' A chicken would cost £50'

[stopitandtidyupp]

Leisurely watching ' The big questions'
discussing is London only for the rich?

One woman said if house prices were a chicken then a chicken would now cost £50. Now she meant in London but I wonder about the rest of the country.

I live in the NE and I am struggling to get on the ladder.

I guess my AIBU to be annoyed at house prices and is there an answer?

@OftenHangry I did what you said and ended up selling for 11k less than I paid for it and that didn't include the ten years worth of renovation and repairs. So it's not as simple as starting at the bottom and working up

I did that and now I am struggling to buy another home

@WeWantJustice NameChangeOhNameChange, there's still no word on what your deposit was and how you saved that deposit?

NameChangeOhNameChange1 Sun 06-Jan-19 13:17:53
And yes, the bank gave me a mortgage on my admin salary. I had a 20% deposit and the counted by income from my part time jobs too.

NameChangeOhNameChange1 Sun 06-Jan-19 12:41:50
I also earned about £80 extra a week doing deliveries for Dominoes

I don't claim benefits or get maintenance. For those that do get them, you won't be getting them anyway, even if you make your child move out because you 'can't afford' to keep them anymore.

My bills are only going to be tiny bit less if DD moves out at 18. I still have to heat and light the house. TV, internet, phone and Netflix costs the same regardless of whether she's there or not. I still have to replace the fridge, washing machines and boiler when they break. The only real cost to her living with me is that council tax will go up by 25% (about £250 year) and a bit of food.

If she did move out and rent somewhere that would make the rest of her life a lot more difficult.

I wasn't suggesting I had the solution to every person being able to buy their own house. But a lot more people could if they looked for solutions and not problems. I don't think there has ever been a time or place where everyone could buy their own home.

A lot of people could save 3k a year and buy one of the 30k houses outright ten years from now. I'm not suggesting that every person in the country can do this or that's a solution to all the world's problems. But, it might be a suggestion that is useful to some people.

Low wages very often mean work doesn't pay for some.

Moving can bring its own costs and issues. My DH were quite happy to move in order to get on the property ladder. I'd been bullied at school and didn't want to raise a family in the same town. However it did mean I had to leave my job and we don't have the option of free family childcare. It's certainly not a solution for everyone.

I disagree OP. I bought a £100k property on a salary of £16k with a deposit of £5k in 2012.

Then me and my partner bought a £215k house on a joint salary of £46,000 witha deposit of £11k.

I've only ever put down 5% depsoit so its not a huge amount of money to save. I've never found it hard to get a mortgage, or afford the repayments on my respective salaries.

SOME of the accusation about the older generation are off the mark

Before the mid to late 70’s most normal people rented. Many of the older generation benefited from maggies great council house sell off, not from it being easier in general for poorer people to buy houses

To buy a house both my parents had to be together, in good jobs, , no car no holdiays, no weekend breaks, no phone. T was brutal . Growing up, I only knew one single person who owned a house

The problem is not just house prices but in the removal of social hsu8ng and the expectations tha you are hard done by if you can’t buy a house

we got a 100% mortgage 17 years ago to buy the flat we are in now as we had no deposit. We had previously lived in council houses.

Now DD1 (28) still lives with us because she can't afford a deposit and feels that she never will.

DD2 lives with her fiance in his flat, which he was able to put a deposit on thanks to his parents. Otherwise, she would probably still be living here too. I can't see how most young people will ever own their own homes, unless they have middle class or comfortably off parents who can help.

Tone fair you are going to be hard done by in a lot of ways renting, the lack of security must be difficult with school aged children and no one seems to know how people who privately rent are supposed to pay said rent after retirement.

He bought a house when he was 21 and had the attitude that young people could do the same if they worked as hard as he did We worked out that to buy a similar house today, he would have to be earning 33k aged 21 which we both agreed was completely unrealistic

I earn similar at 20

Good for you, ALittleCrisp. Given the average wage is less than that, it’s safe to say the majority of 20 year olds won’t earn anything like that.

@namechange

People always eyeroll when I say I wasn't expecting to conceive.

I'd been told I was infertile due to the same health issues that fucked with my work history.
They were wrong, as it happens.

I can't drive, and my contract states I need to have evidence of paying for a professional end of tenancy clean inc. carpets (as did the last place I rented). I need to put a deposit on a new place before I can move into it. As I have to live somewhere before relocating, I won't get this deposit back until after I've moved out, and into the new property.

People don't realise having a shitty family of origin really does impact everything and it's not down to 'not taking responsibility'.

I looked for every job I could for 6mos before it became apparent money wouldn't last and I started studying instead. I'm talking offices, cleaning, night phone operator for a breakdown company which would have left me having 3 hours sleep a day in the week, bar work, started camming before benefits came in because otherwise how else was I going to survive? I worked either side of hospital admissions pre-DD. I applied for jobs in my hospital bed.

People who know my circumstances intimately often commend me for not giving up. For doing everything it takes to better our life.

But strangers on the internet obviously know so much better, how much easier it is than I imagine...

A healthy person motivated to buy will be able to get on the property ladder. But a lot of people aren't willing to make the sacrifices that requires.

Hahahahaha

I remember some idiot asking me why I had a laptop when I was living with my parents. I told them it was because I didn't have to hand over half my salary a month to run a laptop. People really can be thick as fuck about the circumstances of young people.

NameChange while I don't necessarily disagree with your general points, you say that the bank counted your additional income from part time jobs. Did you have another job as well as the £80 a week for Dominoes? Because that alone is an extra £4k on top of your annual salary, and isn't a small amount.

When I returned from overseas in 1985, from a well-paid job in a higher-wage economy, I stayed briefly in Sheffield, a lovely town where properties were cheap. But there was no work in my specialist field. So I moved to London, and bought a one bedroom flat a couple of years later, using the funds saved in my overseas pension as the 5% deposit.

Had to let the flat for 12 years when DP and I shacked up, and lived in his house for longer than we wanted because in the early 1990s, the property crash had us both in negative equity and interest rates hit 16% at one stage. Eventually that resolved itself (time and inflation more than anything else) and we were able to sell both to buy our forever home, where we shall live until we downsize. Twenty years on, the house has earned nearly as much as us, and there's no way we could afford to buy it now.

DS will get a deposit when we downsize, and lives free at home meanwhile to save some money while he decides what next. But we have been both fortunate and sensible. We were ancient parents for example.

@TwllBach I had a small business which bought in some but because it was irregular I don't think the bank counted that.

I remember living in a houseshare and eating a lot of tesco basics, running a very cheap car etc. I was doing 40 hours per week in my admin role and then did most Friday and Saturday nights at Dominoes.

It wasn't a fun time in my life (though I actually loved working at Dominoes!) but it allowed me to put away a good chunk of my income.

However I was, mostly, healthy (mental health was rocky having said that) and I didn't have any dependants.

My partner did similar though he had to take a significant chunk of time off work whilst undergoing treatment for cancer. I didn't know him back then but I imagine it was hell.

I realise I'm coming across as judgemental and holier than thou, but I see so much negativity on Mumsnet about finances when I know that, exceptional circumstances aside, these things are acheiveable. It's so frustrating.

Instead of bemoaning the situation, we should be trying to overcome it and inspire young people by telling them that its possible, hard yes, but possible.

I now work in a country with very very few benefits available for its citizens, and no one thinks to blame the government for their circumstances.

I think what it comes down to is this: people in shitty circumstances try to work their way out of it, and if it is too hard, are told they are not trying hard enough, by people who are not in shitty circumstances.

@Kismetjayn both my DP and I were in shitty circumstances, now that we've worked our way out of them have we now lost the right to give advice?

@namechange yes because you've lost the perspective that a) times change and b) circumstances can be shittier than yours, by chance.

We worked out that to buy a similar house today, he would have to be earning 33k aged 21 which we both agreed was completely unrealistic

I know a few 21 year olds who earn more than £33,000 per year.

The only difference between them and most 21 year olds is they are qualified in a trade and have been earning for the last 5 years.

I think the whole sale marketing of how great a university education is has added to the amount of people who have wasted 5 years of earnings and given themselves at least a £30,000 debt.

They then leave uni and end up for the majority earning the same as a 16year old .

Dd trains up these people in one of her jobs. She is much younger than them without the qualifications but is in charge of the graduates.
I don’t think it will be too long before dd will be buying her first place either.

Advice is fine. The holier than thou “if I can do it, anyone can” attitude that came with it, isn’t.

It’s great that you’ve achieved it. Really it is. And you must also recognise that for the majority of people, saving £30k by age 22 (presumably plus solicitors fees etc?) is going to be extremely difficult if not impossible.

It’s also important to recognise balance - for you moving away was the right thing. For others, moving away with no friends or family could seriously jeopardise their well-being.

I think we are all told everything is of our own doing and we all need to work harder. For lots of people working harder is of no benefit to them. On this I completely agree. Working harder in my role at work does nothing for my situation at all.

At the other end of the scale some people do think the world owes them a living and that they should be able to live in London near their family, have 6 children and never work to pay for any of it. Anything bad that happens to them is always someone else's fault.

I wish the country was fairer. I also wish some people would be a bit more imaginative about how they can help themselves.

It’s also fact that wages have not risen anywhere near as fast as house prices. That’s important. Someone on the national average wage cannot afford a nationally average priced house.

@Lilmisskittykat It doesn't happen regularly, however as with everything, there is a risk of losing money.
Hope you are getting it sorted and will be ok soon x

Houses are really cheap where I live compared to national averages which makes it even more frustrating I can’t get on the housing ladder. My mortgage would be a lot cheaper than my rent but as a single person I have no hope.

There is an employer in my area that pays very well so some young people get on the housing ladder very young. There is a big divide.