to not buy a house

[blondieblonde]

We have saved about 50k and have a good salary aggregate, but houses near us are insanely expensive -- think 500k at least. Plus we're not sure if we might move city in about five years.

I'm not sure what to do. Keep saving and wait to see if we move/prices come down? Or AIBU and we should just buy what we can.

p.s. We don't own any other property - we own nothing, just the savings/salaries.

I'd stay very firmly out until you know where you'll want to live

Firmly put. Damn you autocorrect

Could you move to a cheaper area and commute to work? That is what lots of people have to do. In our area in London £500,000 would get you a 1 bed flat!

We could do but we have two little kids, so two people commuting would make it very hard with them. We're currently renting a nice house for average (i.e. expensive) rent. But not so much that it eats up all our salaries - we're still saving a fair bit.

It's hard to say, where are you? Dh insisted we buy 5.5 years ago and it was 100% the right thing. I panicked as l didn't think l wanted to stay in the UK.

But house prices are crazy at the moment here (London). I don't know if they'll go up or down. We have paid a good chunk off our mortgage and managed to save a lot as our mortgage repayments are half of what our rent was

South East. £££

My brother was in a similar position to you & he bought because the mortgage was £400 a month cheaper than rent & at the end of x years he knew he would have a house to sell instead of spending £18,000 a year on rent. He was able to over pay his mortgage too reducing the term & building up equity for the deposit on his next house.

Always buy. Get on with it. You will not regret it.

Of course you could regret buying. Brexit may well cause a house price crash.

I would buy.

Buy. I have always bought and have never regretted it. It is cheaper than renting and you end up with something you own rather than paying someone else money.
We are 37 and are mortgage free with a really nice house- spacious, character, big garden, lovely quiet area- because we both bought before we married, prices went up and we over-paid our monthly payments. It isn't London but it is worth £350,000. No mortgage or rent now so we can save good amounts every month.
ALso, we have friends who are looking to buy for the first time now- earn about the same as us- and are struggling to buy anything they want without a huge mortgage. The later you leave it the less likely it is you do it because it becomes more expensive.

Buy. I'm south east too and haven't regretted buying. Will be a second time buyer soon and everyone I know who didn't take that first step has missed out.

On these threads you will always get people rushing to boast that they've been mortgage free since 17 (slight exaggeration) and you should for for it.

But as I say Brexit may well cause a crash so hold your horses. Brexit has never happened before. This is a different UK.

I would make a spreadsheet for the the likely costs for both scenarios. So if you rent for 5 years (i.e. rent, estate agent's fees etc) and if you buy and then sell in 5 years (stamp duty, legal fees, mortgage interest, loss of interest on deposit, maintenance, estate agents selling fees - don't put mortgage capital payments in as that is going into your equity).

Then work out how much the numbers would vary with different rates of increase in rent and changes in interest rates. With this work out what would have to happen to house prices for you to be better off renting on the different numbers. Then test how likely you think that is.

Of course, it's not just a financial decision, you also have issues such as security vs flexibility to weigh up but a hard financial facts will help.

We did this when we bought 10 years ago. We decided that we would be better off buying provided house prices remained even or a slight loss. At that point it looked likely that prices were about to tank (and they did a bit in some places) but the price has now almost doubled if the estate agents' valuations are to be believed.

This is all v v helpful, thank you.

Just looking at your numbers again. Do you mean that the £50K is the deposit that you have or that it is the total that you have saved? 50K is, of course, a huge amount to have saved but sadly might be too small if you really are looking at 500K properties. Stamp duty alone will be about £15K and then you will have legal costs, searches etc. I am sure that you have thought about this but once you are under 10% deposit then you are much more restricted on the mortgages available and also in a much more risky position if things do go down. Also, in the past you could have a good chance of building equity quickly and remortgaging but that might not be the case in the post BREXIT world. I would speak to a broker but you might find you have to hang on a bit to make sure you have access to a decent mortgage.

These insane prices are a huge drag on so many people.

squoosh We bought at the top of the housing market and for a number of years our house devalued but property always goes up eventually, especially in the south-east. OP would be mad not to buy. Brexit could well not start for another 3 years by which time SE property will be a lot more than it is now. She won't lose out.

We were 35 when we managed to become mortage -free. If we'd rented we would have no equity and still be facing a lifetime of paying off someone else's mortgage for them or starting now with a huge mortgage. It's a no-brainer.