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.

YABU. I'm a homeowner with my DH. We had to save bloody hard for years and years and forego luxuries. We had to buy a doer upper which is not easy with a young family. I don't like our town but we couldn't afford a better area. We were stuck in rented for many years in a house that was far too small. We could've rented a better house but we wanted to save the money.
We had no help from anyone, no inheritance, no bank of mum and dad. We only bought a few years ago so it wasn't when houses were peanuts either.
So yes it's hard and yes I realise that fact.

@TazSyd I’ve read it

I know I can’t stop a crash and hopefully we can ride it out and be ok but sometimes people talk like I deserve it for being able to buy in the first place when others can’t and that’s what annoys me!

@Rlw2020 No offence, but I think you have a lot of catching up to do in the research dept.

We all make decisions and have to live with them. I’m living with mine. Homeowners facing the possibility of negative equity have to live with theirs.

OP, good luck to you.

You don't know what people's "norm" is so if they've had children at a certain time there are often reasons for that. Like in the OPs case it's for medical reasons. And please don't do the faux I'm sorry thing, you don't know me, you didn't do it so no pity required. I'm stronger for it.

When you are a single person renting its even more difficult to buy a property unless you have a windfall or rich relatives.

My grandmother left me the contents of her house (not the house itself) and it was stuffed with antiques. Because I was familiar with the antiques world I was able to organize selling it mostly at auction and then invested the proceeds wisely.

Fast forward and I was renting a BTL when the LL wanted a quick sale to emigrate and join her children abroad. I got a really good deal for a mostly cash purchase with a very small mortgage. Being older and single it was not easy to get a mortgage but I went via a broker.

Otherwise I would never have been able to buy.

I agree that owner occupiers sometimes look down on renters as if we were the poor at the castle gate. I had a bad neighbour who kept sending workpeople onto my land without seeking permission. When I taxed her with this she seemed to think she did not need my permission as I was "only renting". A letter from my solicitor soon put her straight on what rights a renter has vis a vis an owner occupier.

When I bought the house from LL there were no outward FOR SALE signs of course and it was 3 years before my nasty neighbour found out I now owned the property. You should have seen the sour expression on her face.

Yanbu OP. I think a lot of people are in houses they couldn’t afford if they had to buy it for market rate tomorrow. I worry about when generation rent needs to retire.

@somenerve would you like to elaborate on that? I brought my first home at 23, I had a child before I did that and I also brought in Oxfordshire but my family made a lot of sacrifices to buy a home.

For people to wish negative equity on others because they think it will be easier have no idea.

I managed to buy early this year, genuinely just luck before all this kicked off.

I'm single & no kids so my 12k salary and 6k savings was all I had (not a penny from parents, divorce left my mum almost destitute as a single parent to 3 kids. Dad is foreign so never paid her any maintenance and left the country). The deposit and fees took up all my savings but my offer was accepted at 66k (65k asking price). 2 bed terrace. Cosmetic updates needed but totally liveable.
I'm disabled so can only work part time and not much chance of increasing earnings. Need a flexible job as my health is so unpredictable.
It was hard but not impossible. Best thing I did was hire a mortgage advisor at £350.

I'm not sure what your homeowner friends are meant to do if not try and give you advice? As long as they aren't in denial about their own privileges obviously. I couldnt listen to any friend of mine get so down about their position and not even try to help (without the condescension obviously)

@WaterOffADucksCrack

It’s not faux, why would I not be sorry to hear someone has been through that? But whatever fine. If you want to pretend everyone is a victim of their circumstances 100% of the time then be my guest. In the real world most people do have choices available to them as others have suggested to the OP.

But surely no one really gains from house prices getting ridiculous do they? Unless your selling and drastically downsizing.
The banks must have preferred lending people 60k rather than 200k? Surely the banks don’t want prices to rise?
Who’s to blame for the ridiculous cost of a UK home?
It must be in the governments interest to want people to own homes, less of a burden on the state in the long run, as they know that people’s assets can pay for care homes in later life. Just my theory anyway.
Thatcher brought the right to buy. I think there were reasons for that, she probably thought that in the long term they would be less of a burden on the taxpayer. Again just my theory.

I'm a homeowner but aware of this huge problem. Even with very decent salaries it's impossible to get on the property ladder. It's so wrong. But in many countries it's unusual to buy, and the rental market is much fairer and cheaper, so it is the norm to rent. Maybe we will swing that way, hopefully with a government who would fully support it and make rental an attraction here.

God no. I am a homeowner but only because DH is a high earner and bought his first house 20 years ago while I was still backpacking around Australia.

I can't see how anyone could possibly save for a deposit when private rent is so high.

Although my niece did manage it but she is weirdly good with money and budgeted down to the last fruit yoghurt. There is no way I could do the same.

Yes some people don't realise exactly how much house prices have gone up compared to wages.

However: if you and DP earn less than £40k between you (i.e. about £20k less than the median wage for two full time workers) and you live in an expensive part of the country and you presumably need at least two bedrooms in a fairly decent condition (i.e. not a builder in a position to do up something in a terrible state) then it's not that surprising you can't find a house exactly where you want. That doesn't mean that housing is unaffordable to everyone, or even everyone on the same wage as you. My sister and her partner bought a three bed detached last year aged 25 when he was an apprentice and she was on about £17k. I bought my house, in a capital city, on my own five years ago earning £21k. Both without parental help.

I'm not trying to be a dick and I don't think that everyone should have to move to be able to afford secure housing. I wouldn't like to have to move hundreds of miles away from my friends and family. I also think that it's ridiculous banks base their mortgage costings on what they think you can feasibly afford p/m whilst ignoring the fact you are paying more in rent.

But it's not as though you are earning huge amounts and still unable to buy. You are earning less than the average and want to buy a house somewhere than costs more than the average, it's not that surprising that isn't easy to achieve.

Oh, she does live in a very cheap area that I wouldn't consider at all, that probably helps.

OP this may seem really ridiculous to you but hear goes;
You’re right we’re in a pandemic and no none really knows what’s going to happen.
Therefore do nothing until life becomes more normal. You say you earn 40k as a family.
Could you then speak to a financial advisor and see what you can do with regards to homeownership? You say there is nothing in your area, well possibly new houses may be planned to be built in the coming years.
Or alternatively, would you move to a cheaper part of the UK? Look at where help to buy is and go from there, if that’s the only option. Are your jobs transferable? With a bit of research, you could look at where you can afford to buy a house.
If you’re serious about owning a house moving may be your realistic option.

I have been following this thread, a poster above said that falling house prices would make it more difficult to upgrade. Of course that would be the case if you are in negative equity but provided you aren't, falling house prices would make it easier to upgrade.

For example, my 2 bed London flat is 400k, and a 3 bed house is 800k. If prices increased or stayed the same, I would still have an impossible time trying to upgrade. I have 15% equity but saving between 1-2k per month to overpay. But if house prices fell 20% across the board, the 800k house would become £640k and I would still have my equity too. So I would be better off. And people like OP would be better off. In a way, falling house prices is good for OP and second steppers who are not benefitting from high house prices.

People mentioned renting in others countries. The problem is, for UK people what do they do when they retire? People won’t be able to afford to pay £1200 rent when they are pensioners! Where will these private renters all live?

We all make decisions and have to live with them. I’m living with mine. Homeowners facing the possibility of negative equity have to live with theirs.
Quite.

From some of the replies here, I can see that the UK Govt has a moral obligation to devise ever more ingenious ideas to keep the housing market propped up from here to eternity (or at least until the next pandemic wipes out humankind) in order to protect all property owners.

If you're too young and/or foolish not to have scrambled onto the ladder yet, tough luck - you're a second-class citizen in this country.

(I'm surprised we're still allowed to vote.)

I get it, OP. It is bloody hard. I think those who aren't renting just don't have a clue! I managed to buy last year but only through giving up my rental and moving back in with my parents, and I totally understand why some won't or can't do that.
My biggest issue was the salary multiple, rather than the deposit - I mean, you can keep saving for the deposit or get a lump sum from somewhere, but if the bank decide you can't afford a house in your area? You're stuffed.

@JediJim my FIL has a very nice life in Thailand. He had £100k from his divorce settlement, no pension as he didn't work for over 20 years. He lives in a very big modern 3 bed house. No WiFi though, he has to go to an internet café.

Despite the denials, sometimes it IS down to choices made. I really don't understand why it is so hard to acknowledge that.
People who have children before buying property have to know they've made it a whole lot harder to buy a house, right? It's a valid choice to make so why not just accept that the choices you made may be why you are where you are today?
Sometimes it does come down to luck but often it doesn't. People who do make sacrifices and do whatever they have to do to buy a house are looked down on. They just "don't understand" Well, yeah, sometimes they do but they just got on with it.

This is not to say that people are not making valid choices in their lives if they do not own a house. We each get to decide what is ok for us but we also need to own the choices we make if we are not where we want to be.

Clearly there are exceptions. Few, but there are. Not talking about those.

I live in Oxfordshire... after full service in the RAF this was our last posting and because we had a house in the early 90s and sold at a massive loss when the market crashed... we spent 10 years paying off a negative equity..not our fault, just it was what it was.

We own 75% of our home and will never be able to buy the rest.

My DD2 and her fiance live with us.. she has a decent job as a nurse, he's a support worker. They save every penny but there is not a hope of a mortgage for a property here. They don't go out, or eat avocados or city breaks. They work, come home, work. But unless they move a long way away, and in my daughter's case, leave a very niche nursing job ( paediatric hospice care) they cannot save enough to get a home.

Maybe they will give up and move to Scotland...but it's not a fair situation...they were born here, educated and work here but can't ever afford a home. It sucks.

YANBU OP it is entirely a privilege to own a home and I highly doubt anyone who does has not been the beneficiary of some at some point in order to obtain it be that a gifted deposit, education and opportunities growing up to get into universities/grad schemes and access higher paying jobs, who you know not what you know, the privilege of health that allows both partners to work full time; anything really.

The only reason DP and i own a house ( we just bought it, the day lockdown was announced) was because by sheer chance one of our parents came into a windfall and gave us the 10% deposit. Neither of my parents own a home.
We entirely relocated from our (very MC SE) hometown that we love several hours away to the only place we could find where we could afford to buy a house rather than a flat. It isn't in a great condition, i doubt anyone would choose to live in the town we bought in, though the road is ok for the area. We will never be able to redecorate it really or buy much furniture etc

As contrast, most of my childhood friends gifted deposits totalled more like 60k than the 10k we were fortunate enough to have been given, or female friends married men who were already well off and now seem to enjoy messaging about 3k ovens and so on as their new normal, or saying things like 'our little home' about 400k 3 bed country houses.

The best thing to do, is totally ignore people who make stupid and rash comments. You know how things are, and that's all that matters,