To think that house buying is the norm in my world?

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NC’d for this, I was reading an article this morning about how ppl are finding it hard to get on the property ladder these days and I realized that literally every single one of my friends and family have been buying houses with relative ease for the past 10 years (I’m in my early 30’s!) so from what I can see it’s the norm to buy (and build houses) at around 24-26!! I wouldn’t say my friend have particularly high powered jobs either, most are nurses, teachers and have apprenticeships. A few even work in retail!!

My nephew is 21. He has just purchased a house easily for £120k.
My Niece is 34, she is renting.

Nephew lives in Accrington.
Niece lives in Beckenham.

Go figure.

I think lots of people in cheaper areas just don't realise that they could actually afford it because all articles talk about young people not being able to get on the ladder.
Friend was astounded when I counted for her how much she would need to save up for a 100k . 5k deposit and up to 2k for everything else including solicitors. She honestly thought she would need near 20k so just resigned.

“Affordable housing” where I live (area in South East) starts at £385,000. Not affordable first homes at all! The commute to London is 1 1/2 hours as it’s not high speed so not even like it’s a decent commuting distance to well paid jobs. The city is swamped with huge universities engulfing it all and there are no head offices etc to earn those sort of wages. Bearing in mind a deposit is usually 20% you would need almost 80k for one of the “affordable” homes. They are not targeting locals but people who work in London that want a home by the sea. It’s great you and your friends have got on the property ladder but it’s insulting to make it sound so easy when people round here earn £25k on a good salary but the deposit for a house is 3x that.

Its fairly refreshing to see a Northern-centric OP

I’m 32 and we bought our house at 25. I’m in Greater London and our small 2 bed house cost £290k 7 years ago. We had not a penny from anyone else towards our deposit.
DP’s brother bought his house at 23 at around the same time with no contribution from anyone else with his partner, who was late 20s (admittedly in a cheaper area than us).
I know a fair number of other people around my age who own their homes on the outskirts of London. Many of them, like me, don’t come from the sorts of backgrounds where parents could afford to give them the deposit or even a contribution towards it. I’m in teaching so not especially well off.
Like the OP, I see plenty of people my age who own homes in fairly ordinary jobs. Media reports about how buying a home has become totally impossible for young people don’t match what I see either.

Yes more north

Who’d have thought??!

Lol! All my friends have been able to buy houses for £130,000. I can't understand why it isn't the norm in other places where a house the same size would be at least £400,000 🤷‍♀️

Definitely a thinker that one...

I'd say it was normal 20 years ago but seeing younger friends and family try to save to buy now, it's really very hard for them.

My son's Chesham house ( 2 bed terraced) cost £325k. Unfortunately he bought before the first time buyer stamp duty concession came in - we always seem to miss out. My daughters bought just before the new lower staged stamp duty came in too.

I have been looking up a lot of addresses in Durham and Sunderland where both sides of my family are from recently when doing my family history/tree work.

I bed cottage £30k (terraced and similar to and in the same village near Sunderland my mother was brought up) is currently for sale
2 bed same road £37,500.

Not that my mother's family owned - they were too poor and they rented.

I agree OP. It’s the norm in my friends circle, family, work etc for everyone to have bought a house by 30 latest, I can only think of one friend who hasn’t yet and he is about to. It’s a very expensive south east area too.

The ones who seem to moan it’s impossible barely work if at all, have children, want an expensive area etc. They put other wants before home ownership and then blame it on everyone else.

Completely agree with this too. Not saying it’s wrong to want to work part time or have kids early, but unless you are very rich you can’t have everything you want at a young age and if you put other priorities first then of course you may struggle to buy a house. It’s all about choices and what you put first over other things.

I live in London and the majority of my friends are in the south east; we're all in our mid thirties.

The vast majority of my friends do own, but I cannot think of a single person I know who hasn't had help of some sort from family. Not necessarily as overtly as handing them a deposit, but allowing them to live in the family home for peanuts, or doubling whatever they've saved, or parents gifting an inheritance from grandparents that they just don't need as much as the next generation does.

I really can't see how anyone could afford to support themselves AND save for a deposit here. The rental costs make it prohibitive.

Actually nicer 2 beds are more like £70k there too.

We bought with two full time salaries before babies came in 1984. My daughter did the same after she married and before baby 1 came. My parents did the same - they were married for nearly 10 years both working full time before they could buy somewhere. I arrived about 3 days after they bought their first (and last) place - they both died in the house about 50 years later in the NE.
My father's parents bought in Bishop Auckland I think around the 1940s if not earlier and that did pay off in that when my granny was older and had very little money I believe she rented out the upstairs of her 3 bed terraced house and she lived downstairs and that helped her expenses to be covered.

In your world it’s the norm. For other people in other situations and places it’s not the norm for a variety of reasons. Same can be said of just about anything from where people shop, what sort of holidays they have, what type of clothes they wear etc. I

I own but most if my friends dont. It's really depends on individual circumstances and areas. My friend never left home. Her mum became ill when my friend was 15 and my friend became her carer. She now lives in the same hour with her mum, dp and child.

So she has a mortgage free home. She isnt the norm.

I didnt have help from parents. But I made the decision, in 2001, to use the money I saved working while doing A levels on a house and turned down university.

I bought and house prices went up a lot in so I benefitted there. No point pretending i didnt.

I then moved and bought with the man I was marrying

After a 15 year marriage the house we then owned was split 50:50, that gave my enough to buy again. But I had to love to a cheaper area. I felt buying a but further out was better than renting.

Friends are a mix. Most friends who own have saved themselves. I know them well enough to know it's taken them a long time and they are the sort of friends that would say if parents had helped.

I bet you don't live in London.

People don't have to live in London you know. It is a choice to do so.

It's not the norm in my friendship group but I actually did buy my first house when I was 26. I'm a secretary and don't earn a lot. It was a shitty cheap house that needed doing up (hadn't been renovated since the 50's and overrun with mice) it was in a very, very bad neighbourhood in a city that isn't very popular. We let the downstairs as an office space to a friend.

I bet that people can still buy a house or a flat, they just need to choose a cheap house, in a bad neighbourhood in a cheap city.

Pretty much all my friends own (late to mid 30s) in London/Surrey. However we all have relatively good jobs, never really paid rent (as vast majority of us are Londoners) & had help with deposits (anything from 50k to 150k plus). However we all got on the ladder a while ago, when prices were lower so if we were a bit younger we wouldn’t be in the homes we are now even with the same help.

Sometimes I think we need two mumsnet boards. One for people in London and the home counties, and one for us northerners.

And one for people who are or have been poor, and one for people who aren’t. Then we wouldn’t get posts from people who don’t understand why everyone can’t save for a house deposit or afford a £5k holiday every year.

I say this all the time but if I hadn’t of bothered with university and borrowed 5 x salary with a 95% mortgage (which I know some older friends did) I probably would have 1 million in equity but hey ho.

I will say the days of buying a place in London & doubling its value in a few yrs are pretty much over. The bottom rung is too high now.

But what is you Aibu op ?

This is an easy question to answer. Basically you have a sample of the population (your friends) who own property. You want to know if this is in fact representative of the population, rather than not owning property. Well. There have been large scale studies done to show that homeownership among a certain age group is on the decline. The larger the sample (all other things equal), the more representative. Seems your evidence is not representative of polulation at large.

Most of the houses bought by friends varied from 160 to 250ish. Our first home was £230. So not cheap.

See you are in the cheap area.
£160k wouldn’t get you a shed round here and £250k would maybe get you a top floor one bed flat if you were lucky.

That’s the thing it’s all about location.

You sound quite smug tbh.

I think you are taking a lot for granted. These "non high-powered jobs" are still jobs.

There are areas of the UK where entire towns of people have no job, & no prospect of a job. For those gulled by the heavily manipulated employment statistics, don't forget that e.g. those under 19, or people making a few quid a week on unsatisfactory & entirely arbitrary zero-hours contracts are now counted as fully employed -
"research from Sheffield Hallam University, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation ... concludes that the real level of unemployment is considerably higher than the officially reported rate."

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/29/sparkling-jobless-figures-mask-real-picture-uk-economy-unemployed

If you’re in the North and manage to be sensible with money whilst young (so don’t incur masses of debt and ruin your credit score) plus go to uni and get a fairly decent career out of it then you’ll be able to buy a house with relative ease.

The issue lies with Southern house prices, people not getting a half-decent career or people incurring lots of debt for various reasons and wrecking their credit score.

One thing I will also say is that not everyone has family assistance. If you’re in a position where you can stay with family until you have saved a deposit that helps or if family just hand you the deposit... Not everyone has a family like that.

But what is you Aibu op ? I think it’s a clear case of ‘I’ve worked hard for my money’ and what I’ve got, you should too and if you don’t have the same as me that’s down to laziness not all the other factors.

I could be wrong though.

Most of the houses bought by friends varied from 160 to 250ish. Our first home was £230. So not cheap.

It’s all about perspective though isn’t it. Where I live a basic 3 bed terrace is 1.1/1.2m so 230k seems ridiculously cheap. However I also know that most terraces up & down the UK don’t cost 1m plus.