To think most property owners don’t understand how hard it now is to buy a house

[Boredfromboredshire]

DP and me earn 40k between us and our rent is 1200 a month for a 3 bed house. We don’t have rich relatives, we are in our early 40’s and circumstances (ill health) meant that we didn’t buy a house before. We can’t save a deposit & houses are expensive by us. We have stable jobs & our kids are happy so moving in the current uncertain time’s isn’t an option. Life has happened to us & some of it has been out it control.

Cue well meaning friend (who bought their house for peanuts) asking me why we couldn’t afford a house when we could get a house in a cheaper area for ‘only’ 400k. I’m so fed up of it. We really want a home of our own & we would move but in the current recession, it’s not a good idea to give up a job. And we can’t afford to save. My friend (whose deposit was 12k can’t understand it and looks on pityingly while telling me the house they bought for 120k is now worth 700k.

For many of us, the housing market is closed for ever. I’m so tired of the pity and the complete cluelessness- I quite often feel utter despair about it. It makes me feel such a failure for no real fault of our own. Some people were lucky because they happened to buy at a particular month in time & then some of us couldn’t & it’s over.

I don’t think people who own really understand what it’s like. Low interest rates, cheap mortgages, everything weighted in favour of owners while renters are treated like the Victorian poor.

Aibu to be sick of it. We are a normal family in normal jobs.

@RandomLondoner

I get that a crash would make the next house up cheaper but that wouldn’t really help us as we hope to use equity as the next deposit.

I totally get how hard it is, I have been saying for over 20 years the housing market is ridiculous. I bought a flat in 1998 because I couldn't afford to rent one, which I was able to sell to buy a house with DP in 2001. Without the flat we wouldn't have been able to buy the house and by 2002 we wouldn't have been able to make the jump from the flat to the house.
There isn't any real reason why houses suddenly tripled in price, banks decided to lend that amount, so that set what they were worth. If mortgage valuations had said houses were worth the same amount then banks wouldn't have lent enough to increase prices so much.
Everyone needs somewhere to live, it's utterly ridiculous we've created a situation where some people pay huge rents, instead of small mortgages in order to live in the same houses. The system is broken and I say that as someone who has supposedly benefited from it. We've stayed in the same house, so the £000 it has increased in value is meaningless, but if we'd had to pay it our lives would be totally different.

You're a bit annoying to be honest OP, sorry. Every suggestion is rebuffed. It's all a bit poor me and nauseating.

We don't earn as much as you and your DH, ill health hit one of us and we never had help either and we bought a house. You can't use this temporary pandemic that has been going on for 9 weeks as an excuse.

Gain some perspective, find a way and crack on, other people have and haven't needed a pity fest to get motivated 👍

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@sunflowery You have a house. Why would you lose everything, unless you stretched too far to buy it? I can see from your next reply that you’re hoping to move up the ladder, so I guess what you mean is that move would be stalled. Not ideal for you I guess, but not the same as losing “everything”.

What grates on me is people hoping for the status quo, which for many reasons I think is quite harmful.

Prices are where they are because of terrible policies, and yes, what people have been willing and more importantly able to pay. Cheap money: in the end, it’s expensive after all.

You're a bit annoying to be honest OP, sorry. Every suggestion is rebuffed. It's all a bit poor me and nauseating.

The OP is replying sensibly to people who still don’t get it. Like you, YappityYapYap. Perfect name btw.

But there are also people who slogged and sacrificed or took risks to get on the property ladder, you just didnt see it.

Dh and I worked while at uni, graduated into recession, lived in awful house shares, worked and worked and scrimped and cycled everywhere, rarely went out, packed lunch, cheap registry wedding... up till my early 30s we were still living like a uni student beans on toast etc. Our parents contributed nothing and we were stuck in the tiniest studio flat for years.

I see my 20-30 year old colleagues today spending insane amounts on rent 3 bed apartments to be in a nice part of town, ordering deliveroo nearly daily, lavish wedding, new car, constant travel. Then when they have kids kitted out in top end buggies etc. Still rent. Nothing wrong with that at all as there is pleasure in living. I think it is tough for most, and luck is a huge element, but it is unfair to say all property owners have it easy.

I agree @PoppinPopcorn
I’ve actually stopped mentioning saving for a deposit to my friends as I got such a frosty reception when I did and just moans of “oh well I could never afford to buy a house”. Errr yes you could if you stopped going on 6 holidays a year

I was in that position in SE so moved away to midlands. Much, much nicer.

I couldn't afford to buy until my late forties. I was in a professional job as a teacher and the only way that we got onto the property ladder was that my mother in law died and left us £10k for a deposit

I bought my first house when I was 24 is 2003 and had been saving for a few years for a deposit etc. No kids at that time. We had to move away from family to an area we could afford to get on the ladder. We have since moved from that house but if we wanted to move again we'd be looking at least 50k in just stamp duty which I hate the thought of just handing over - we now live in Surrey so house prices are insane.

It's called honesty and realism. What is the OP going to achieve with the oh poor you replies? People have come on here and given advice and a PP has also pointed our there is infact help to buy schemes in the OP's area but according to her there's none..

Hoping that house prices will tumble and leave some people on their arses with low LTV and up the shitter probably deserves a harsher response because it's the most self absorbed thing I've read in a while but I've reigned it in. Sensible replies 😂😂😂 aye ok

Depends on how flexible you are about where you live - I think A LOT more people will continue to work from home after this, now that we all know how easy it is, offices will close and then they can come down to the gorgeous Isle of Wight and buy a lovely 3 bed detached, nice big garden, near the beach for 200k.

YABU to presume that property owners don't know how hard it is - of course most of them know having gone through the process, unless they inherited property or large sums of money.

However your friend is BU and her comments were obviously insensitive and ignorant

@somenerve if house prices fall and home buyers go in to negative equity they could lose their house. The interest rates will rise and they won't be affordable. I think perhaps you should do some research..

If house prices fall, they won't become affordable for those struggling to get on the ladder because the lenders will reduce how much they are willing to lend.

YANBU to say it's difficult to buy a family home in Oxford on £40k. YANBU to say that people that bought 20 years ago needed less of a deposit to buy the kind of home you'd like to buy now.

YABvU to dismiss suggestions to help. There are two ways to increase your savings: earn more or reduce expenses. Rolling over and saying it's impossible won't get you anywhere. If you're happy to keep renting, crack on. If you want to get serious about saving, wander over to MoneySavingExpert and figure out where you can cut expenses.

We're mid 30s and bought a house in the South east, where I was born and my whole support network lives last year. After ttc now we're in stable housing it looks like I'm probably infertile. I get it.

YABU

I own a property but had to save and work very hard for it. It is hard and I hugely sympathise

£40k combined income in Oxford isn't great, thats going to be you main problem.

Myself and my partner bought last year pretty easily, 5% deposit and 4.5x salaries mortgage.

It can be done but you have to decide what is important

@somenerve well we saved up £20K as a deposit so we could lose all that, as well as potentially our home if we ended up in negative equity. Plus having to delay starting a family if we couldn’t afford to move up the ladder. It might not be the end of the world but it certainly feels like we stand to lose a lot.

All I’m saying is that people openly admitting that they want a crash to happen so that they can have a cheaper house is pretty distasteful. People might benefit, sure, good for them. I know how hard it is so I wouldn’t begrudge their good fortune. But why is it so accepted to openly hope for a crash and not say, for someone to lose their job?

Not all of us who own property, especially bought in recent years, deserve to be thought of as privileged and out of touch.

We own our home but know full well that we managed to get the deposit through good fortune (inheritance- mixed blessing- and marriage) as well as hard work.

sunflowery I was a parent at a young age because I was raped and nearly killed by my ex so please don't bang on about choices to me.

Plus my other son is my stepson so sorry for falling in love with someone with a child!

@sunflowery

You may not want to read this thread then.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3917010-Help-my-buyers-have-reduced-their-offer

It depends how much equity you have and how much your area will hold up. Anyone who has a bought a new build with a small deposit / help to buy, in the last couple of years is probably already in negative equity. If previous drops are anything to go by, then flats get hit the most and family houses, in areas with good schools, hold up the best.

@WaterOffADucksCrack I’m sorry that happened to you, that’s terrible but thankfully it’s not the norm.

But why have houses gone up so much in 20 years? A house bought in say 2000 for 70 k could now be worth £350k.
Atleast people earning 25 k a year then could afford a mortgage.
I think years ago people brought houses for a home. Sadly it’s now a business for many people, look at the amount of people that brought houses so they could let them out.