Doesn’t everyone aspire to own a house?

[Letsmoveondude]

Is it just me? I thought everyone aspired to own a home in their lifetime.

I know that it’s a luxury many of my generation will not have.

Currently trying to understand why someone who has the ability would not take it

Most people in the UK aspire to own their home. It's security and a means of saving long term. My house has risen in value faster than any other saving schemes.

Had 1, had another, hated it, sold up and rent instead.

I dreaded issues with boilers, roofs and even trees in the garden. Anything that would have cost £1000s to fix would keep me up at night.
Plus, people I've known worked their entire lives and damn near crippled themselves to pay for houses only to lose them to pay care fees when they got old.

I also had concerns about neighbours, one set started to become nightmarish and there's me tied to a mortgage for 20+ years.. luckily they didn't stay long.

These days I have no concerns about repairs.. landlords job.. no concerns about trees.. there are none.. no major concerns About neighbours.. if it got too bad I'd be out of here in months, not years.

Lets, did OH say why he doesn't want to buy?

Loss of food for thought here. I never thought there would be so many different experiences of house buying. I just imagined everyone to buy their houses, keep them and it all be fairly plain sailing.

We aren’t too worried about household repairs and things like that, DH has a background in construction so he would be able to either do most things or get “mates rates” on labour, that seems to be the way it’s done between our circle, we all lend a hand with household projects- in our rental property we have been quite hands on with the repairs etc. It’s a mutually beneficial thing for us and the landlord currently.

D H has just gone very quiet on the buying a house front, he’s kind of alluded to wanting to buy a rental property up north to rent out thus increasing the size of loan we can get, but in all fairness, between us we earned £110k last year, the amount we would be able to borrow would already buy us a pretty nice house. I’ve no interest in buying anything massive, I’m more interested in buying a house in the estate we currently live in, preferably the same sort of house as we live in- our landlord will never sell, so I was rather hoping we would get a deposit together of around £70k and mortgage the other 200ish k, which seems like a perfectly affordable amount (i Know house prices will go up in 3 years but my thought was to be at around 1/2way point of what we could afford) I don’t want life to change massively, I would just like to not feel as though our entire family life was at someone else’s whim and £12k a year feels like a lot to lose in rent.

If you have the money to ask this particular question then you shouldn't really ask it. How do you think it makes those of us who will never own a house feel?

Paying a landlord or paying NatWest to live in a house. Which confers more social standing? Why is it paying the bank that makes you (generic you) better?

I made a hash of explaining in my last post.

The landlord will never sell, but I’d happily save money and wait for a house like ours- on our street to come up, though I do know I’m 3 years time some people are planning to move out. Something to do with their loan interest rate or something

In most other European countries people rent and have better protection . We seem to be the only country obsessed with owning a property.

I think it's changing actually. My peers mostly bought property 15/20 years ago (SE) and have all made huge gains financially. All are set up for life really with mortgage free houses before 50. However for this generation, I'm not sure the gains will be the same. It's still great to have your own home though. Personally I hated renting and buying a property was the single best financial decision I made.

Largertha, I ask the question because I come from a place where it was always a very distant dream to one day buy a house, I never thought buying a house would ever be something I could do. We’ve grafted as a couple for years and years, to get to the point we can buy a house. If I can, I’ll throw in a few situations, I grew up knowing no one who owned a house, I was chucked out at 17 with my young daughter. My husband didn’t earn much when we met and I was earning minimum wage around my daughter. Things seemed like they would be stacked against us.

So now we’re in a position where it is a possibility my partner doesn’t really seem to want to buy. I’m asking to find out if I am in a group all of my own thinking, if you get to a point where you can, you do.

It seems not though. It seems that this is a choice made by people, seemingly not only my husband.
I’m sorry you are upset by the subject, but there is no judgement. I’m just wanting to discuss from my position of not understanding, as I’ve wanted the ability to feel secure where I live no judgement.

Tenants in the UK have little protection and security. When I lived in Birmingham, one LL put the rent up unexpectedly. Another told us he needed to sell up when DS was six weeks old. I felt vulnerable with ds as a baby as I wanted security for him and was not in the right frame of mind to be thinking of moving when all I wanted was to enjoy bonding with him. It was incredibly stressful.

As a child of homeowners I was really naive and didn't see the problem. Its only later I realized when renting that LLs can rent out absolute shitholes at extortionate prices because they know the property will be snapped up, as people (especially young families who need to live near schools etc) are desperate. We moved to a cheaper part of the UK to become homeowners as well as to be nearer family. Our dream is finally becoming real, best decision ever imo. I understand its not possible for everyone. But if it is, who wouldnt go for it.

We started with a £40k mortgage 25 years ago, moved up and now live in a house worth around £450k in a lovely area. In two years we will own it outright and retire.
I'll be 52.
DD is 18 but already aspires to own her own home one day.

Not in Germany

That’s how I’ve felt annoyed.

My landlord is amazing, please don’t get me wrong. He truly is, but our rental agreement says if any part of the rent is two weeks late he will start the eviction process, don’t get me wrong. I get that you can’t be saying, oh I’ll pay my rent in 2/3/4 weeks time, but that one piece of the rental agreement goes through my mind multiple times per week, that really sums up the concern RE stability.

LetsMoveOnDude fair enough, I get that. I suppose I'm resentful and defensive.

Be careful what you wish for...... I rented a flat for 25 years and bought our current house with DH 9 years ago.

We have a leaking roof to deal with. Home insurance only covers for storm damage, not day to day maintenance, and we have mysterious mould behind our kitchen units.

Lately I wish I was renting again. At least I wasn't having sleepless nights worrying how to pay for it all.

The British state pension is low, so people have to compensate by trying to have their house paid off by the time they retire.

I agree with PP say, we are one of the few countries where renting a property is so uncertain. I have a friend in Canada, who could not get her round the fact I had been given notice to leave because the landlord wanted to sell. Apparently that would not happen, I believe that is the same in many European countries as well (happy to be corrected)

No i dont , i owned a flat the boiler kept breaking down the radiotors were crap, the double glazing was failing and i had no money to fixit anyway a change of circumstances meant ee ended up in private rentrd it was ok but didnt feel like home , we applied for social housing , i live in the northwest of England and we got a house wuite quickly felels much more like home and i dont have to worry about repairs.

I like renting and no I definitely don’t rent a high-end property! It’s a bit of a shit hole tbh but I clearly have very low standards because warmth, a bed and enough personal space are all I need. It’s also very cheap and a mortgage would be triple my rent (London).

I’m really opposed to the whole profit ideology of the UK housing market which puts me off. I don’t want to sink all my savings into a deposit, then have a massive mortgage and never be able to save again. I have no desire to leave London and look for cheaper properties as my job and life is here. The only way I could buy anyway is through shared ownership or help to buy and I have considered it because the UK a rental market offers zero protection, but I wouldn’t call it a goal or an aspiration. More of a grim necessity that I’ll probably end up resentfully doing one day when I’ve saved more and hopefully earn more.

I think I read that average pensions in Germany/France etc where people do rent are far far higher than in England, so the cost of renting after you retire isnt such a big thing.

Im not overly keen on my house or area (not a mumsnet detatched in a leafy area!) But the fact that now the mortgage is less than half the rental cost is making a huge difference already, and certainly would when we retire.

I had hoped to "move up" lile many on this thread but we certainly cant aford to and wont make money doing so/downsizing as we're entry level.

OP i can't understand you not buying on 110grand. Thats a huge income. Our house isnt worth a lot less than you're proposing and we're on a (small) fraction of what you are. Even on the old 3 x income you could get to 330 easily and comfortably afford a house. I honestly dont see why you wouldnt in your position.

We bought when we were young then like a p said everything went wrong, I was on mat leave and we couldn't afford it. Did a voluntary repo which enabled us to free up cash and move to where we actually wanted to be. Plus we don't have the hassle of being responsible for maintenance and repairs. Renting enabled us to move abroad relatively easy as we didn't have a house to sell. We can't buy here ( expats aren't allowed) but i rent the top floor of a beautiful villa in a lovely area and have my own elevator and roof garden. We would like to buy somewhere for when we retire but definitely not in the U.K.

I don't agree that owning your own home shaggles you to living in one place . We brought a house in 2009, after living in it for a couple of year we wanted to move abroad so have spent many years renting it out , the rent covers the mortgage and gives us a small income . It gives me security of ownership but freedom to travel and live abroad

Yeah we could have done that, but actually our money was better off in other investments. If we’d had somewhere we knew we were going back to then it may have made sense, but we didn’t.
Like I say we’ve bought a house now (although only plan to stay in this area for 5 years max) but it made no sense for us for a lot of years.
Obviously this isn’t the OP’s scenario though! If I was staying in one place and was in a position to buy, I would.

Paying a landlord or paying NatWest to live in a house. Which confers more social standing? Why is it paying the bank that makes you (generic you) better?

^Er because paying the bank means you will own the house at the end.

How do people who say they prefer to rent plan to pay for that rent after they retire? Surely it must be a massive stretch on an average pension. Yes you could save up some sort of nest egg, but saving isn’t easy when renting is so expensive (I live in London).

Ddij. You can live in your car. Can you sell your home? I see on a previous post you has a flood upstairs, so had no lighting, was it insured, is it fixed?

Honestly there has to be a way that doesn't involve living in your car.