To think owning a home isn’t the only goal in life

[Bonjourmonami73]

Don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE to own my own home but I am priced out of the market and it’s not looking like I will own any time soon. I could move to a cheap area where I don’t know a soul but I don’t want to. I have a great flexible job, 2 happy kids in a nice school, lots of friends, a social life, holidays etc. I just can’t afford a house as Would need £100k at least deposit.

Someone said to me yesterday that they don’t understand how I can ‘bear’ to live like this and that I should be doing everything I can including moving to a town 200 miles away to get on the housing ladder. I dont understand this logic at all. I would rather own my own home of course but I don’t have a deposit.

The other thing that this person said is ‘what will you do when you are older’ and the truth is I don’t have the answer. Maybe move somewhere cheaper then when my kids are grown up.

Aibu to feel like this? I am a bit tired of being asked why I can’t buy a house. I have actually privately rented this house for 7 years and can have it for at least another 2. Yes I know it’s ‘dead money’ but there isn’t anything I can’t do about that as I can’t save £100k for a deposit.

I feel judged constantly for renting- the person yesterday basically implied I had totally failed in my life.

Aibu?

I'm 44 and and 3 years ago bought my 2nd home. 18 years in the middle spent in army rented housing.
I am so miserable in my own home. I think we probably bought a right spanner of a house (despite a survey that threw up fuck all) but it's been nothing but one huge upheaval after another with problems and big repair bills.
We don't know any tradesmen and have been taken for a ride by cowboy tradesmen even using people recommended by friends.
I'm constantly in a state of anxiety about what will go wrong next. It's become so bad I've been signed off work with it all.

I want to sell up and move into rented. I miss the days when you could just call someone else to deal withnit and whwn theybdisnt deal - well its their property amd investment deteriorating.
Dh won't have it though. He wants to stay or consider moving to another home of our own. He s rarely here though and it's me left dealing with the fall out every time. Its all got too much.
I try telling myself loads of people would love to own thier home and I'm being ungrateful but i still crave the days back in shabby shitty magnolia quarters with 1960s tatty kitchensand pink natty carpets over the piece of shit I currently live in.
So yes. I think home ownership is over rated massively. Europeans seem much happier with rentals it's just some weird British mentality.

@hotnoodle would you like to pay rent until you and your partner both die though? Mortgages can be very stressful but are better in the long term if you can afford one as means you can then live there for free (other than bills obviously) once you own it outright, and it’s also an asset and can be left to your kids

My dd, 18 and about to start uni, if her career path she has in mind is successfully, has stated that she has no intention of buying a property ever no matter how much she earns. She (and myself) do not understand this obsession with buying.

What needs to happen is rent car ntrol on private rentals so people can live comfortably without being tied to a mortgage because today's society says it's the right thing to do.

anglo saxon mentality is all about home ownership. Look at our `tv programs, homes under the hammer, cash in the attic, location location etc.....

What you gonna do with that big house, leave it to the kids? Look, it's fine to rent. plenty do. Being mortgage free can also give freedom. No, there are plenty of things more to life than owning a house. I used to be so desperate to do it, but it's expensive and we can't have it all...... look at the positives.....

To those talking about Europe - they have rent control and very long term rent contracts - over 10 years. They don't need to worry much about their old age because they have very good pensions and social provisions. They don't need to worry about leaving capital to their kids, because they will benefit from the same system, and higher education is free or extremely cheap.

I completely agree that this is a better system, but its just not the same in the UK. In the UK, house ownership is important, no matter how unfair that is.

Of course it's not the only goal in life and if you can't afford it then you have to make other/ additional provisions.

But if you can afford it, owning a home means you won't have to scrimp by as a pensioner, it lessens the worry over pension income if you're likely to have to rely only on a state pension, you have an asset to sell and fund a care home place if necessary without having to rely on your children, or you can ensure they inherit a sizeable lump sum. Of course you can do this by saving instead, but house prices gain so much value that there's often no comparison with savings accounts, like for like, if you want to retire comfortably and provide for your children after you're gone.

My self employed dad was declared bankrupt in his late 50s/ early 60s - it's only the proceeds of the sale of the house that has sustained him and my mum in their retirement, since they only have state pensions.

@slutty but again, as I keep saying, how will you and your daughter afford rent when you are very elderly and living off a pension? I get that the majority of the country will probably end up having to do that and there will be a major crisis if something isn’t sorted out soon, but if your daughter’s earnings mean she can one day comfortably buy then surely it’s better for her in the long term when she can then live there for free in old age (other than bills)

I'm counting on inheritance. If DO needs care, I'll be renting for the rest of my life. It's how it is.

Home owning is not for everyone, but there is no denying that being mortgage free as a pensioner will save you a lot of money versus renting (even considering the maintenance costs) You may have the option of downsizing to release more funds if needed. Every pound spent on renting, you will never see again. If you own, you may make a bit of money eventually.

We don’t have the rights that European renters do. We don’t save the amounts for retirement the Germans do. We don’t have the same saving for a rainy day mentality. What’s good for Europe doesn’t translate for us necessarily.

You can have financial security as a private renter if you invest very cleverly, have great pensions that cover the rent etc, but how many people are really making that much through investments? If you rent and can make more money from the amount you save by not having a mortgage, good on you! (Please can I have your stock tips )

Frosty I'm hoping that the fact we've drummed into her about pension provision will have sunk in. She knows we put a healthy sum of money into a pension each month so my hope is she will do the same. She's seen her grandparents (my parents) who paid off their mortgage eons ago have to spend tens of tnousands with upkeep of their 70's 4 bed detached.

If we had proper rent control with private rentals at the same cost as social housing then it would be feasible to put money into a pension and save for retirement.

@slutty she will need a very hefty pension to be able to pay rent every month and also be able to do anything remotely fun. Especially if she were to be single or widowed. But I do take your point that pensioners who own could still be lumped with huge bills for home repair stuff too. I’d much rather be mortgage free and then be able to use my pension and any savings for things like that though as i’d find it far less stressful. That’s just me personally though

“In Germany everyone rents, the same in the Netherlands.”
“There are plenty of countries where renting is a lifelong solution to housing.”

I’m not sure how relevant this is here. I suspect their private rental market is more tightly regulated than ours. I have read so many posts on MN about shit landlords that private rental is not something I would want to do. I don’t think tenants have enough protection from rogue landlords.

The Tory government should never have advocated the sale of all those council houses. They broke their promise that they would use the money from the sale to build more.

What we really need here is more council houses and tighter rental regulations that can be policed properly.

Moving when children are older may not work out.
Your children will be young adults who are attached to where they grew up. They may meet their own partners in the area you live in now .
Imagine your children married/settled with someone and you will have more reason to stay exactly where you are now. Grandchildren will come along and the whole saga will start again.
So if your kids are small then I would move now. That is if you really value having a home that you own.

Also with the PP who advised buying a property elsewhere and renting it out, good idea, remember that you would need to prove that you can afford a buy to let mortgage.

So how come the Netherlands have got it so right and we have gone so fucking wrong? I blame Thatcher. As a naive child who would have thought she would have fucked me and thousands of others over in decades to come.

"I blame Thatcher"

So do I Takemedown

Some erroneous info on here

In Netherlands 69% own their own homes
In U.K 63%
In Germany 52%.

So how come the Netherlands have got it so right and we have gone so fucking wrong? I blame Thatcher. As a naive child who would have thought she would have fucked me and thousands of others over in decades to come.

@takemedowntopotatocity believe it or not, the Dutch government seems determined to emulate the UK in terms of what Thatcher did to social housing (and all the rest of it tbh).

Housing corporations are under pressure to constantly raise rents and there has been talk about ending permanent contracts. The private rental market is full of cowboys and cheats and more and more housing has been declared to be free of rent controls, meaning that landlords can ask whatever rent they like.

On top of that, with the London housing market no longer being a good bet for investors, we've seen more and more cash buyers coming over here. I forget what the percentage was last year, but it's high. Buy-to-let mortgages were permitted a few years ago (you couldn't get them before that) and housing is increasingly an investment rather than what it was previously viewed as: an essential and indeed a human right.

Basically, things are getting pretty shit here just like they are everywhere.

I don't deny that things are worse in the UK, but Western Europe is going down the tubes just like everywhere else is

My experience, shillings worth ...

I rented private flat-shares most of my adult life because I couldn't afford to buy a place on my own and also had some health issues (its not just the new younger generation who can't afford to buy).

I didn't really like it though. Luckily I got a small Housing Association flat in my late 30s - but generally its very hard for single people to do this. It was a good time, because I felt very free - the rent was only £70 per week which I could afford even if I wasn't well enough to do 35 hour week or work was a bit short on supply.

However, later on with a child, and back in private renting it was nice living in a normal street with trees and having bigger rooms. However, the Landlords were absent and disinterested, the rent was high and the Letting agents were total bastards from hell. It was also expensive. Plus moving around, living out of a box, feeling like you couldn't hang up a picture and might have to move at a moment's notice (2 months).

Fast forward a few years again and back in social housing. Poorly built with little insulation on an estate in a rough, noisy area. But the rent is lowish £100 per week. Very difficult to move.

I think if I was young and free and didn't have children, if I was poor I'd just live in a room somewhere and be as free as I could! I mean as opposed to slogging my guts out in a low paid job I disliked.

Social housing is not for a lifetime now. Leases are for 5 years at-a-time. If you are poor at the end of your working life you can always apply for retired social housing/over 55 housing.

Takeaway - agreeing with alot of what you're saying in macro terms.

I blame Thatcher.

My list is slightly longer than that. I also blame the Bank of England for all the cheap money that inflated prices, and government policies like Help to Buy that do the same, and people taking the advice offered upthread to “buy property elsewhere and rent it out” (fortunately less attractive now), and really, anyone who’s part of the problem of property-as-investment rather than place to live, which may be understandable from a personal perspective, but is bad for a society on a crowded island.

In our circs I would move heaven and earth to buy as renting has not been good to us, but in yours OP, I think I would feel as you do. That it is not ideal, but something you can be at peace with for now. You have decent prospects for the future (assuming your pension is safe and really will cover all your needs) and will likely inherit so it will probably turn out OK for you.

But you have to also think of the worst case. If I were you I would save as much as possible whilst still having a life, and find out how the pension would work if ill-health forces early retirement and double check how much you might inherit after elderly care costs etc so you have all the info. Sounds like you do that already.

It is easy for others to spout on, and if you have less to give up or obviously much more to gain then it is easier to decide to upsticks and move, but your current life seems to have a lot going for it which is great!

YANBU. Most people don't actually own outright anyway. I would much rather do without the debt tbh.

@pipkinport one thing I would say is that there's a much better mix here of 'rich' and 'poor' in different areas, so you don't tend to find the rundown housing estates vs leafy areas with nobody around during the day that are fairly common in the UK. It's also great because it means that people can help each other out, schools are more mixed, and so on (yes there are heaps of examples of 'bad' schools, 'poor' neighbourhoods etc in the Netherlands, but nothing like the UK situation IMO.)

@happypuppy you're talking bollocks. The problem isn't "personal responsibility" (and believe me, I am an advocate of personal responsibility and independence) but that the system is set up to ensure no amount of responsibility will triumph over it.

Housing in this country is primarily seen as an investment rather than a basic need which is morally and inherently wrong. The fact a huge slew of pensioners will need to be on benefits to afford their rent in the future is down to Thatcher's right to buy scheme as has already been pointed out, no controls on foreign investors buying up half of London, no rent controls, wages not rising at the same speed of the cost of living, the current government doing fuck all about it because half of MPs are landlords, and all those who advocate buying a cheaper home elsewhere and renting it out, thus driving up prices in that area and adding to the problem of housing being an investment by default.

It isn't practical to suggest moving to a cheaper area as a blanket solution - cheaper areas often mean lower wages, so the amount you could borrow for a mortgage may not even afford one of the cheap properties there. Some people's careers are London-centric (which is a whole other issue in itself, and again not the individual's fault) or they couldn't earn a London wage if they were to do their job elsewhere.

Paying rent limits the amount you can save. Not everyone has the confidence, skills, education, economic background or opportunities to secure highly paid jobs. If it was as easy as "work hard and you'll be financially rewarded", we'd all be millionaires.

So in short, OP, no YANBU

OP has made lifestyle choices: had 2 kids, a great social life, nice holidays and rents her home.
My nephew has made lifestyle choices with his fiance (joint salary about same as OP, £40K between them), they live about 35 miles from London: Saved a load. Bought a flat, now upgraded to a house. No expensive holidays (camping or stayng with friends), no kids (for now).

Why are you so bothered about what other people think OP? It's your life, and you are living it how you want.