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.

@LaurieFairyCake Jobs that can be worked from home during the pandemic. I usually work in the city but am doing my job from home now.

Ppl have been moving away and working away from their home towns since the beginning of time...I actually find it really odd that someone can assume and accept they will spend their whole life living and working in the same bloody town!! I mean ffs...if it's not working then take a LEAP! MAKE A CHANGE!! Oh no, your right actually...you just sit and moan about it instead!!

Also waited until we bought before having our only child. Couldn't do it after having kids. Also live nowhere near family.

@Cinderella66

I should have explained the context as I don’t think you’ve read the full thread.

A few pages ago someone said that the OP should just move to “the north” to buy a house. I pointed out that it’s not as simple as just moving somewhere in that big space called “the north” and I listed some expensive areas and some cheaper ones. Explaining why I thought there was a price difference. For some reason 2 posters decided that I was a snotty southerner who was disparaging the whole of “the north”, despite the fact that (other than a stint in the ME) I’ve always lived in “the north”, including in the towns I mentioned.

I think it takes emotional resilience to move to a new, affordable area - and lots of people just don’t have it.

People who’ve always lived in one place and especially if all their family and friends are there too and they lack confidence about the unknown, can find the idea of starting again pretty impossible. It’s about narrow horizons. And in the difficult housing market, people often have to be innovative and look at less obvious possibilities - a very different area, sharing with a friend, buying to rent out, whilst renting yourself elsewhere.....people who think creatively and look for solutions find them. Those who rigidly want a family house where they are now don’t find a solution.

People who’ve been away to uni are often more used to going into new situations and feel more confident to try. It’s often easier in a couple than alone. People with more skills might be more confident about their own abilities to adapt and less fearful of the new. Those with issues or self-perceived issues can face bigger barriers or build barriers in their minds to doing the more difficult thing which might bring ownership closer. Those who can make a plan for the medium term and bear short term costs for long term gain, rather than requiring instant gratification are more likely to make it happen.

So who is least able to do the things to enable themselves to buy somewhere? It’s those who struggle generally - the low paid, the less educated, those with low self esteem and confidence, those who’ve had limited life experiences, those who find any obstacle is magnified to feel insurmountable, those who are not brave or who just can’t see things longer term or understand how housing markets actually work.

There’s a lot of ‘can’t do’ attitude on this thread instead of ‘can do’. I really think the ‘can do’ approach is needed especially when it’s hard. There have been loads of great suggestions that have been proven to work for people in similar situations. Some read them and think ‘that’s impossible’ but others read it and think Justin maybe that could be a way forward. I will look into it more’.

@lockdownbreakdown

Absolutely agree with the dumb luck . In 1997 no one could have predicted all this.

Doesn't matter where you live in some ways, property prices have outstripped salaries.

If you look at the benchmark of NMW 10 years ago versus a property how does that compare to now?

DH is a civil servant so salary is by grade and point.

17 years ago he earned £15k and 3 bed house was £140.

Now that salary is £23k (so that grade with 3 years experience etc) same house is £300k

So our house cost us 9 x his salary, now it would cost 13 x.

House price inflation has massively outstripped general living and salary inflation so it just gets harder and harder for people to buy.

Actually the those later figures were 5 years ago now, salaries haven't increased since then but property price may well have done!

Massive eyeroll at the people saying OP should move to Sheffield or Lancaster to work at a uni and buy. You do know that there are people here already, right? Including university workers who would quite like jobs? Southerners moving up and pricing out local people is just a short sighted fix that if followed to its logical conclusion would lead to those places being just the same as the southeast. This happened when people from down south looking for a cheaper simpler life discovered the lovely town I lived in when I was younger.

Obv I'm not against people moving anywhere they want (I'm a yorkshire lass living in Scotland :-) ) but it is NOT a fix for a busted system.

I also think that lots of people posting on here from London and South East are being v naive about earning potential in the North. Your wages would be less and maybe that's okay, perhaps the gap between house price and wage would still be less, I'm not sure, but there are a LOT fewer professional jobs to go around. Where I'm from houses are cheap, but if you're not a teacher or a nurse you may well not be able to find a job. It's not a model you could scale up.

Also people who are so proud that they worked all the hours, moved their kids' schools, lived in studios with children in order to buy - that's okay that you were willing to sacrifice your kids' wellbeing to home ownership, but don't sneer at people saying they shouldn't have to do that in order to buy; they shouldn't.

It's not a straightforward division between idealism and the real possibilities for OP. The people who are saying "she can moan and complain but that won't get her a house" - that may be true, but that doesn't mean that people managing to get houses by tying themselves in knots means the system is okay and can work for everyone.

I will probably be stuck renting for ever. That's due to debt, bad credit and loss of earnings incurred by massive life upheaval inflicted on my family later judged to be illegal, but that doesn't help me now. Life shafts people in lots of different ways and just because one person overcomes difficulty doesn't mean another can. We are not all the same. I have no car, walk everywhere, don't have holidays, buy all my clothes second hand, don't eat out, have a v cheap phone contract, no TV....I STILL cannot afford to buy. There are many like me.

The idea that anyone can earn 50 k is fucking laughable. Not everyone is SMART enough to earn 50k, plenty of people never will. Mental health, physical health, caring responsibilities and shitty luck are just the START of a long list of reasons why that is nonsense.

Oh and I live fucking miles away from my family and everyone I know, because of a job my husband was offered.

My DH earned a fairly good wage but it took him years to reach and he did a degree when we had a child ( which was hard). We were both quite low earners 30 years ago and we could afford a mortgage. It's so much harder and more difficult these days. Why people can't see this I'm not sure!

And we lived in two ex-council houses before this one, one notorious locally and where we live now is comparable to Oxford. I'm the only one out of my siblings to manage it yet, my husband's brothers have just bought in the last 3 years and they earn easily double if not triple our salary. It's horrifically difficult. A lot of people do understand....a lot don't. System shouldn't make it so hard but it is what it is. Good luck and best wishes OP.

It's not just about the deposit, it's also about how much you earn. Lots of banks will limit how much of a mortgage they will offer based on 5 x your salary, for example. So even someone earning £50k, which is a decent wage, could only borrow £250k. Even if they had a £100k deposit, that's only £350k. Which in an awful lot of areas in the UK will get you fuck all.

I'm hoping, maybe, with a fair wind and no holidays, to have £20k saved by the end of this year. But it feels like such an insurmountable barrier, I find it very depressing. Especially when I'm earning a good wage but I'm living in a houseshare like a student, and I can't afford to go on holiday or have nicer things, if I want to buy a house.

Yes, in order to save we need to make sacrifices. But in the past people would only need to live frugally for 2 or 3 years. Unless I marry someone who can go in on a house with me, I'm realistically looking at having to save like mad for the next 10 years plus. By which time I'll be 40 or in my 40s.

I don't want to be 40 and still living in a house share with no children and not having been on holiday for a decade just so I can get a small property somewhere. It's a very very depressing prospect.

And that's nothing to say of how much house price growth will continue to outstrip wages over the next decade...

@Namechangeapril20 unfortunately when you do buy a home, there is no guarantee it will go up. I remember when we bought our flat last year, my dH said it's going to go 20-40% down but we are still doing it because we can get the mortgage now and we are sick of living at home. I said yes, we are. We are having an only child so that only child would be in the second bedroom. The schools are all outstanding up to secondary level and there are buses to private schools. So if we can pay the mortgage, we should be fine and we shouldn't bank on being able to upgrade.

That's how it is with property. It can go up or it can go 40% down. All out of your hands. You can only overpay your mortgage and hope for the best. I do think people like OP have been dealt a tough hand and if there are any silver linings at least she would be able to buy somewhere.

@Namechangeapril20

Buying a do-er upper puts you in a better position than someone who bought a new build with help to buy. A lot of those purchases in the last couple of years may well already be in negative equity.

It is very hard. We were very lucky in that PIL lent us half of our deposit for our first house (which we paid back in full), we did it up, sold and made money, then did the same again and now in our (hopefully) final house, which again we are doing up, mostly doing the work ourselves around two full time jobs a toddler and pregnancy. We've also hugely progressed in our careers which has enabled us to keep moving up.

So a lot of hard work. But o don't kid myself that if we hadn't had the initial leg up we'd be where we are now.

Because we recognise this, we've had BIL live with us rent free for six months so he could save before buying, we had my Dsis and her family love with us for four months so they could save to pay house buying costs, and we lent my Dsis and her DH half their deposit. We've always been of the opinion that we were helped out, so we will help others (even when it inconvenient/annoying), but unless you're from a family who want/can help, it is very difficult.

@TazSyd

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/12/average-house-price-slump-30000-market-frozen-covid-19/

The CEBR warned that owners of rental properties and home owners in regions with the most vulnerable jobs markets will be the hardest hit by the fallout of the coronavirus.

Its economists said a squeeze on incomes caused by the coronavirus crunch “has a tremendous potential to disrupt the UK’s housing markets”. Employment in Yorkshire and Humber and Northern Ireland is expected to be most affected from a sudden stop in economic activity....

Think a housing price crash is inevitable. I didn't buy a new build or use help to buy, I bought my flat at a 20% discount from 2016. But I am still expecting a fall between 15-40%>

120k house now 700k. Right.

Get a second job - save all of that money.

Personally I purchased a house before children, I worked over 70 hours a week at one stage. It was exhausting.

It’s mythical that everyone who owns a house gets money from “rich relatives”

@Desiringonlychild I have been dealt the same hand as OP with the same cards stacked against us (dh out of work due to ill health, 2 kids, low joint income, living in a high cost area, no financial help or inheritance), we just made different choices. You seem to think because I own I am better off. I am not. Much like there are disadvantages to renting, there are risks to buying and it will always be the ones on the lower salaries that suffer. Much like the OP is choosing not to buy due to her circumstances not allowing her to buy the type of house and location she wants, we chose to buy the house we did because of our circumstances (tiny, run down, not our dream location). Just because I own, and you own does not put us on par. A housing crash will see us back to renting, in spite of all our hard work - that's not the same as a house not increasing in the value you were hoping, or it decreasing in value and it being liveable enough for you to be able to stay put for a while until the market recovers. With all due respect, we're living on bare bones to live in a 77k house in an awful area, you are living in a 400k flat in London - you're being as patronising as the OPs friend advising she just stops eating avocados. You're sitting fine, so a housing crash won't affect you - it will be life changing for us and just because we own we are no better off than OP, and nowhere near as well off as you. You're hoping for something that will cost us everything and see us back into a much worse situation than OP - A situation we spent 10 years scrimping and saving and sacrificing to get out of.

@TazSyd we couldn't afford one of those new builds and while yes they may well be in negative equity, they will be living in a habitable house while the market recovers - we will be living in a building site.

*if we can even afford to stay there.

@desiringonlychild

Thank you for that. I don’t know what value drop I’m expecting. Prices have been up and down up here for the last couple of years but have stagnated overall. I’m thinking probably 15% from pre lockdown prices but we won’t see it until the sold prices hit the land registry in a few months time.

My comment about new build and help to buy wasn’t aimed at you. I feel sorry for the people who have been suckered into that over the last couple of years. I think they are in the most precarious position at the moment, if they only put a 5% deposit down then they will have lost that as their new build became 2nd hand as soon as they bought it and no longer eligible for help to buy to the next buyer.

Banks are already pulling high LTV mortgages which will shrink the pool of first time buyers and also tells me that they are expecting a 10-15% drop in value.

You need 5 per cent for the government help to buy scheme. So if a property cost 300k, you would still need 15 k and then money for legal fees.
I can see why it’s so hard. Not many people on lower incomes with families can conjure up 20 or 30 grand for a deposit.

We need first time buyers to spark the chains.

@jedijim

Exactly, less first time buyers means less onward purchases.

Re help to buy, you can put more than a 5% deposit down, if you’ve got it. I’m not sure how many people do put more than 5% down though.