To ask if you are under 35

[Marmaladedandelions]

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? :)

Luck!

I bought a flat in 2002 when I had just turned 22. I had a reasonably decent job in the City and a deposit saved by taking full student loans and also working part time and during holidays whilst at uni.

I bought a tiny 1 bed flat for £118,000, put down a 5% deposit.

It was a necessity though really, my parents split when I was in my teens, our house was sold when I was 18 and my parents each bought tiny flats from the proceeds so I didn't really have anywhere to go! I was encouraged to buy rather than rent. I always overpaid my mortgage where possible.

My DH bought an equally tiny flat at around the same time and overpaid his mortgage too. We had just met.

Both flats were in London/ south east.

We both sold in 2007/2008 at pretty much the peak of the market and rented for a while together. Back in those days, for a while at least, the interest received on the savings paid a good chunk of our rent.

I made about £30k on my flat and had overpaid about £10k, my DH had virtually paid off his mortgage and so when we came to buy in 2010 we had a very good deposit for our first house together.

Neither of us got parental help. We are now 34 and 38 and have a small but lovely house in a nice part of London.

However, we couldn't afford to buy this house now (prices have increased by around a third since 2010) and many of our friends are trapped renting.

Some people who are answering bought when I was at primary school. I appreciate that saving is saving regardless of when you are doing it but looking objectively I think I might invest in a time machine rather than save for a deposit

DH earned a decent wage for someone who lived with his parents so managed to save enough for a deposit. First house was bought when he was 22 and I was 19 for just under £19,000 though we borrowed extra to do it up.

No parental help here.

I was desperate to own my first property by 21 so looked into a shared ownership flat where I only needed a 5% deposit of the half I was going to own, which was about £6k which I had saved. I sold 2 years later and made £12k profit on my half which I used as a 5% deposit on a small house with DH. We desperately needed to upsize for years but because we bought at the height of the market we had no equity but thankfully managed to overpay the mortgage, so that even though when we bought the one we are in now, we didn't really make much but used the money we'd overplayed as a deposit on this one.
Not really done very well but managed to crawl up the ladder. It scares me a bit that we have a £250k mortgage but hey ho!

We saved a deposit in out early 20s. DH was an extremely high earner for his age and time (6 figures) our second home was a different story much of the money was lost in the recession. We sold the

Posted too soon! Walked away with a 15% deposit on a far cheaper house (£300k) and I got the mortgage alone.

We lived with father in law for 18 months whilst saving for wedding and deposit. It was his idea and we're incredibly grateful to him. I think it would have taken us minimum of 3 years otherwise and I suppose we could have sacrificed getting married first. Am very lucky to have been able to do it

I'm 27. We bought our first house 3 months after I turned 18in 2007. We saved 5k for deposit and had 100k on a mortgage.
We just bought at the right time when it was easier to get credit/mortgages.

• 2005 not 2006

DD1 is 29 and has just made an offer on a flat in (outer) London . There is no way she could buy without (considerable ) family help .
I bought on a 97% mortgage (2.5% insurance policy!) in 1980 . . Sold for considerable profit and moved in with DH when we got married in 1982. He had big mortgage as had bought out his ex when they divorced. But house had trebled in value when we sold it 5 years later . Doubt if many young people can do it without a partner and/or family help

I'm 26 and DP is 25, we bought 2 years ago. We'd actually saved enough to purchase a new build 2 bed flat (around £150k), but DP's mum inherited some cash and gifted us 80k so we went straight to 3 bed house. She was keen for us to avoid paying 2 or 3 sets of fees in order to get to where we are now, and saw that we had worked to get to the point where we could afford to buy on our own.

We had a 30k deposit which we had saved ourselves from childhood, so my parents would keep some of money given by grandparents etc back and set up a savings scheme that I couldn't access until aged 18, plus working through college and uni and second jobs in bars etc.

We bought at 25 & 27, saved 10% of our 200k house by working every hour we could and lived at home paying a couple of hundred pounds rent each. Feel very proud that we've managed and that it was worth it x

Bought a house 3 years ago with DH. His parents lent us deposit money (10% plus a bit more for furniture). Very grateful as there is no way we could have afforded it otherwise. Especially as the weekend after the closed we found out i was pregnant and the weekend after we actually moved in we found out we were having twins and I am now a SAHM. No way would a bank give us a mortgage now deposit or not.

Oh and i am 30, DH 33.

Am 40 but bought at 30. DP and I had not yet children when we bought. We were both working full time and renting a tiny cheap flat for 4-5 years. No car or bus (bike everywhere). No holidays... we lived really frugal for a few years despite having a good joint income and delayed having children. That way we saved up for a good deposit. We bought up North where prices were/are much lower than in the South.

Only needed 5% deposit. We worked our butts off and stayed a year with relatives to scrape deposit. Now we are in negative equity and trapped I wonder why we bothered

We emigrated in 2007 to a country that survived the gfc pretty well, had ok jobs and managed some savings. Do got a decent bonus although nothing like a banker's bonus etc. Managed to buy a renovation project in a deeply unfashionable suburb that was well located but overlooked. Got loads of shit from friends.

Renovated over a couple of years, rode the house price rises and sold for a big profit after 3.5 years. When we moved back to the UK, exchange rate was favourable.

Bought another renovation project which is mostly finished, have about 50% equity now.

Some luck, some risks, some hard work.

Sorry, meant to say, staring 32 in the face

I am 34, DH is 32. We brought 10 years ago with a 5% deposit, some savings, some help from parents. House is in a pretty crap area of Kent but it's big enough for us to stay in for as long as we like, don't think we will be able to afford to move up the ladder.

We bought a 1 bed flat with 5k deposit which was a gift from my father in law. It's small but we are on the ladder.. I know how lucky we are. We were one call centre wage at the time so no way would it have been possible then without help, and we would still be renting.

And forgot to add, everyone I know who bought has had some help to do so.. But most are renters.

Im 29 and we bought at 23. We moved in with my parents who only took a small contribution, and saved hard for a year. We got a 95 percent mortgage and over 35 years, so not ideal, but we knew wr had to just go for it.

We borrowed a lot less than we could have(we were offered 4x our joint wage), so our repayments arent crippling us, and thankfully the flat isnt in negative equity as we want to sell in a years time.

It is doable ... if you live up north anyway. I'm 26 and bought in 2010. I saved a 5% deposit and got a vender gifted deposit of 5%. The house was bought for £102,000 and I got a mortgage of £92,000.

My husband and I lived at our parents (before we got married) and saved whilst paying a small amount of lodge money to our parents.

Neither of us went to uni either. My husband is on quite a good wage for where we live but I am on a low wage.

I think it is doable if you can stay with parents to save and if you can do it before you have children!

Our house is a doer upper though which we are doing up slowly and does involve sacrifices e.g not going out for regular meals out , buying new clothes and going on holidays!

DS1 is 29 and DSS1 is 27. Both live in South East, both bought their first house aged 24.

DS1 on his own, saved hard, no holidays, worked any overtime available, and on top of his full time job did seasonal and part time jobs. Chose not to go to uni, he was going to move to a better area but got a huge rottweiler cross rescue dog and is spending all his time and money in nursing him and getting him back to full health.

DSS1 with his girlfriend, now fiancée and soon to be wife (Aug.) She is a year older than him and graduated a year before him. Both had part time jobs since aged 15, and worked full time at them in holidays. She worked full time in retail during his last year at uni, bought their hose together then took a job as a TA for less pay whilst she was converting her degree so she could teach. Has worked a couple of years as a teacher, this years savings are paying for their wedding and next years to buy a house in a naice area.

No inheritances, help or luck involved. Sheer bloody hard work and dogged determination (no stealth in this boast - I am immensely proud of all three of them.)