Millennials in the house - what will entice you to save up for a house?

[AteRiri]

I read that millennials are all about experiences and not accumulating/owning things.

I'm curious...how can you be enticed to save up for a house?

I would love to own my own house.

But I can't afford one. Simple really.

I can't afford the experiences/holiday etc either.

Millennials were born in the 80s and 90s I think.

My Husband and I are millennials, bought a house 2 years ago because we didn't want to start a family when renting. No family help or inheritance, just rented a tiny flat with low rent and saved hard!

I'd say it's a 50/50 mix of home owners and renters within the millennials we know, but more and more are buying as the years go by.

But we don't live in the South East, we're in the West Midlands, so although house prices aren't great, they're not completely unrealistic. The mortgage on our 4 bed, ex council end terrace is £650 a month. That makes the difference.

My DS is a millennial, he and his partner would love to be home owners and would be prepared to save hard for the deposit but truthfully there would be no point because he doesn't earn enough to get a large enough mortgage to afford properties where we live.
Something has to change either more social housing, changes to law to make sure renting is more secure or a massive increase in wages. Can't see any of that happening if the current government continue to be in charge.

Well, millennial is a broad term. Covers people born from the early 80s to the late 90s. I'd say there's a big difference within the cohort. Someone born in 1982 might just have managed to buy a house before the boom kicked in. Probably not, but a few did. That's clearly not the case for someone born in 1998, or even 1988.

Otherwise, echo what a lot of people have said. If you're currently in a position where you haven't bought a house, which is disproportionately but not exclusively millennial, mostly it's affordability. If going without nights out and treats for a few years is going to get you a deposit, you've an incentive. If you're in an area and income bracket where it's never going to happen, you might as well not bother for all the use it's going to do you.

I am just about a millennial (34, just about scrape in according to the definition I googled).

We rent. We are saving very slowly. TBH even as a high earner the amount we need to save to buy here in Surrey seems almost unthinkable.

I don't want to put my life on hold and miss out on amazing experiences during the peak decades of my life when I'm child free so I have spent money on great holidays and experiences.

Yes, we could have saved faster without them but it still would have taken a long time and I didn't want to spend those decades sitting at home.

So we will own at some point in the next few years when we will also be married and have DC.

I'd like to buy my own house but I pay £700 a month in rent, which is more than what I could get a mortgage for on a property round here but I can't afford to save for a deposit. Excellent logic. I will probably have to move my family back in with my parents to save up for one eventually.or just rent forever because the system is fucked.

I'm 23, my partner is 26 and we're saving to buy a house because we don't want to start renting and then be unable to save up. The fact that we're both living with parents in order to save up is a massive incentive.

Also, I know lots of people my age who are either saving up to buy or have just managed to buy.

Millennials - also known as Generation Y - are the cohort born between the early 80s and the late 90s/early 00s who reached/will reach adulthood in the early 21st century.

I'm 29 so that includes me. I live in a part of the world where mortgages would still be more expensive than rent, because it's all so bloody expensive. But some of my friends are buying, mostly with help from parents or saving since they were really young whilst still living at home until their late twenties. Anyone forced out into private rented accommodation in their twenties is stuck, you can't save on most wages.

I've decided not to worry about buying for a good while because I'd probably be worse off and I like where I live

• I live in a perfect house with a garden in big busy town with everything I need, not in london but easily commutable in for my work.
• my landlady is amazing and fixes everything asap and is also fine with us decorating. She's keen we stay long term so feel pretty secure compared to many renters.
• Our house to buy would cost approx. £550,000 so the mortgage over 25 years would be at least £2500 - £1000 more than our rent. We don't have a spare £1000 but if we did I'd rather save it than pay a mortgage with it. If we suddenly lost some income or became ill we could theoretically use savings for a while for rent or move someone cheaper if needed. If we had a mortgage we'd have to pay it regardless, much less flexible.
• we could try and buy somewhere cheaper but then we'd have to pay all the repairs we don't have to now, and would probably have to be in a much less commuter friendly area, so living quality would go down.

In our particular circumstances I just don't see the point in slaving and saving to buy a less nice house in a less nice area, that would actually be more precarious.

I'm a millennial. Worked for a year to save for our wedding then worked for 2 more years to save for a house. I don't get the issue, we just put aside money each month until we had enough for a deposit then bought one we wanted. Admittedly we couldn't have managed to get a 10% deposit but the mortgage broker just sorted us a mortgage with a 5% deposit.

Our incentive was purely that we wanted to have a house that was ours to enjoy.

mymothersdaughter how condescending. The 'issue' is many people don't have anything to put aside to save, or if they do that would take a decade to save into a deposit. How much you earn, where you live and how much property costs are all big factors.

I'd love to say I'm not saving for a house cause I'm globetrotting around the world having experiences, but it's actually cause I have no spare money at end of month.

Worked for a year to save for our wedding then worked for 2 more years to save for a house. I don't get the issue, we just put aside money each month until we had enough for a deposit then bought one we wanted.
Good for you. I'm in a similar boat to you EXCEPT you don't get the issue whereas to me the issue is bloody obvious.

I'm very fortunate that me and DH have good incomes and live in a part of the country where house prices are reasonable.

We wouldn't dream of telling friends in the South East or friends on lower income that they just have to put a bit of money on one side. Because they simply don't have the spare money. That's the point.

Agree with others - millennials don't all necessarily want experiences over things - it's just that housebuying is so unachievably far out of reach there's no point in saving to do so, so as a default spend their money on other things.

This.

31 here, with my flat bought at 27 in a (then) unloved bit of London. I did it by taking second/third jobs whenever I could, looking at very cheap flats only (they exist, even here) and joining an industry that I didn't much like but which pays very well. More broadly I was motivated by the fact that my parents live abroad, so no chance of inheriting in the UK, and also the fear of prices spiralling further (which they have).

My flat has doubled in price since I bought - a neighbour recently sold for £350000. It frightens me, because I know I couldn't have afforded my home at that price, and frankly there's an argument to be had about whether it's a fair price. Without that flat my husband and I wouldn't have been able to move up the ladder as we're doing now, to a larger place with a garden nearer a school.

If I was looking now I might well just try to find somewhere stable to rent and get on with my life.

Paperdoll it works both ways though, it's condescending to lump all millenials together in a box and say they can't afford to buy houses. Not saying you've done that but that is the over-riding narrative in media etc

Sorry to offend, didn't mean to. Just feel the urge to stick up for millenials as I think we get a horrendous rap in the press

The only people I know the same age as me and my husband (1989/1991) have bought houses because they've been given money by family or used Help to Buy. I don't know anyone who has managed to save to buy their own house without assistance, and the average price around here is £170k.

I think you need to ask about millenials outside London. The ones in London are obviously screwed but there is more to the UK than one conurbation.

1. Having money left after rent and bills and essentials

1. Feeling that it was an attainable goal

Mymothersdaughter
Not a case of sticking up for them. Nobody is being horrible about millenials on this thread.

I think people have been quite open about how their circumstances affects their ability to save and buy.

What's got people's back up (mine included) is your vibe of "I don't see the issue. I managed to save so other people can". It sounds naive.

MyMother are you happy to share some more details? How much did you have to save for your deposit? And how much was the house? Did you pay rent at the same time?

Like I said further up, anything above a 2 bed flat is out of our reach and even that took YEARS of saving. And we haven't been got a mortgage agreement yet. A two bed flat is more than five times our annual income.

it's condescending to lump all millenials together in a box and say they can't afford to buy houses. Not saying you've done that but that is the over-riding narrative in media etc

That isn't putting millennials down, though - it's a comment on the housing market. Yes obviously some millennials can afford to buy, but as a generation it's harder for young people now than it has been for a long time. Average 13-year wait to save for a deposit (and then what will house prices have done in those 13 years?), home ownership rates dropping lower than they've been for decades.

It's not the fault of millennials wanting 'experiences' over security or spending all their money on Starbucks. The system is

...fucked.

Maisy genuinely sorry to offend. Was paying £850 rent while saving. Deposit £11k plus fees. House £230k

So not too dissimilar to us. Although we pay over 200 more a months and the flat we are looking at is 40k more. I wish I had the answer. We will never own a house. I'd love to have more than one child but looking at it position it won't be possible I think. It makes me sad and I know we are already lucky to even be able to consider to buy. How depressing is that-10 years of degrees between us and both in professional jobs.

maisy I'll add my example too - was paying £430 rent for a grotty room while saving. Deposit £17,900 plus fees. Flat £179k (in London Zone 2, 2013!).

Why does everyone have to want a mortgage. It's just a fuck off massive loan. I looked up a mortgage for 25 yrs on a house round the corner and we'd end up paying £100k in interest. Nope, not doing that.

Also cannot stand the smug 'our first home' posts - congratulations on borrowing LOADS of money. I'd rather rent and then when something goes wrong like the boiler then it's not my problem.