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.

Price drop is the old double edged sword. Me? Won’t affect us, own both properties outright and both are forever homes. Friends with huge mortgages? Cripple them if they end up in negative equity as everything they had went into their homes. There’s no one set outcome in a free market. There will be winners and losers for want of a better word. And it’s shit. Do I want mine to crash in value? Not ideal but will it hurt me? No. I do fear that we’ll see damage done to families who poured everything into their homes in the hopes of moving onward and upward. That isn’t good for anyone. It’s another generation of children growing up with the deck stacked against them. As a country that’s crippling and very sad.

@Cardboard33 Interested in which university you work at? The vast majority of universities (like hospitals) contract out cleaning and catering to shit "service providers" like compass/mittie/sodexxo

See how UCL treat cleaners for example:
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ucl-strike-cleaners-security-guards-porters-outsourced-workers-sodexo-axis-a9209296.html

Maybe prices might tumble? I hope so actually (I'm a home owner! )

Something has to give.

A few of my sons friends have inherited properties so there will always be inequality too whatever happens. They really are the luckier ones.
I do feel for the op and their situation. Don't give up though!

I'm a home owner and i completely agree op.

I honestly have to clench my fist and change the subject when my parents talk about housing.. they honestly think their ability to sit on a fairly modest 3 bed home asset (still way way way out of the price range of most families these days, 400k plus in a fairly poorly connected run down town).. is due to their hard work. With dad in the equivalent of a nmw job and mum not working for 30+ years.

They've no idea how hard it is now. And I say that as someone who's managed it, just! But with huge sacrifices (no SAHM options, shitty commute, high pressure long hours jobs, uni).

You simply cannot replicate that on a single shop worker wage these days, and it's not helpful to suggest cutting out a weekly latte or avacado will help.

I've no idea how younger people than me are going to manage... I suspect it'll be down to a few relying on family handouts and inheritance.. which isn't an option for most.

It would be better if all those bleating about “choices” recognised that not all of us have the same choices in life. That many of us were handed a deck loaded against us.

Or it might be better if those bleating about unfairness took some responsibility for their own destiny. It’s ever been that some have silver spoons but others made decisions that set them on more comfortable paths. Granted it’s harder for care leavers or those whose parents are unsupportive of education but if immigrant children arriving from war torn countries, who start GCSEs not speaking English can get to Oxford, then most people can make choices that improve their lives.

Playing the field, getting stoned rather than qualified and having three children before you are 23 are choices. Going clubbing or to Ibiza rather than taking extra shifts and saving is going to impact on your ability to buy a house.
Refusing to move area and not studying for additional qualifications in your spare time may well limit choices.

On mumsnet i have been told to totally relocate away from my support network, get a better paid job and eat just beans on toast for years to get on the ladder as though these things were as easy as breathing...

On mumsnet i have been told to totally relocate away from my support network, get a better paid job and eat just beans on toast for years to get on the ladder as though these things were as easy as breathing...

Nobody thinks they're easy. Life often means making difficult choices and sacrifices.

I hear what you're saying @WaterOffADucksCrack and many people really are just scraping by with every penny going on essentials.

But there are also a surprising number of people who insist all their money goes on essentials, which turn out to include Sky, Netflix, Amazon Prime, a £50 pcm phone contract, at least one take-away meal a week, pre-prepped veg and 2 Starbucks on the way to work 5 days a week.

My hairdresser told me about her sister, who's always claiming to be skint, but buys Vogue, Harpers and Grazia every month, Hello magazine every week and splits a bottle of wine with her mate every evening on the train back from London. She then expects Hairdresser to do her hair for free, because she's "skint". Cheeky fucker!

Mind you, I can't talk. I coach people in budgetting ffs and have only just got round to cancelling a membership we haven't used for 3 years, so that's £120 down the Swannee.

Say we all moved somewhere cheaper eg Liverpool, would house prices not go up due to demand?
What if you have a support network in Surrey but in order to buy you had to move to Hull, Newcastle or somewhere completely random...is it worth the sacrifice? Some may have to buy houses in awful areas with bad schools as they cannot afford houses in good areas.
It's very easy for the priveledged few to bleat on about avocado toast and holidays in Ibiza as they sit in their ivory towers.

What if you have a support network in Surrey but in order to buy you had to move to Hull, Newcastle or somewhere completely random...is it worth the sacrifice? Some may have to buy houses in awful areas with bad schools as they cannot afford houses in good areas.

Meh, we did this (not those exact areas, but similar priced ones) For us, it's absolutely been worth it. Where I live is consistently named on the shit towns threads. It's in a fairly deprived part of the North West. Frankly, the more people who think that, the better, as the less likely they are to come and live here

We lived with no carpets for three years. The only items of furniture we have that are brand new is our sofa, which was a wedding gift from my parents, and a cheap £100 bedframe from Argos. The previous sofa was 3rd hand by the time we got given it and about 15 years old. All our appliances are second hand - that includes the oven, the TV, the washing machine and the fridge.

I don't live in any kind of ivory tower. DH and I both made a lot of sacrifices to get where we are now. No holidays, very few meals out, no takeaways (and when we do it's an £8 deal from the chippy). We have 2nd hand cars that we drive into the ground before replacing them.

We do have considerable savings now but when we bought we had nothing. People make different choices and telling people who have sacrificed and saved and made choices you wouldn't make yourself that they're privileged is unfair. Not everyone who owns a home was given deposits and help from their parents.

There is no point at all in sitting around bemoaning what other generations had or haven't had. It doesn't change the situation now and, every one of you would have taken advantage of whatever was available at the time had you been there.

It stinks. I worry that my sons will have housing problems as they get older. But it's not my fault that house prices have rocketed whilst salaries haven't. If I can help them I will. My friends range in age from 30 to 90 and I don't know a single person who doesn't acknowledge how hard financially our children have it.

We are lucky enough to own our house, bought in 1999 (we were 40 & 49) just before the market rocketed. We struggled to pay the 100k for our 4 bed detached and, since salaries haven't increased in line with property prices, there's no way we would be able to afford the 350k price tag it has now. And we spent the childcare/school years completely brassic.

All being well my boys will inherit the house and will hopefully have enough to get them property if they want it. But, of course, that is dependant on so many factors, not least that I hope to live at least another 30yrs when they will be in their 50's.

@Boredfromboredshire
By doing night and day shifts. Obviously this would not be possible if you are a single parent with no child care but in a two parent family this is certainly possible.

OP the reality is you simply cannot afford to live in Oxford. I also think you don't really 'get it' either if you think £40k is a very decent salary between two of you. You aren't prepared to take on extra work and have defensively rejected any suggestion made. I too can't afford a property in an area that Is like to live, so I rent. I suck it up though, because it is a choice.

What if you have a support network in Surrey but in order to buy you had to move to Hull, Newcastle or somewhere completely random...is it worth the sacrifice? Some may have to buy houses in awful areas with bad schools as they cannot afford houses in good areas.

That’s the choice.
For us it was, from Hampshire to East Anglia. You rebuild a new support network. That allowed cheaper living and a bigger deposit for when we moved again.

Of course moving away from an area where you have a support network and starting from scratch is really hard. It IS really hard for most to get on the property ladder and especially if they need a property big enough to house a whole family. Why would anyone think it might be easy?

Yes, moving away is bloody hard. Yes working extra shifts is bloody hard and yes, giving up on things that can feel like some of the few pleasures of life can be bloody hard if it's for several years.

Some people will embrace these hardships for the sake of house ownership. Others will say they are too costly and too hard or they shouldn't have to make such choices and therefore won't make them. All fine and all valid choices, as long as we recognise that most people can't have an easy life and home ownership exactly where they want. If you aren't willing to engage with any of the tough options then fair enough, lomg term renting it is. You either make your sacrifices in terms of leaving family and friends or in terms of buying property - the choice is as stark as that for many and the reality is most cannot have both and so do have to choose.

You’ve got to wonder what kind of country people want to live in. One where your choice of career (it takes all sorts, or did you not get the memo?) dictates the security of your shelter? One where it’s morally fine for people to buy all the houses they can afford, to hell with everyone else? One where “the ladder” takes such a painfully central role in our lives?

As Upton Sinclair is credited with saying way back when: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” Similarly, anyone sitting on a fat cushion of equity is at a disadvantage when it comes to understanding. As this thread has shown, some people do get it, even as others have their fingers comfortably in their ears.

@DarkenedTimes, you're typically full of excuses! Two ft working low paid worker can save towards a small flat, especially if they do overtime. 40 hours is nowadays considered a lot, but many low paid people who bought their property years back thought nothing of working 50/60 hours for a couple Of years to be able to save. It is feasible if you make it your full priority.

You can buy a reasonably cheap small flat requiring some work/updating almost everywhere that is not in a city loop. You have to look, sometimes for quite some time.

Women buy later but also have children later. Tou can do test to check your fertility levels cheaply. Most will still be quite fertile between 35 and 40.

Noone said that buying a house was easy. Moving isn't easy, but why should everything be easy to be achieved?

Your post to me highlight that some people just want everything to be easy and deem from the start that everything hard is unachievable.

Alexiscarrington. There will be no inheritance for my kids, I have nothing to leave them. No hypocritical bs here.

I don’t know people find the idea of moving away so outrageous. Most people I know live 2/3 hours away from family. They moved after university to get jobs. They don’t have family support. But they had made sacrifices to get work and a house.

"We bought our first house through a Help to Buy scheme that was available everywhere in the UK so unless you live abroad, you haven't looked very hard into Help to Buy options. Unfortunately, Help to Buy schemes don't actually help anyone - there was a study a couple of years ago that found that not one person has been able to buy because of Help to Buy, just that the people who went through the schemes saved money."

There is some truth in that. And I think that Help to Buy as a policy was/is stupid because it just propped up house prices when there should have been a natural correction in the market due to no first time buyers being able to afford to buy.

But we bought using Help to Buy... it is not available everywhere. It only applies to newly built properties and there weren't any in my town at the time so we had to move out to take advantage of the scheme, also moving to a cheaper area so we could afford it. We were in a similar position as the OP, which is having started a family before buying a house so our first purchase had to be a decent sized house rather than a small flat. So HTB allowed us to jump that rung of the "housing ladder". But we paid in other ways... I had a 2.5 hr round trip to work costing £4,000 per year in travel, the kids were miles from their friends, etc.

I can see both sides of this argument because it is way harder to buy than it used to be 25 years ago. BUT looking at my own situation I have to admit some of the reasons I ended up not owning a home until I was nearly 40 was due to a misspent youth and some decisions I made.
One of my friends bought a house in 2002 and took in a lodger for the first five years to help her with the mortgage. Then she married someone in a similar situation and now they have a massive house with half the mortgage paid off, ridiculously low housing costs, go on swanky holidays abroad and eat in restaurants all the time. Meanwhile I was convinced that there would be a housing crash because the prices had got so insane and carried on having a laugh and spending large amounts of cash on partying. The housing crash never came. Now I have a big salary but no disposable income due to mortgage costs. In other words, the hangover has kicked in
[No avocados were harmed in the making of this comment]

Moving to a far away area is easier if you are part of a couple....but i was on my own untill recently....i needed my support network as a single mum. I have lived up North and loved it but there is no way i could have moved up there alone with a baby. And no being a single mum was not a " life choice"...just bad relationship luck and bad mental health.

I moved towns when I bought this and my mum bloody followed me 😂 (trying to lighten the thread a bit)

I am going to be in a position to buyb in about a year due to inheritance..so im not bitter...but there is no way i could have saved the lump sum without this windfall.

As for your initial question...if I had that many properties with no mortgage I certainly wouldn't be Charging the rents he does. But then nor penny pinching or expecting tenants to make repairs that are his responsibility. I actually would probably actually give most of it away. I might do so with an idea to maximising its impact, go give them to charities or find ways of making the giving really worthwhile, but I sure as sugar wouldn’t keep them.. Because you can actually only live in one house.

@WombatChocolate there is often a reason why those areas with cheap housing are so 'cheap'. DH and I returned to the UK from Germany in 2016 and we had a friend who did the same, except she moved to huddersfield and we moved to london. She has more than 10 years of work experience and we are in our 20s. We both struggled to get jobs but when she did get jobs, it was often too faraway or it wasn't stable etc, however she did manage to get a fairly decent income pre covid. Houses are cheap as chips where she is, she was showing me houses she was looking, huge houses for over 100K while i was struggling to find somewhere decent for 400K. Fast forward to 2020, DH and i bought a 2 bed flat in zone 3 london which we would probably stay for the foreseeable future. She is on UC now because the civil service job doesn't allow her to start her new job (meanwhile DH's colleague in a banking job in London allowed him to start while we were on lockdown). If you looked at both of us in 2015, you would probably have said that the couple in huddersfield were more likely to get on the housing ladder compared to the couple in London but that wasn't the case at all.

Suppose OP and her husband move out to some other university town and that university collapses as it isn't as established as Oxford and there is a dearth of jobs in that area. they would be on UC and life would be very grim.