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.

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.

This really isn't true.

I own and people think its down to rich relatives/inheritance. However we financed each house we owned without any support. We bought furniture/clothes items second hand if we couldn’t obtain them for free, ate frugally and walked everywhere to save petrol. We have owned a few houses and sold them, each a doer upper which has needed a lot of work. Buying our first house pre kids helped massively. The twins cost us a fortune! Moving to a cheaper more affordable area also made things possible.

It is so difficult now for people on ordinary incomes to buy without a deposit from parents.
Not all of us in the older generations are clueless about the difficulties though

I'm 63 and I know it was much easier for me to work my way up from being very poor as a child, to buy at age 28 entirely on my own

I had a 100% mortgage for 3 x my salary, which wasn't much at that stage in my career
Prices weren't so mad then

@crossroads1 I earn a bit more and am single home owner. Bought 14 years ago age 22 ish on a 24k salary, my Nan died and so I had a (very small!) deposit via her (can't remember exact amount but it was less than 10k) Paid 97k for a 3 bed which sold for more 2 years later. Then bought a 2 bed apartment for 123k I think there's about 60k or so left on the mortgage now probably-- should check

It was just the combination of right time with housing/mortgage/deposit so luck really and a cheap area. It's not as easy now and I'm only 36 so not talking many moons ago. In the process of remortgaging and it's more tricky than the first mortgage was!

Really struggled to buy a home, only managed after my mum died. A lot of people do get how difficult it is.

I would change your thinking about this.

Renting really is not a terrible situation to be in. You have the freedom of choosing the area you like and moving easily at short notice for education reasons or career changes.

Treat your rent like a another bill you need to pay.

Prioritise your lifestyle and spend your money, forget squirrelling it away for a rainy day. And take those holidays now, forget saving them for retirement.

But you must plan on working for as long as possible and plan a career that enables you to continue working into your old age. Even if you reduce your hours when you are older.

If your circumstances change and you are disabled and cannot work you will more easily qualify for council housing, so that is your safety net if the worse happens.

You don't have to live in the first property you buy. If houses in your area are too expensive could you look into buying an investment somewhere else just to get your foot in the door and continue renting where you live and work.

When we last bought (1997), we could afford our £130,000 house on our fairly mediocre salaries. Now we’re in much better paid jobs, we couldn’t even afford a one-bed flat on our current salaries, so you’re definitely NBU! It’s virtually impossible for all but the richest people now to buy...

@Aus84 Buy to let mortgages typically have a much higher deposit requirement

We managed to buy on a low joint salary by buying a cheap as chips fixer upper in a relatively deprived area.

I can't afford to live where I grew up or even where my parents live now so I moved elsewhere 🤷🏻‍♀️ that's just what you have to do sometimes.

There's point whinging about how unfair it is - we bought elsewhere and it's fine. You get on with it and make new friends and find new support.

Most people have choices to make. If you earn low salaries and want to live in an expensive area then you probably just need to accept you're going to be renting for life. But you do have a choice - everyone does - it's just lots of people don't want to move. And that's fine - but not wanting to move somewhere cheaper in order to buy is not the same as not being able to buy.

We own with a modest deposit. We know we have it purely down to family generousity and buying our first home (ex council 1 bed flat) at a lucky time with house prices.

We often say we'd be renting forever without family giving us our entire deposit. I wouldn't have been willing to spend 20 years living on a shoestring to scrape a 5% deposit together.

Rich or well off people like to think they're just terribly clever, though

It’s always been hard to get on the property ladder, to be honest, not a new thing.

I completely understand, and have family in the 'baby boomers' generation who make comments about not buying a house all the time. Realistically, I cannot see how I'll ever be able to buy. My earning potential is no more than 30k at a very push and I'm not there yet and I have £200 a month leftover for food,clothes,treats and haircuts with a 2yo. It's just not possible

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72219229.html

There you go. 3 beds, affordable, in Oxford.

The thing is, you did make a conscious decision to have children before saving for a deposit, which is absolutely fine, but you can't moan about it now. If you're paying over £1k a month in rent, then you clearly can afford a mortgage but unless you do something to enable yourselves to save a significant amount each month, then you're going to stay in rented.

House prices have been cheap for years in certain areas, you could have moved a long time ago. I understand you want live in your current area, that is fine but you can't complain that it isn't your fault you can't buy. It is, it is a result of your choice to live in area with high house prices.

@Roselilly36 Oh come on - any sensible person must see how wages have in no way kept up with house prices. Most people I know who are in their 30s/40s parents managed to buy a house relatively easily, often with only the Dad working, and I'm talking about "normal" jobs here (teachers, policeman, lower grade civil servant, social worker, skilled metal worker etc)

It isn’t everyone. I struggled hard to buy my first place so I remember what that’s like. I couldn’t afford to buy my place now which is ridiculous. I’m mindful of my luck at being able to buy when I could cling on by my finger tips

I think it's only possible if you buy before you have kids. Children are expensive, and you need bigger houses to put them in.

I know people who've managed to buy in the SE, without help from parents/inheritance, but none of them have had kids and they've all either lived with parents or in cheap(ish) house shares until they've bought.

The thing is, a lot of "first time buyers" who have been renting a fairly nice 3/4 bedroom semi or detached house, want to be able to go straight into buying a house on the same level, and without help from family or an inheritance that's going to be almost impossible.
Nobody seems to want to start the property ladder at the bottom, a small apartment/terrace house, in a less desirable area, stay there for a few years and build some equity, then move up "the property ladder", that's what lots of people who have nice houses have done and are doing, but there seems to be a whole generation of people for whom terraced houses/less desirable areas are beneath them.

I wouldn't have been willing to spend 20 years living on a shoestring to scrape a 5% deposit together

But if you buy in a cheap area you don't need to scrimp and save for twenty years. People make choices in life - if you want to buy home then you probably need to do be buying a flat or a two bed terrace in a cheap area at first. Of course if you choose to have children early or live in an expensive area or prioritise holidays then that's your choice and it's a perfectly valid one.

But you could still buy a house - you just don't necessarily want to make the choices and sacrifices necessary to do so.

I feel you OP.
My FIL has actually mentioned a few times that if he was our age now he would really struggle to get on the property ladder.
Me and DP are 26 & 27. Live in a pricey part of the country and currently looking at the new developments that have been built but even on the help to buy we still have to have a deposit of at least £20,000.

There you go. 3 beds, affordable, in Oxford.

£140,000 headline figure, for a 40% share of a £350,000 house with the rest made up in rent. And it's only a 99 year leasehold.

I wouldn't fancy committing to that on a £40,000 total income.

People need a paid for degree to do the same job their parents did without a degree

And as soon as they start earning a half-decent salary, they have to start paying off their student debt, and the size of mortgage they can get shrinks because of the loan repayments, so they need a bigger deposit ...

When my friend inherited from her parents, she used a big chunk of it to pay off her daughter's student loan. That, plus a promotion, made it possible for her daughter & DSIL to trade up from their one-bed flat in a fairly shitty part of East London to a small house in Walthamstow, and have a child.

We all have choices. OP chose to have children which, if they are earning 40k household salary in their 40s, it's fair to say could have held back their earning potential. Or other reasons, life choices, but the fact is, that is quite a low income for someone in their 40s

PP statements that people with university education earn more etc really do have a rose tinted and not factually accurate view.

I actually skipped university, in favour of buying a house when they were cheaper, although - still 6 times my sole income at the time.

In this time house prices rose, and the house I bought aged 18 significantly increased in value, whilst my peers who went on to university found themselves in debt and priced out of the market.

All the really high earners I know (50-85k) don't have a degree, or they did it in the evenings.

My point is, OP can't afford to buy because of choices they made, or bad luck, but that doesn't mean to say they can't turn it around if they wanted to and that they should feel resentful towards others who do own a home.

@testing987654321

However, it is possible to get on the housing ladder in Oxford. Just notnthe traditional way of 10% deposit!