To think it IS possible to get on the housing ladder?

[SleepyHeadThisTime]

I'm not talking about people living in London - god I would not like to be a first time buyer there!

However, I live in one of the most expensive areas for housing in the country and DH and I have spent the last 10 years scrimping and saving to make it to our 'forever home'. Our first house was an ex council house and an absolute dive but we ploughed all our savings into it, did it up, sold it and did the same again twice more. We have never earned more than 40k per year between us.

AIBU to think there is an element of choice about getting on the housing ladder? I have friends who say we're so lucky to be in the position we're in, however when we were spending every weekend sanding, painting, tiling and the rest, they were having holidays abroad, meals and nights out and new cars?

I don't begrudge them this (we're now enjoying all these perks) but I am a bit irked that it's put down to 'luck' and not bloody hard work and very frugal money management?

Surely if you're earning there is the potential to get on the property ladder? I know some who weren't willing to go down our route but still managed it through the government help to buy and shared ownership schemes.

I understand circumstances such as buying on your own and being on a low salary etc make this much more difficult but when I read about 'millenials' earning 30k plus per year and living at home with parents because they can afford to buy it makes me a bit

Btw DH and I bought our first house in 2010 so not in the golden era when houses were only about 3 times yearly salary!

So you earn 80k between you and we're lucky enough to live in an ex council house so you could save . You certainly don't speak for the masses .

Well we should count ourselves lucky-in their day running water, windows and heat were a luxury too far.

This thread is stupid, no-one's convincing anyone!

For everyone who buys a home, luck and hard work are involved. What percentage is luck and what percentage is hard work varies for each person.

It is irritating when someone with a lot of luck accuses someone with less luck of being lucky...

deposits needed are huge now, most of my friends bought years ago on 100% mortgages.

Not true. Two of my friends have recently bought houses with 95% mortgages.

The point is that there are quite a number of one or two bedroom properties in the SE within walking distance (i.e under one mile) to a main line station for under £150K.

So, the stereotypical FTB couple with no kids and on 2 average incomes of £25K - £30K would be able to find/afford to get on the housing ladder with a 5% deposit still. It's not impossible - far from it!

It's unfortunate if you're a FTB with kids and is looking for a 3 bed house with garden and a host of other criteria, who clearly doesn't fall within the category above and can find nothing under half a million. Jeez!

There are so many factors that make people lucky that aren't always appreciated:

• Being in a solid relationship
• Not having children
• Being healthy
• Working
• Working for a high wage
• Being given money
• Having links to somewhere outside of London/SE
• Having links to somewhere with high property price rises so you can move up the ladder
• Buying years ago when property prices were cheaper
• Not having student loans
• Being able to live with family to save

If none of the factors above apply, then sure, it's all down to hard work and sacrifice.

I just want to be able to live in the village I was born in. And enough bedrooms for 6 people-not sure 3 is being greedy. Not really an unreasonable criteria. Not sure how the 1/2 bed debate arose really...

"Nothing went wrong in my life Bubble, it's just that we live, and have always lived in the south, the Home Counties, where property has always been expensive in relation to average salaries."

But you don't earn much more than average? Why?

Waitrose because very few people's first property is a 3 bedroom family home in an expensive village. This thread is about getting onto the ladder, not buying a forever home for a large family.

Out of curiosity I just did a rightmove search, min 1 bed, max 150k for a 20 mile radius of the town where I work.

It returned 4 results. 3 of which were the same 'fixer-upper' listed by different estate agents and the fourth was a caravan.

(I chose 20 mile radius as I personally can not relocate work wise and I can't afford to run a car so that's about the limit of the public transport connections.)

I'm not surprised by this. I am resigned to the fact that I will never own a property unless I find a partner.

I know many people for whom that is the case. Perhaps it depends where you are in the country.

Oh and @JulietJuliet which lender is offering 5x mortgages?? This would make a huge difference to my ability to get on the ladder potentially.

I got 4.5* with both Barclays and woolwich- I would ask a broker to find you one to save the work!

We did our property up. It was shit. Still not finished. Total money pit and relentless time hole. Can't relax when not at work because so aware of everything that still needs doing. Never mind the horror of living without central heating or carpets for a year. I look back and shudder at how wrong it could have gone.

YABU OP, VvvvU

Waitrose if you live somewhere that many people can afford to go straight to a three-bed family home, it must be comparatively easy to get on the ladder with a one-bed flat. I wish I could have gone straight to a house!

soup Halifax! I just looked and actually it's 4.75x but pretty close

Sorry, havent read the thread but I am strongly moved to say ummm....good for you?

We bought a house two years ago, aged 35, and it was thanks to the generosity of our families offering us a gifted deposit. We work in a low paid industry, and until recently both were self employed. There is simply no way that we could have afforded to save a deposit that would have enabled us to get a mortgage. That would have meant I'd have needed to be setting aside my entire monthly food budget, or two thirds of my rent, from 10 years ago. I think my gross earnings 10 years ago was around £12k (just coming out of MA). I was also not in the relationship I am in now, and lived in London.

As it was, we took a loan that was just over twice our joint income. We bought a cheap house, and were looking for a 75% ltv mortgage. Even so, the first lender would only offer over 35 years (making our repayments half the monthly rent we were paying). They then withdrew the offer in principle because apparently neither they or are broker understood the difference between a company ltd by guarantee, and a company ltd by shares... The minute I managed to get people to understand I am paid via PAYE, suddenly we were offered the same loan amount over 19 years and with a better rate. Same job, same risk to my income but put it on a payslip and it's all suddenly just fine.

There's more to it than just having the deposit. I had written off ever owning, as I didn't see how we would ever be able to save a deposit or have people lend to us before we were 40.

Cooool good for you.

A leasehold studio flat round here is over 5 times average salary but I suppose youll say people should just move away from their support systems and anyone elderly or otherwise who needs family support...

It is annoying when people say ‘lucky’ for something that isn’t all luck. I mean, a lot of house owning etc is down to luck, but on the case of your example, the friend with all the holidays, where you feel the money has been spent differently, I can see the annoyance. I remember a woman saying I was lucky to not be going back to work after I had my child. But in fact, I’d been refused flexible working (she was going back part time), I had a small mortgage (partly due to luck of an inheritance, but partly due to buying a house well within my means whereas hers was much bigger), and an aged bashes up car to share between my husband and me (she had a Land Rover of her own), etc. It annoyed me but really what people are saying when they say ‘you’re so lucky!’ is ‘I’d like to have/do/be that!’.

We bought last year after saving our pants off for years for deposit/fees. We’ve spent the last year doing the whole place up with no evenings/weekends free. But if we’d bought even 3 years ago, prices would have been significantly lower.

I can't speak for your friends but I'm my area a "do-er up-er" is like gold dust. There has been about 3 in the past 18 months come on the market for not that much under market value and get snapped up in seconds.

I know it's not exactly what your thread is about but I know plenty of would be first time buyers that would love to get their hands on something to renovate if it was cheaper.

Where I live "doer-uppers" always go quickly to "cash buyers" which round here is code for developers.

If youre a first time buyer on a budget with a mortgage you have zero chance of anything with that sort of "investment potential" round here!

Getting the keys to our first house today and honestly, we would have really, really struggled to manage it without our (relatively well off) parents so I completely sympathise with those who can’t get on the housing ladder.

Doer uppers all go to cash buyer developers/BTLers round my way. Everyone whose partner or child or whoever has done really well for themselves doing up houses and is now mortgage-free on house 4, that’s a succession of houses that a FTB didn’t get.

Also people underestimate just how expensive it is to be stuck in insecure renting and insecure work. I didn’t spend my savings on holidays and meals out in my early 20s, because I didn’t HAVE any savings - anything I saved got spent when I needed to move house yet again, or to pay the bills when I didn’t get decent hours for a month.

There's a phrase along the lines of "the richer I get, the luckier I become!". I think this applies to you, OP. It's not just hard work and living frugally which enables someone to buy a house, it's all sorts of other factors too. Despite what the r-wing press would have you believe, subscribing to Moneysavingexpert's Facebook page and instigating some frugal swaps in your weekly shop will not magically enable you to buy a house...

Ex council house is not code for modest or cheap either.

They are more generously proportioned than new builds and priced accordingly.

A "starter home" round here is no an ex council house that needs a bit of DIY. If only!!!! Its a leasehold flat that youre not allowed to change or a mid terrace thats already been extended as far as possible by a developer who snapped it up for cash and flipped it.

Unless you are rolling in it and can pay cash and have double the budget of most first time buyers, there is nothing going that you can add value to in this area.
Thats already been done. By cash investers.