To get annoyed at the pressure to buy a house?

[Bexicle22]

We rent. I’ve always rented. I haven’t had the opportunity to save the kind of money needed to buy a house. My parents are very old fashioned, especially my dad. He says we HAVE to buy a house.

I don’t mind renting. We recently moved into a new build and pay less than £500 for 2 bedrooms, nice little garden for my daughter etc. Any time anyone comes to the house, they say how jealous they are as it is such a lovely place. It’s owned by a large housing group so we are fortunate to not have to worry about it being sold from under us as the company only rents the houses out unlike private landlords who can sell at any time. We don’t have a lot of disposable income and so knowing we have the added security of having things paid for should they break is also good.

My dad is always nagging me. He said that renting is dead money. He’s right, I know. He said we should be saving for a deposit for a house instead of going on holiday, eating out and whatever. I personally would rather live my life, have a little break away in the sun with my family. We aren’t jetting off to Dubai, maybe a week in Spain as it’s all we can afford. I feel like I can never say anything about anything we have spent money on as we will get a lecture. My dad truly believes that because we both work, we simply need to go to the bank and we will be given a mortgage, like it’s just that easy. To buy a house similar or better than the one we rent now here, we would need a deposit of about £15,000. My credit is terrible and my partner’s isn’t much better. We work very hard but earn less than £20k before tax between us a year.

Is my dad right, is buying a house the be all and end all of life? Is it an absolute necessity? Should we be putting our lives on hold for the next few years in order to save every spare penny we have so we can buy, even though we are perfectly happy where we are?

Does your dad understand how much you earn between you and that it's not financially an option for uou?

I don't know why you let him keep nagging. Just tell him not only do you not have a deposit but your joint earnings would not allow you to have a a mortgage that would allow you to buy.

I'm also curious as to why your combined earnings is so low?

Tell him to hand over a deposit then and you'll buy a house, otherwise tell him to lay off.

I don't think that owning a house is the be all and end all. Living a happy life, whatever that entails is the most important thing.

It is however very important to me that I own my own home. I felt that if I were paying a massive amount of money every month to keep a roof over my head, I'd like that money to be an investment in my future and not equity for somebody else.

The fact remains that it can be very hard to get on the property ladder these days and if you can't afford to then you can't afford to. People hassling you about it won't change that.

You have to look long term. In my view short term sacrifice is worth it so you can buy a home. Our mortgage payments were high at first. Now they're relatively small. We'll own a house outright in a few years, which means no more rent/mortgage payments ever again. Rent and you rent for life including into old age. I wouldn't want the worry & insecurity of renting on a pension.

I imagine that OPs combined earnings are so low because one of them probably can only work part time as she mentioned a DD in the OP, Other one probably on FT minimum wage.

But it's a moot point, they financially aren't able to buy, so have to rent, so the father has to wind his neck in. Im not sure why the op is gong on about holidays etc. Buying isn't an option for them with no deposit, a combined salary of 20k and bad credit.

Kinda a weird thread when the dad is going on about something that's not an option.

Your father and you seem to have a very different attitudes to money and houses. But yes, if you don't even earn the equivalent of 2x min wage + have got bad credit etc then it's a mute point as you won't be able to buy. And just rely on benefits in old age.

YANBU about being fine with renting..

..but YABU about being blasè about it and to make no attempt to get a mortgage - or any savings for that matter.

We rent and I was content on renting up til 6 months ago when I was reading up on the future of the state pensions. Your pension will be barely enough to cover rent, a previous poster said you'll be entitled to housing benefit but that's uncertain in times to come. Plus its something to hand down to your daughter.

Also like a previous poster said, 20k between both of you is not a lot. I live in North east which is cheap to live. Me and my partner around minimum wage and we come out with over 20k.
I would either work more hours or make a great effort to get new jobs

Your Dad is not being unreasonable to be encouraging you to buy. He is being unreasonable if he thinks it's as easy as just going out and getting a mortgage after saving up a deposit as if by magic.

However secure you think your home is now there is no certainty that things will stay that way. However, on your income and with your credit rating it's going to be very difficult to change that.

It's really interesting to hear people's views on this because I was just talking about this with a friend last night. She comes from a family who've always rented, I come from a family who've never rented and are in the 'dead money' camp. She said 'it's cheaper to rent than to pay off a mortgage' and I said 'not necessarily but maybe, and even if it were at the end of paying off the mortgage you have a house that you own. You can sell it and move up the ladder, live cheaply and save a lot or spend all that extra disposable income on things/activities/experiences you love. At the end of renting you have nothing.' She couldn't see my logic and saw renting as a way to get what you wanted now instead of playing the long game.

You can claim housing benefit to pay your rent when you're of pension age if you have no other income.

At the moment maybe, but I don't trust the government to keep that going by the time I retire in 40-odd years.

Universal credit is already putting hardworking families below the poverty line. I don't really want to be dependent on housing benefit well into my seventies if I can help it - who knows what benefits the government will get rid of next year?

There's certainly nothing wrong with renting (been there, done that) but I feel so much more secure now we have a mortgage. So long as we pay every month, we have a home. There's no landlord who can throw us out with a couple of months' notice, and we don't need to able to find a security deposit and a months rent in advance at any moment either.

Of course it's expensive to own a home but I could (like OP implies) give up holidays etc for a few years and end up with a home, I would do it in a heartbeat (and did).

As a couple you are on a very low income though. Is this likely to go up in the next few years and might saving for a deposit then be more feasible?

This lovely little house you rent for £500 (bargain!). Say,you had to buy the exact same house, how much would that be and what would the mortgage payment be?

Work this out and next time your dad says anything remind him of this. (I'm betting you would be worse off financially, in the same house but skint with no holidays and that's IF you could get a mortgage with your income and credit ratings)

You're happy, that's all that matters.

In my area buying worked out cheaper than renting but even with a max deposit of 35k I'm bloody struggling to get even a tiny studio flat.
Life is hard.

He sounds like a lot of people of that generation who just don’t understand how much harder it is to buy these days. How much deposit you need, the salary multiples required, and how much stricter the mortgage checks are. So annoying

I think your dad means well, but it doesn't seem like he is aware of how difficult it is now to actually buy. My daughter and now son-in-law rented for about three years and had very nice houses. When it came to buying it was hugely challenging - as previous poster has said, the mortgage checks were so strict. They spent a year or so getting their finances in really good shape to prepare. They were able to buy because we passed on a small family inheritance to them which funded the deposit. Their mortgage is also about £250 per month cheaper than their previous rent. You need to sit down with your dad and tell him the reality of the situation, particularly as at present your salaries are low? Also if he's so keen, then he needs to do the decent thing and help you with a deposit. I wouldn't worry, you sound fairly young and there is time to buy later when you are in a better financial situation. It's lovely that you appreciate that you have a really nice house at an affordable rent. But I would keep it in the back of your mind that buying might be something to aspire to in the future. You could work on getting better paid jobs and repairing your credit record. Life passes by quickly and once you get to retirement there's nothing like having your own, mortgage free, roof over your head for security.

She said 'it's cheaper to rent than to pay off a mortgage

But when you rent you are paying off someone else's mortgage. And that mortgage will come to an end but you will stay paying your rent every month.

I often quote my dh's Grandparents on here who got married in 1942 and lived in the same rented house until she passed away and he went into care in 2008. 66 years paying rent..... continuing to pay rent for 41 years after a mortgage would have be paid off. They weren't able to fit a downstairs toilet when they needed one, as they didn't own the property.
If you think you can afford to continue to rent, when either one, or both of you give up work, then great. If not, how are you going to manage?
I do understand that the multiples of your salary would currently make it difficult to get a mortgage, but I'm with your Dad - I would prioritise getting on the property ladder over holidays abroad and meals out. Not least because a mortgage will almost always cost you less than the rent on a similar property.

We bought and in many ways I wish we hadn't as then we'd still have over £12,000 in savings rather than a house that halved in value between us buying it and moving out and that we can't sell but still have to pay for.

Renting would have been a better option for us.

OP I would say it is certainly your decision and totally up to you what you do with your own money. If your dad is not happy then ask him to buy you a house!

However, one day you will retire and you will still need to pay rent, unless you buy. Those who have paid mortguages over their lifetime will own their own property. They can downsize and release a little income (I'd personally never go for these income release things where you do not selll!) Or you can stay put and live in the house you own.

Yes, if you get ill and need care you will end up using your own house to pay for it, but at least you will have more say where you end up. And if you can stay out of a care home you can pass your property on to a relative or friend.

But before you address that, I would seriously address the "We work very hard but earn less than £20k before tax between us a year." You seem bright and articulate and to know what you want, yet you and your partner are bringing home only £20K.

Lastly, if you do decide to buy it really is Location, location, location. Only buy in a place you really want to live, and feel safe in etc. You can smarten up a house but not a whole area!

I had the chance to buy in my early 30s and didn't. Then I met my dh and he had a house! I think for me it is the 'dead' money that you will not see again that worries me, OK when young but not so good as life goes on. Plus once you are buying I am sure the mortgage is a lot less than the rent or at least comparable so you can feel you are on your way.

"We have insurance so if one of us died unexpectedly the remainder of the mortgage would be paid off, which would mean the other person could keep our home." Excellent point.

How much is property where you live? I bought a 2 bed flat for £100k on a salary of around £20k. The mortgage was crippling for the first five years, but when the initial interest rate ended it got so much easier. 10 years later I am still in the flat and the mortgage is 1/3 the cost of equivalent rents.

I view a house like a savings account. It's not money I'll never see again (even if house prices crash and I saw less of it eventually - some money would always be stashed away in the asset a house is).

I used to view renting the way you do, albeit with a better attitude to credit. Then circumstances changed, I had to move and found myself in situation after situation where the new landlords would either sell up or increase the rent beyond what I could afford. Plus, contractually, I had to ask about every nail I wanted to put in a wall and magnolia became boring after over a decade of renting.

And then there were the landlords completely disinterested in carrying out repairs... No, I think your parents are sensible.

I totally get the stress of renting long-term and it's something that worries me too. However taking on a mortgage seems stressful, unless you're in the rare position where repayments might be cheaper than rent. It's not yours until you've paid it off completely, which might take many years - my parents took 20 years to pay off theirs. It puts a lot of financial strain on young people to meet high repayments if you're buying young as many people encourage. I also know I couldn't really afford to buy in the area we live in anyway - and that's on 2 decent-ish incomes.

We bought as we want security later in life. We also use any extra money (bonuses) etc to pay extra off the mortgage whenever we can as it’d be nice to have it paid off before retirement and have a few years mortgage free to enjoy our money. I appreciate this is a fortunate poisition however that we may not always be in.

If we rented we could probably afford a much nicer house. But likewise we wouldn’t have the security.

We also have a house we rent out as my DH owned a house before we got together and we didn’t sell it straight away in case things didn’t work out. They obviously have but we decided to keep it as he’s self employed and doesn’t have much any pension savings. Mumsnet tend to frown on private rents but we look after our tenants and charge a fair rent. The lady who rents off us doesn’t want to buy, that’s her choice, so it works out well for us all