DC for when they want to buy.

Sn00p4d · 27/04/2015 17:30

Bought a repo' flat for cheap cos it was a total shithole. Did it up over a period of time with help from various handy people, sold it at a profit, although not as much of a profit as we'd expected due to a drop in the market, bought current house. Have a mortgage that could choke a horse right enough, happy days Hmm

MrsHathaway · 27/04/2015 17:39

Bought our first on a preferential graduate 95% mortgage, borrowing about 60% of the maximum they would lend us (we worked out how much we wanted to spend rather than how much we wanted to borrow).

We also made a deliberate decision to move to NW England after graduation, rather than staying in the expensive SE or (worse) moving into London. It's meant reduced job opportunities and lower salaries, but we have three children, four bedrooms and a garden.

We had help to upsize, mind you.Bank of Dad provided enough capital to get us into a good LTV category . He gets his money back, index-linked, next year.

We also overpaid our mortgage at every opportunity. We'd be stuck in negative equity and with two fewer children if we hadn't done that.

We don't have pensions - they're a crock for twenty-somethings. We overpaid the mortgage instead.

ahbollocks · 27/04/2015 17:47

Not going to happen for me and dh, basically unless we get a very unlikely inheritance.

Slowly digging ourselves out of debt from student years and payday loans dh got out before we met.
Im happy though, we have a wonderful landlord and I was raised in germany where owning isnt such a big deal.

toffeeboffin · 27/04/2015 17:56

We lived in a small apartment in a rough area for two years and saved up a good deposit. Tried not to spend too much, which was easy as you had to drive to get to nice bars, cafes, restos etc.

My parents also gave us 10 grand, $20k Canadian.

It's definitely cheaper this side of the pond. We have a big detached house 30 mins from a major city.

Doje · 27/04/2015 17:58

I teamed up with my cousin about 10 years ago to buy a ex council flat in a less desirable (but zone 2!) part of London. Also lucky enough to been able to get a 100% mortgage at the time.

tobytomcat88 · 27/04/2015 18:00

I'm 26 just bought my first house with inheritance from my dad. I wouldn't have never been able to afford It otherwise

seaweed123 · 27/04/2015 18:06

I'm 33. I bought at 22, having saved with DH for a 5% deposit. We went from being students straight into reasonable grad jobs, so weren't used to the money yet and managed to save quite a lot in a couple of years. No money from parents at the time.

Amummyatlast · 27/04/2015 18:08
  1. Bought our house 4.5 years ago with a 33% deposit, which we saved ourselves. Have always overpaid, so hope to be mortgage free in 5 years. Live approx 1 hr from London.
OrangeFluff · 27/04/2015 18:08

DH and I have just moved into our first house together aged 28 and 30. No help from family, we saved about £12,000 for a 5% deposit plus fees, stamp duty, moving costs etc... for our 4 bedroom end of terrace, ex council house. We have used the "help to buy, mortgage guarantee" scheme.

We spent 5 years privately renting an average 2 bed flat. After 3 years we wanted somewhere bigger with a garden, but upon comparing rents to mortgages, we made the decision to stay put and save a deposit. We were lucky enough to both get promotions and pay-rises in our jobs over the 5 years, whilst our outgoings remained the same. We have also waited to have children, which I think was the key to us saving.

We live in the West Midlands, in the town where we both grew up.

YaTalkinToMe · 27/04/2015 18:09

Brought in 2010 at 25 years old, in the SW.
Saved nearly everything for 5 years (outside of living expenses), so had a good deposit, no holidays, eating out just because (but would go out for occasions), expensive phone or gadgets, no internet or other tv packages.
I was a massive spender before and I read recently some of the worst spenders can turn into the best savers.
I would look at everything and would think if I spend this £1, its going to cost me an extra £1 on mortgage payment (so £2 total), and another £1 in earnings (so £3 total) to pay off that £1 I did not save for mortgage deposit- I do not know how correct those figures are but saw it somewhere on money saving expert. The £1 magazine did then not seem so important to buy.
Still overpay mortgage now as the debt scares me. Hope to be paid off in just over 4 years (it was meant to be by the time I was 30, but we had a change of plan).

Justusemyname · 27/04/2015 18:11

I bought a flat when I was 23. That was in 1995. Same flat worth at least double now.

theflyingpig · 27/04/2015 18:17

it's pretty straightforward. sadly with housebuying it's not really possible to 'bargain hunt' in the way that it is with stuff like clothes, y'know, uncovering something amazing [e.g. hardly worn or whatever] in a secondhand shop or whatever. well, not to nearly the same extent.

one or more of the following applies to people who've recently bought houses. probably more than one in the case of London:

(a) earn [quite] a lot a lot money; and
(b) have otherwise come into money [e.g. inheritance, gift, divorce settlement, whatever].

that's about it. obviously being careful with money, saving hard & whatnot, can help but only really at the margins.