To ask about buying a house on one salary?

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Looking around here most are £200,000 + so not affordable.

How do people manage?

Shared ownership, huge salary, lodgers, bank of Mum and dad.

All very difficult.

Shared ownership here. Huge monthly cost for 12 years. Was totally broke, no financial help from family. Only worth it because I sold it and left London at a huge profit. Everyone else I know had either two salaries of family help.

Buy a cheaper house. We had to buy just on my salary as dp's business had not been going long enough to be counted.

I bought my house on one salary but I live in a cheap part of the country. I couldn't afford to buy in the city I work in so bought in a small village 10 miles away.

I saved for years, rented much cheaper places than I could afford, my parents gave me what they had spent on my sisters wedding as a top up to my deposit, help to buy ISA, no holidays, cash back websites etc. Worked my bum off to climb the career ladder enough to get just under 200k mortgage which was the absolute max I could borrow. Still consider myself incredibly lucky and it’s tiny! (I live in London)

Find a smaller property. Find a cheaper area - not necessarily far away. Around here there are towns and villages and parts of towns that are cheaper purely because they're less popular or a little bit less convenient for transport links etc rather than because there's anything wrong with them.

We had to buy a cheaper house. I was a freelancer when we bought so not worth the hassle it would have been to include my income, plus freelance income is so unstable anyway I wasn't happy about the idea of including it since even the most stable freelance work is still tenuous at best.

So we bought a smaller house than we would have liked in a cheaper area with longer commutes. Inconvenient, but we have a roof and some walls to our name.

Depends on the salary, house price you can afford, and the security of the job really. Also how much the family has saved. It’s not an easy question to answer.

e.g dh bought a shared ownership flat on a salary of 22k at the age of 21 - it was a 100 percent mortgage and at the top end of his affordability. He really struggled to save for a long time after that and could only afford to upsize after we got married and my savings and salary were added to the pot. If we had needed to pay the bills on a single wage we would probably have been headed for bankruptcy.

DB on the other hand saved for years and was able to comfortably afford a 3 bed, 200k property on a single salary of 40k. But he only got the house of his dreams after he met sil and her salary / savings were added to the pot.

My husband and I had to buy a house in the city (well a mile out of the city) as we couldn’t afford a house in our hometown which is where we really wanted to live but the lowest we could find was 200,000. Not affordable for us at the time as my Husband had only just finished uni so we were living on my wage . Sometimes you have to move out the way a bit to manage . We manage now as we are both working but it was hard saving at first .

1. Cheaper House/Area
2. Help 2 Buy/Shared Ownership
3. Get a better paid job
4. Win the lottery

Saved a decent deposit over mny years before children and found work in a cheaper part of the UK and first house bought somewhere needing a lot of work which left us very tight moneywise and left DH with a long commute to work.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033

^^ Map of rental and house prices and there whole swaths of the UK we still can't afford to live in but there are still affordable places.

We still had to compomise on school catchments we ended up in - not the best local schools that everyone wanted but ones we hoped we could live with ie not the worst.

My parents both worked full time in professional jobs and put off babies for ten years in order to buy just before I was born. We also bought before we had any children and again had 2 full time professional salaries. Same with my child who has children - both work full time. I have always worked full time.

My grandfather was 49 when he had my father as even back then he had to put off children for years and years to be able to afford a house!

Bought alone last year at 26 in a desirable market town in the South East.

Lived at home with parents until I could afford to buy, essentially a 4 hour round trip to commute to uni then long commutes to other jobs.

Means I have never spent a penny on landlord rent, though I did contribute to my parent’s household.

The essential factor was getting a job in an investment bank who are the best payer in the area. The company name and high salary allowed me to get a mortgage alone for £165k. With deposit added, I own a 1 bed house with damp and with a shoe box sized garden but it’s mine and I love it!

Well becayse the salary level and the deposit is enough to buy the house. How else do you think?

You certainly don't need a huge salary for a 200 k house. Twenty grand deposit and then a salary of 45 k a year will do it.

I got a very generous redundancy payout at 23, and then with the salary of my next job had enough at (salary*4.5)+deposit to buy something in the region of what you describe. So a combo of fairly high salary for age and luck.

Loving the idea that £45k a year isn't a huge salary...

I planned to buy shared ownership (outer East London, at the time 1 bedroom flats were about £150-180k which was out of my reach). I was saving enough for a deposit and legal fees to buy a 50% share.
However in the time it took to save a deposit DP (now DH) and I decided our relationship was a goer and ended up buying a scruffier flat with a garden in a converted house together, rather than a new build.

Take on another job. When I bought my first house 13 years ago, I worked an office job 8-4, then used to go home up on pushbike and get to a bar job 5-close.

No bank of mum and dad or inheritance for me, I grew up in care. Just always worked a lot. Cleaning jobs 4am-7am in a department store, weekend and evening bar work, whatever really. I knew I only had myself to rely on so got on with it.

Late 20's I met now DH, 15 years and 2 kids later we sold that house and bought our forever home.

The house my mother grew up in (which was rented) costs £50k today (near Sunderland) so £200k would be an expensive place around there!

The people I know of, whose salary couldn't stretch enough, either has massive help with the deposit or are renting

DP and I combined earn 50k but 'can't afford' a house in our area as they're bloody expensive and we still have a big childcare bill.

So we're renting, and paying more than we would with a mortgage.

The housing situation in this country is ridiculous but that's a whole other thread!

But there aren’t any cheaper! I’m looking at studio flats here Not 4 bed detached

^sorry I got the 13 and 15 the wrong way round.

I bought my house 15 years ago and met DH 2 years later.

If you really want to buy OP you have to go without some things. I had friends that were going on big holidays, spending a lot on parties and clothes. I never did that. I'm glad I didn't because now so many of my friends are in no position to buy because prices have gone up so much and big deposits are needed.

But there aren’t any cheaper! I’m looking at studio flats here Not 4 bed detached

Save up and hope you move somewhere cheaper at some point or plan to.

We saved for nearly 10 year before we ended up somewhere we could afford to buy in - just as well as eldest was just at starting school age.

Loving the idea that £45k a year isn't a huge salary...

Average UK salary is about £30k. So yes, £45k is a good salary, but it's hardly 'huge'.

45k per year total household salary isn’t particulary huge. And to be fair we have now gotten to a position in this country where people on low or average incomes do need to combine salaries to be able to afford property.