Home Ownership

[Gin96]

Article in the Guardian about home ownership being out of reach to most young people, it makes me very sad, poor families struggling, our generation were lucky, i’m not saying we didn’t have it hard but owning our property was within our reach, now it just seems impossible.

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jul/31/young-britons-believe-dream-of-owning-home-is-over-survey-says

My parents are in their 80s. When they got married in 1960 they rented in London for a year. Dad was a teacher and mum a nurse, so both public service jobs. After a year he said to my mother 'We will never be able to afford to buy a house in London' and they moved back to their Northern home town.

Even 60 years ago it wasn't all roses and sunshine about house buying. They bought an ordinary 3 bed terrace that needed work doing. That's what young people did.

I'm 30 and renting with my partner, we both work full time in good stable jobs. We are fairly frugal, haven't had a holiday abroad for the last three years, no children and live in a fairly affordable location. Even saving as much as we can we still wont afford a deposit on an old 2-3 bed doer upper for atleast another 2 years. That's what we'll do but it is hard and mortgage repayments will put us worse off in the short term compared to renting, not including any repairs we may need to do.

I disagree. Dd is 22 and has saved her deposit ready to buy in 2022 when she knows where she will be based. She's saved all through uni. Her boyfriend, the same age also has the same amount for a deposit.

RuthW its wonderful when children have the support of their parents. I however had to work to support uni and just scraped through, there was no saving to be done. I worked two jobs when I first graduated for 3 years just to get by and now I work over 70 hours a week in one job with no scope for a second unless I want an early grave!

Doer uppers certainly can't be assumed to be a more accessible option. You need resources and/or skills yourself if the work needed is much more than cosmetic.

'young' people will have to work until at least 67, probably 70 by the time they get there. Thst means thry can take a mortgage at 40 and have 30 years to pay it off. Is it really that hard to save a deposit over 10/15 years?

Of course it would be nice to be home owners at 20 like our parents did, but life has changed and the next generation will probably live 10 years or so longer than their grand-parents/great-grand-parents did.

Where I live, the price to even buy a doer upper is ridiculous. When you take in to account the amount of money it takes to put things right I full well understand why people don't want to saddle themselves with it.
Then, we have all the flippers coming along, doing the basics and selling on for an even more inflated cost. Don't forget the landlords buying the starter homes, and the latest trend where I live is people buying your traditional family homes and turning them in to houses of multiple occupancy.

I'm not including myself in this, DH have worked our arses off to have the money we do for the deposit and we own all our vehicles - but I do sympathise. Forgoing the coffees and what not isn't going to buy much here and it's a sad reality when people just work and save for goodness knows how many years, just to try and get a small piece of what their parents achieved.

I don’t think home ownership at 20 has ever been the norm, anyone who achieved that was an outlier. There are actually more homeowners aged 25 to 34 now than there were in 1960.

www.resolutionfoundation.org/data/housing/

I see a lot of comments about people in late twenties/early thirties unable to buy on their own. Twenty years ago most people were settled in a relationship by 25 and had someone to buy with.

The key to home ownership is to buy with someone, it's almost impossible to buy alone unless you're willing to buy a studio apartment which most people now aren't.

I know siblings who who were single in their early twenties but desperate to get on the property ladder so got a place together.

The big problem is that when talking about unaffordability of buying a property, it should always be said that it depends on a location.
It is extremely expensive somewhere, but it is affordable even for a single person elsewhere.
I am in cheaper part and a person on 18k can indeed buy a solid 3 bed ex authority terrace here. It will need updating bit by bit, because they usually have the cheap council kitchens and bathrooms, but it's nothing horrible. Not the best postcode, but not dangerous or smth.
It is really about location. So giving young people all over uk impression that they will never be able to afford a house is wrong.

I am not really that surprised many think they will never own and so they don't bother to save since they keep hearing that it's impossible from all directions.

However, I should add that the person on 18k shouldn't really have debt they need to pay off because that digs into affordability

Doer uppers are barely cheaper than one done in my area, they also get snapped up quicker by buy to let landlords who fix it to rent out.

I bought when I was 18, unfortunately I did it with a complete cunt who has now completely screwed me financially. It shouldn’t be so unattainable that you have to live on 15p noodles from 18-25, that you have to not fuck up in some way, You have parents able to support you through uni, that you have parents you can live with rent free whilst saving, that your contraception doesn’t fail. In order to have stability.

I think there is an element of people now going “fuck it, I’m not going to ever buy a house so I am going on holiday / leasing that car”. But that’s because it seems so unattainable for such a long time. In the ten years we’ve been saving houses have doubled round us, our wages haven’t. So it does feel that goal is moving further

I disagree we bought our house at 24 3 and half years ago our whole street (new build) is quite a young demographic a lot of people under 30 or in their early 30s I find friends who haven't bought it's mainly down to not saving money but instead spending it on clothes nights out expensive holidays which is fine just with needing a deposit you can't have both these days you can go back to enjoying life after you've laid the deposit down though you just have to be savvy to get there!

Yes this generation absolutely could buy. Just not in the location, condition and being able to keep their lifestyle expectations at the same time.

My first house was terrible but I owned it and made a killing on it by renovating it myself.

Cut down on the outgoings, meals out, coffees and fancy holidays, cars and dare I say it, university experience which costs more than my first mortgage. There are plenty of jobs where you could get training on the job that lead to real careers.

If owning really is your priority then it's perfectly possible, you'll just have to make compromises or sacrifices along the way.

Some times I think we were complete mugs buying a house. We had reduced disposable imcome, and eventually it will be taken to pay for care homes. On the other hand, had we rented, we could have had extortionate holidays, big cars, and safe in the knowledge that the same level of care in the same care home will be paid for by the state

So much truth here. There are now many people recognising that their 'asset' is just something to be taken by the government to pay for their care home.

Yes this generation absolutely could buy. Just not in the location, condition and being able to keep their lifestyle expectations at the same time

True - if home ownership is your goal you might have to move area.

Tbh I actually bought so we could afford all that holidays and cinemas and car (not expensive though)😁
Mortgage is much cheaper than rent so it allows me to enjoy more money.

But I agree with pp. It sucks it will be just taken to pay for care.

True - if home ownership is your goal you might have to move area.

Sometimes just moving 5 miles more than halves the price!😮

On if first time buyers expectations are higher these days:
I can only speak from experience of my friend group, but the reason people seem to want to move straight into a 2/3 bed rather than a 1 bed is because:
By the time you have found someone you want to buy with and saved up for a deposit together, you are at the age where you want to have kids in a couple of years anyway and you dont see the point in buying somewhere only to have to move again in a couple of years (and pay all the associated fees) because its too small.

For us thats not so much the issue, its more that the overall cost of a 5% deposit on a 1 bed flat with a big mortgage with lots of interest incoming (and realistically we dont want to be in a 1 bed flat forever as we want a dog) cost-wise vs. Saving (and paying rent) for a little longer, getting a 2 bed house with a garden, not having to move again for a while (if ever) and having a bigger deposit and therefore paying less interest in the long run... it kind of evens out in the long run.
We dont live in London though, so the market here is totally different.
We'd be happy with a do-er upper as well - neither of us are fussy about not having a 'nice' place straight away, but (as someone mentioned upthread) they are like GOLD DUST in our town due to people flipping them.

@TDMN if you really are serious about a doer upper, try property auctions. Get a mortgage offer in place, and there are lenders who can complete in the required timescales....

We are 40 bought our home without any help from parents. We are on £50k between us so not hugely rich either. First flat bought for £36k in 2003, sold in 2014 for £64 k, 2nd flat cost £33k sold in £2016 for £35k then this house cost £179,995.

And 2nd flat £133k sold for £135k. If we hadn’t bought the really cheap started flat we’d be screwed.

Me and the wife lived in rooms from 18-26 whilst saving for our house. Neither of us ever earned more than 20k until we turned 25, but managed to save 31k for a deposit on a fixer upper. Just finished the redecoration now and have a 3 month old who will wreck it soon enough lol.
Our mortgage is 2.49% for 10 years which is very cheap. Definitely possible if you want it and have luck on your side health wise to be able to work etc.
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts with the first step

@IAskTooManyQuestions people in the 80s and 90s did not generally have to buy with a friend or colleague. The 80s and 90s were a great time to get on the property ladder for not much money. Just look at all of the examples above.

It upsets me. I was lucky in terms of timing and wage (we worked v hard, but so do young people.)
The Uk infrastructure is set up poorly and still harks back to Thatcher (needing to own a home, shame travelling on a bus)
It feels unfair to say that young people shouldn't aspire to own. I have no idea.
So we perpetuate "ownership"?
Or, do we make ownership more affordable?
Or do we make ownership less desirable?