To ask how long it took you to raise a mortgage deposit?

[IamScarfaceClaw]

Just musing really, DP and I would love to own our own home one day, we live in a relatively low living cost area and a 2 bed or small 3 bed is about £140K. We earn about 25k combined and (obviously) currently rent so have all associated costs.
So AIBU in asking, without windfalls/inheritance etc how long did it take you to scrimp and save for your mortgage deposit?
disclaimer- I'm a list maker and a forward planner and I love having timelines to work with, so not just beingnosey.

Hi,

I was 23 when I bought my first house and combined, DP and I were earning £26k at the time (£16k me, £10k dp). That was 2 and a half years ago, so 2014.

We did it by living at home for a year (at his mum and dad's), we paid £250 a month to them as "rent" and pretty much spent nothing else if we could help it, and saved every bloody penny we could. We saved £20k in a year.

I'm not going to tell you it's easy, it's really not and you have to be insanely strict with yourselves and to be honest, that year was bloody GRIM for all involved. But we did it.

Of that £20k, we put £18k down on a £93k 2 bed end terrace in the countryside (god bless the midlands!) with awesome views at the lovely edge of a small town where DP and I both grew up.

We fixed our mortgage for 5 years (doh!) because we couldn't have afforded for the repayments to increase at the time and we pay £360 a month.

2.5 years later, I'm now on £26k and DP is earning about £16k so we're much better off than we were and the mortgage is a bit laughable now! We're saving up again next year in order to get somewhere bigger ready for children in the near future :)

Bough house for 600k in 2003. Now worth 1.4 mill. Had equity from previous house as small deposit. I have NO idea how my children will ever afford it, unless I sell and give them my equity... at that time I bough on my salary alone; now 2 people earning what I do could not afford this fairly ordinary 4 bed suburban house... crazy

We were very lucky because my father gave me the 10% deposit for my first flat.

I then made a bit of money on the flat which gave us enough of a deposit to buy a house together.

My DH saved £10k while living at home for his first flat, I think it took him about 6 years, but he lost money on it, so when he sold his flat, there was little equity in it, I think he may have made around £3K. he bought at a time when mortgage rates were 15%. So we had luck and bad luck.

We have always tried to pay as much of our mortgage off as possible even though that has left us a bit short at times. The term would have ended in about 4 years' time so we may well have paid it off a bit sooner, but in the end my father died earlier this year and I paid it off with the proceeds of his flat.

I would suggest that you pay as much a month as you can reasonably afford, if you are going to go for a 25 year term think about a 20 year term. You can always increase it again if rates increase or you have kids or whatever, but getting rid of your mortgage is a major step to financial security.

Of course, you need the deposit in the first place.

We were also lucky enough to get a 100 percent and not need one. It's so unfair how people cannot buy now without huge hurdles.

I firmly believe OP that where there's a will, there's a way.

At the moment your biggest hurdle is that house prices are going up probably faster than you can save, so the goalposts keep getting further and further away. We were in the same boat 6 years ago and went down the shared ownership route. We were very lucky to get approved to buy a 50% share in our house (with subsidised rent on the other half) which meant our half of the house was £70k (full house value was £140k). We managed to get approved for a 5% mortgage so we only needed a deposit of £3,500. The massive bonus for us of doing this is that we've paid over £10,000 off our mortgage now, and (more importantly) the half we own is now worth more like £82,500 so we now have a £12,500 in equity value to buy the other half, and there's no way we would have managed to save that much in the past 6 years (we've had two children in that time and had to survive on maternity pay etc). Once my current maternity leave finishes (so we're back on our normal wages) we intend to buy the other half of our house. I'd strongly suggest in your situation look into shared ownership.

In the meantime, work out how much money you actually need each month (rent, bills etc) and how much money you can afford to save each month. After payday, immediately put that amount into savings as if it's left in your current account you are more likely to spend it. Plan to live really frugally for a couple of years and trim as much unnecessary expenditure as you can (meals out, holidays, DVDs etc). It's amazing how much little costs add up (for example if you spend £3 buying lunch on your five work days a week that's £15 a week, which is over £700 a year). It's a grim couple of years but worth it in the long term.

Oh, and bear in mind you will need to allow some money for legal and moving fees (usually about £4-5k) on top of your deposit.

Always lived in London. First time 12 months - saved a small deposit on a tiny studio flat. We did not go out at all and had no holidays - both lived with parents paying rent. The mortgage was my entire salary - £550 in 1989. This was around the time rates were 6-7% and briefly shot up to 12%.

We couldn't sell the flat when DS1 came along so rented it, rented a slightly bigger but utterly grotty flat for 12 months. DH worked 7 days a week to save up a 10% deposit £10K in 1995/1996. It was very hard as DS1 was a tiny baby but I'm pretty proud of what we achieved. We bought the grottiest house in the street and slowly renovated it.

I didn't earn much so it took about 7 years! I started saving as soon as I had my first job at 16 and lived at home so by the time I was in my early 20's I had enough for a deposit. House was £50k - building society wanted 10% deposit so we put down £5k

This was nearly 30 years ago so not cheap then! We had to move miles away and buy in a rough area as it was all we could afford. We bought the worst house on the worst street in the worst town - but we made it look nice and sold it a year later and moved nearer home . That little house was the best investment we have ever made.

20k took us about two and a half years. We then unexpectedly got given the remaining 10k by my parents, as they had a windfall. Without this money we were expecting to be saving for another year or so, so would have been three and a half years in total. This was in a high rent area, but with two decent-ish incomes and no kids (at that point!).

DH inherited a lump sum. I saved around £20k over about 4 years at a time when rents were still reasonable, I has no DC and was in an ok paid job (around £30k).

However £14k of what I had saved went on the house purchase costs alone - stamp duty, solicitor fees, and some very modest moving and decorating costs.

40 years £60k

100% mortgage here.

9 months. I joined the territorial army, volunteered for Iraq. Whilst out there you earn your civilian salary but don't spend a penny. By the time you get back you have all that salary untouched in your bank account.

We did help to buy on a new build so we bought a 150k house, put down 5% deposit which was part parental gift and part savings, the government loan covers 20% and we have a 75% mortgage. We earn a combined salary of around 50k but I had just had 10 months on maternity leave when we bought our house and I was on smp.

Moved to London for insanely high paid city job with such long hours there was no time to spend my salary. Met Dh at work. Saved deposit and fees in about a year.

Watching with interest. I'm managing to squirrel away £200pm, so might take me a while 🙈

5 years - £10,000. Still saving. Getting old. No inheritance or money given.

The problem is you are both on very low wages. I didn't earn much, but both DP and I worked extra hours to afford a deposit. People I worked with did the same. For example one guy worked delivering pizzas in the evening after his day job - his wife worked during the day but couldn't do extra hours because of childcare.
House prices sound about the same where I live. And if you are on a lower wage, working extra hours or an extra part time job, can make a real difference. But from your current wages, even if you are on minimum wage, you are not both currently working full time. One of you full time, one half time? And that makes it very difficult.

Well I bought my first property back in the days when you could get a 2-bedroom flat in Zone 2 in London for under £100k.

So it was quite easy to save up £5k for the deposit I needed then, as I was also young, free and single.

No idea how my kids will manage however.

50k, one year or so

We are old enough to have bought our first house when the standard deposit was 5% (although 100% was also available) and prices were also much lower then - so it took a few months.

I do feel sorry for people starting out now.

15K, about a year, because we lived frugally and made sure we could live on one income right from the start (we were both earning around £15K - not only did it help with a house deposit, but a few years later, when we started having kids, the drop in income didn't come as a shock.

We have set up a help to buy isa which we started in December last year and saved just over £6k so far. This way, government put 25% of whatever you save towards for first time buyers! We set up 2 accounts, one for me and one for dh so we get double the amount towards. It's been bloody hard as I've been on maternity leave this year but I has been do able.

We are looking to buy the house we are already in for 60k so already have 10%. We are hopefully trying to get a mortgage in spring next year.

In 1997, 10k. One year and was a 20% deposit.

1997. House cost 32k. I needed a 5% deposit which I had when I finished uni so no time really. I got a job, and went out house hunting. Different world now.

We bought when prices were much lower, couldn't have done it now