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? :)

I'm 36.

Worked two jobs whilst doing a masters degree (research; minimal contact time) and lived with my parents. They generously didn't charge rent while I was a student so I managed to save 10k. Bought a flat in 2003. Didn't need a 100 per cent mortgage, it was something like 85 per cent. Sold in 2006. Sold subsequent house for less than paid but we had overpaid our mortgage (married by then) when the interest rates plummeted so still had very decent equity. Bought current house in 2011 aged 32. Nice area, four bedrooms, hopefully the forever house. Made a cheeky offer.

So some luck, definitely (buying the 2003 flat just before prices went silly) but a lot of judgment too.

I worry about not being able to help my dc by giving them cash for a deposit but my parents let me live at home for free while earning a decent-ish for a student job wage so I was able to save a lot.

I am proud of how we're set up.

I find this so interesting. Through necessity, most of you have been helped either through inheritance or family gifts. Helped by, I'm guessing, but would be pleased to be corrected, those baby boomers who were given such a hard time on here recently. Wasn't someone asking what they've done for us? Well, contributed to house ownership it seems.

My parents were both born in 1945 so true for me :)

I just wish they'd both had longer lives :(

We know a couple who are late 30s, permanent renters and moan they cannot afford to buy. Yet admit to renting bigger properties than they need, go to Glastonbury most years, two or three other holidays a year, frequent weekends away, nights out, meals out etc. Went window shopping with one of them recently, every shop we saw she ended up going in and buying. Still complaining not enough money, whilst living a pretty luxurious lifestyle. 'Desperate' to own so they can get married and have a family. But there's always an excuse and they will save 'next year'.
You can't have it all ways.

I'm 37 so technically outside the remit of your question but... I bought in 2001 with the help of a deposit from my parents, a mortgage guarantee from my parents and a series of lodgers for the first couple of years until I qualified and had more money to cover the payments and then DH moved in anyway (then DP). In fact I've never paid my whole mortgage by myself.

I bought my first flat aged 25 with 110% mortgage and £1000 my mum gave me (it was my wedding fund and I didn't get any more!). That was 10 years ago now (holy shit, is it really?).

It cost 105k and I still own it now though have had tenants in it for years now.

Saving is a pointless irrelevance when prices are shooting up past anything you could tuck away each month.

I bought my first flat with a dodgy Northern Rock mortgage, 15 years ago. Made more on it in a year than I did from my full time salary.

Sold it, DP sold his, we bought together and will be mortgage free before we're 50.

My sister on the other hand wasn't so lucky and is trapped in the hideous rental spiral. She will never own property unless she wins the lottery. We live in Edinburgh, prices are daft here.

I am 30 and I am soon to buy my first house. We saved £1000 per month since January and will get a 95% mortgage. We both earn 40k but until recently I wasn't £20k (trainee solicitor to newly qualified). So we saved the difference in my salary plus some of my boyfriend's (he has professional studies loan to repay otherwise mightve managed sooner). I still have a massive overdraft and we only did it because our landlord was selling. We've gone without for four months but hardly a hardship compared to some. We have reasonably low rent (£600pcm). We could have done it if we were both earning above 25k but much slower, not if less, I think.

I bought in 2002, house was 320k in London. 260k mortgage, 60 k equity, 40k from inheritance and 20k for bank of m and d. M and d guaranteed mortgage but I rented out all the other bedrooms to pay. Transferred mortgage to me I.e I bought them out 6 years later.

Mortgage now 170k roughly. two houses on my street exactly the same as mine but one with fancy extension on sale for 1.9 million and 1.6 million respectively. Insane. Sorry, not a stealth boast.

We bought our first house in 2008 when me and dh were 21 and 22. We saved up for nearly 2 years and had a little bit of money given to us by very kind parents and also my grandad (it wasn't much but it did help with stamp duty and other costs like that). The deposit we pretty much did on our own though. I do think it was a mixture of hard work, a bit of help from family and luck in finding a house for a good price and a mortgage that worked for us.

I'm so glad that at 27 and 28 we are on the property ladder and now in our second house which we bought because we had our lovely little dd and we thought we'd want more space (she's 14 months now) . Hopefully we'll be settled here for the foreseeable.

My brother and his wife only bought their first house a few years ago and they are 32 so I know we are lucky.

DH is older and had already bought a house in the slump of the mid-90s. Most of my friends in their second homes bought early, but they are 35-40. Those slightly younger or who waited longer have had a much more difficult time getting started as that was when prices started rocketing.

100% mortgage
Good job in a cheaper area
Parental gift or loan
Inheritance from great aunt Mabel
Cheap cost of living for years allowing for savings (eg worked since 18 and mainly lived at home, no uni and debt)
Very good job in an expensive area
Being good at saving and a 'jam tomorrow' kind of person

Lots of ways!

Family help here. I got £25k from a trust fund which I used for a deposit. Bought a flat with my Dh in London for £190k in 2007. WWe've since sold and bought a bigger house which is now worth £500k. We've been lucky with the property ladder but it's scary how hard it is for people buying now. I'm 34.

And it seems so unjust - not only do we have over £300k equity, so we could sell up and move out of London and be mortgage free if we fancied - but our mortgage is £1000 per month, whereas friends renting equivalent houses round here are paying £1500+.

No family - am 48. I bought my first (and current) flat in 2002 aged 33 after 17 years in some very minging shared flats. I got the deposit by working three jobs entailing 3x19 hr, 1x16hr and 3x10hr days every week for 18 months (actually sometimes more with night work too). I got the money and the flat but had a heart-attack so sometimes doubt the good sense of it all.

It does sometimes seem that 'everyone else' bought with generous family assistance but are very coy or gloss it over with 'hard work' rhetoric.

Wouldn't the reintroduction of rent controls be a real vote winner?

I brought with xh at 25, through one of the government schemes where you borrow your deposit from them. The house was sold as part of the divorce, and despite making profit, as xh ruined my credit score and left me with his debt, there was no chance of me ever buying again. So at 31 I'm back renting

I'm 27, DH is two years older.

My parents gave us £5k that came from money left to them by my grandad. We used that for a deposit and took a 95% mortgage (our house was just shy of £100k). We bought last year.

We had been intending to save for longer, but as it looked like house prices were on the increase and there wasn't much difference in 90% and 95% mortgages in terms of interest rates, we decided to buy when we did.

I'd like to think that at some point we could repay my parents though. I know they wouldn't take the money back as such, but something like a big holiday would be a nice way of doing it. It's not something we'd be able to do any time soon though!

I live in the north east, I am 27 and just bought first house with 95% mortgage, bit of help from family and a couple of years of saving.

I'm 33 and we've owned this house 10.5 years.

Basically dh is 4 years older and got a well paid job straight out of Uni, I met him in my first year and we (he) bought a flat. It went up massively in value in the 2 years we had it and we sold the flat and moved out of the city where we used the cash to buy a house. It's 4 bedrooms detached if that's relevant but new build and we are in Scotland so cheaper anyways.

So basically, I'm lucky I met dh!

I'm 27, and we live in London. We are hoping to get a shared ownership mortgage at the end of the year. 35% of a house being better than no house!

I cheated... married someone who already owned a house and added my name to it.

Most people I know who bought young lived with parents and paid little or no rent while saving for a deposit.

We bought in 2012 at age 31 and 33, so not that long ago, and prices were already high. We bought a flat in London with a 40% deposit, most of which came from DH's savings. He's extremely frugal and had saved over 50% of his salary since graduation, so ten years' worth of savings (and the last few years of that at a high salary with some share options as well). I put in a very small % - my own finances haven't been as good due to health reasons. We lived in shared flats up until we bought our place to keep our rent costs down and we've never had a car. We've had no financial help from our parents.

Most of my friends own, they are 30s/40s and most are in London. Some have had help from parents, some bought years ago in their 20s in cheaper bits of London, some aren't that well paid but worked several jobs, some are very well paid professionals (on six figure salaries in their 20s), some married someone with a lot of wealth, some are keyworkers so bought shared ownership. Most of them had children later in life, and only have one or two dc, or don't have children at all. The few people I know who are renting have bigger families and they see no hope of buying as the cost of raising children is so high and family demands mean they can't put more work hours in, plus they can't start with a small property so need a huge deposit to start with.

i'm 28. Dh and I bought our first house in 2006 when i was 19.

We had a 125% mortgage. The house was £68k, we borrowed £85k and used the unsecured £17k loan to do the house up. It was then revalued at £120k...you hear lots of bad things about 125% mortgages, but it really worked for us.

I'm older but I bought my first home myself at 36 with over 20 percent down. I was making about 28k USD but had moved home two years prior due to a severe illness. I didn't pay rent with the understanding I was saving for a house. So everything I made went towards my down payment.