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.

You don't have decent jobs if you live in Oxford (very expensive) and you're working full time at £20k each

It just shows how SHIT salaries are - and how they have barely gone up in 25 years!

I worked as an admin assistant on £13k in 1995 and bought my first house at £30k

Salaries have not kept in line with inflation whereas house prices have rocketed

So sorry for you both

@LaurieFairyCake yes, I think my point was that 40k is a decent -ish income in the scheme of things. Or it used to be! It’s actually that my hubby earns more than me

Another enter here it really is so difficult! I really wish they would bring in a rent law because its so unfair that landlords can charge twice the mortgage price. We most probably pay more in rent than most mortgage a month its just the god damn deposit that's the hard bit to get and trying to save that! We moved into my Inlaws to save for a deposit 4 of us in 1 room, literally gave up our home we rented in hope to save lost the kids bedrooms etc, that went tits up me and dh split up and I moved out with the kids and now our situation is even worse me and the kids don't even have a home I share a bed with them both and now on the housing waiting list!! Hoping to try and get back with dh the guilt I feel that the kids have no room and yes we could orivta erent again but the rent will be even more extortionate than last time!! I think the only way to own a home is save before kids when you live at home or get help from family unless you have an amazing salary where you can save whilst renting. Wish something could be done!

Yanbu. My sister used to ask me why I was wasting money renting when mortgages are cheaper. She no longer does since I reminded her our parents gave her over 10k towards it!

20k is about the norm for most jobs I think - reasonably good jobs too. I agree wages are absolutely shit and have not improved, whereas the skills and qualifications (at an increasing cost) required for them , and the work you are expected to do for that wage has shot up in virtually every area I can think of.

YANBU and I say that as someone who is on the fortunate side of this equation as I'm in my mid 40s and was able to afford to buy because prices were more in line with earnings 20 years ago. I live in a cheap part of the UK and even here, my younger relatives are stuck renting, and they're paying double the amount of our mortgage for a much smaller house. House prices might be lower than elsewhere but so are salaries so affordability is still a problem.

My husband and I did make sacrifices in our younger years, for example we didn't have a holiday until we were in our 30s and we are very cautious with miney. Home ownership wasn't just handed to us. But having said that, if we were 20 years younger than we are, we could sacrifice holidays, takeaways, avocado on toast, the whole lot and we still wouldn't have enough left over to save up a desposit within a realistic timescale. We're not better at budgeting, or more focused than younger people, we're just lucky to have been born when we were.

It's about priorities isn't it? If it is only the current situation that is stopping you moving areas then that's not going to be forever. If you want to remain in oxford and don't want to work more jobs to get the deposit money then yes, you'll not be a homeowner.

Rent prices in your area are ridiculous. Personally my priority would be moving area and getting on the housing ladder. Even if it was with a view to moving back again when the DC were 18.

OP, When i was renting and people said similar things to me, they conveniently forgot that in order to buy, they’d had:

• financial & practical help from parents (e.g. trades)
• inheritance
• lived rent free with parents in order to save
• received an insurance/comp payout
• got on a scheme
• partnered up carefully with someone well off
• received a redundancy payout
• got a 100% mortgage

People don't consider their privilege.

These days, I think you’d have to relocate in order to buy on your income.

Personally speaking, I relocated, got a job with a higher salary and worked two extra jobs in order to get a decent deposit together. Not exactly that easy now though is it.

Why has no-one suggested that the OP take in a bit of ironing?

Seriously though, it is ridiculous. For some people their house earned more than they did last year. Now that can't be right.

It’s hard too because people think you are utterly disgusting if you hope prices do fall as they are so invested in the value of their house at the expense of people (families) being housed securely

I’m not sure i understand what you mean? Are you saying we haven’t made enough sacrifices?
No I am saying the sacrifices are not possible.

I'm a homeowner and older, I didn't have to make any of the sacrifices younger people now. It's not just houses either. People need a paid for degree to do the same job their parents did without a degree. In certain industries even with all the qualifications young people have to work for free for months on end. The paid office junior has become the unpaid intern. Lower paid work is completely insecure, it's becoming like the 1920s with people showing up at docks in the morning in the hope of a days work. More and more taxes are loaded onto younger people because people like me, with the money, all vote and won't pay, so young people have to pick up the tab. Just look at the way pensioners haven't had to pay a penny for the financial crisis, younger people, who could afford it less paid.

I don't begrudge older people extra money (I'm one of them) but they do really need to stop slagging off younger people as lazy etc and recognise that they don't have a big house and fat pensions because they are so clever and hard working, it's just the time you lived in.

The people say "ah if younger people didn't have iphones/starbuck/avocados, the of course could buy!" are so out of touch deluded - often from the "bommer" generation too, where a home was afforded on one person's salary and a house for 2/3 times a normal salary!

@crustycrab it’s not all about priorities. There are plenty of people who wouldn’t leave their home, networks etc and move to a town somewhere where they have no connections & have to build a life again.

I think it depends on your location and lifestyle. I know a couple each on 20k who rented a 1 bed flat and delayed having a second child just so they could save for their house. They managed to save 60k in five years and bought a lovely 3 bed semi for 180k just last year.

We rent, it's fiendishly expensive here ( Hampshire) it's £1300 a month for our 3 bed house, so much wrong with it but was the best option when we moved here. Renting sucks but in order to buy you need so much deposit. My partner will be getting enough for a deposit in an inheritance later this year but without it we wouldn't be able to.

Life has maybe thrown you some curve balls and not everyone can buy a property and in some areas, some people will always be priced out.

However in your early 40s, then I do think barring illness, job loss and disability and barring being in a very expensive area then lots of people could have afforded to buy a house but choose not to. They thought that 25 or 28 or 31 were too young and wanted to be carefree, they had children and child care costs etc. I speak from among my peers who now moan about house prices but have had opportunity to buy many times and did not.

Op can you honestly say you could not have bought anywhere till now?

However, buying a house when in a couple is still easier than buying alone and 10 15 20 years ago things were easier and if in early 40s you have had this length of time.

There are lots of things like help to buy, land banking and high rents that the government could choose to sort out but they never will. In fact help to buy pushed up the price of property more than anything, yet it is apparently to help home buyers.

The whole of the UK housing needs looking at Incl rental properties, council (what's left, being that most are actually housing association properties) and house prices generally.

I'm not bashing you op, but I think that some people in your situation did miss out on opportunities and the current housing situation will only ever get worse with covid 19 damage to the economy and with Brexit looming, that has not happenned yet.
Maybe this is as good as it will ever get for many people.

What the govt can do to make rental housing more secure and cheaper, they probably never will. They have literally decades of evidence on how they can do so from the countries in Europe with better rental systems. They will never choose to go this route (of which there are many improvements to choose from) as it does not serve them and their cronies.

Also good housing should be available to everyone including those not in a normal family and without a normal job. (Or with no job.)

YABU we bought in December 2016 at a peak, both worked two jobs to be able to save while renting, no deposit gifts, paid our own way through uni etc. I'm 35 and live in the southeast in a seaside town commutable to London. It wasn't cheap and it wasn't easy. Of course I know what it takes and so do all of my friends and relatives who also live in this areas and experienced the same. I don't know anyone who was gifted a deposit. DH and I work in the public sector so don't earn a fortune and neither do our colleagues, but you can write us all off as clueless if you like. FWIW most people I know choose not to have children before buying a home because they know that children are expensive.

Suppose it depends where you live. DH and I are younger than you, earn 50k ish between us and we managed to buy a couple of years ago. We live in the North though so houses are naturally a lot cheaper. It’s a five bedroom house so we didn’t do too badly, we saved a deposit for a long time and had to prioritise it above other things.

Oh I know. That's what I mean, you shouldn't have to. But that would be my priority. It's a very personal thing and it's not easy to do.

Would you consider it if it? Without a better paid job it's clear you won't be able to save with such high rent

Same. I’m in Surrey / south London border and earn 46k but as a single parent impossible for me to buy. I’m currently living in my ex’s house (not our old family home) rent free whilst he’s working overseas and for the first time I’m able to save. I do however have to buy my house back in my native north wales. I plan to head back there when my youngest leaves school in 6yrs, I’m 44 this year so need to buy in next couple of years once I’ve got a deposit. Since I stopped paying rent in December I’ve already saved 10k which was impossible before. How can you rent and save? It’s not that easy. People who buy in cheap areas of the UK have no idea how difficult it is to buy

And as for 'move to a cheaper area' well even expensive areas need bus drivers and shop assistants and bin men and they all have to live somewhere. Telling people to move doesn't solve the problem.

"They thought that 25 or 28 or 31 were too young and wanted to be carefree, they had children and child care costs etc. I speak from among my peers who now moan about house prices but have had opportunity to buy many times and did not."

This is a perfect example of what I was getting at. I bought a house young and have gone without to be able to afford subsequent house moves and properties. It was a choice.

but we are about to go into the biggest recession in living memory- an academic on channel 4 news earlier said likely a Great Depression- so changing jobs doesn’t seem a good idea now

Well I’m hoping house prices drop. I don’t care if people think I’m disgusting. A house is an investment, but the value of any investment can go up or down. That’s what people ignore. If you want flexibility to move, then rent. If you buy, then understand that the price can go down as well as up.

I'm sorry your friend has been so patronising. And some comments on here prove your point about some people simply not getting it. Second jobs, one bed flats etc. I would really like to know if those suggesting these things have actually undertaken this themselves while having children for any length of time when they were in a similar position.

I am homeowner and I am completely aware that by coincidence (we could afford to buy when prices were cheaper and then had some inheritance) we are in a privileged position. It's really not much we did. Just timing which is totally dumb luck. Nothing at all to be smug about or dish out condescending advice to others in a different position.

I am sorry that I can't offer any advice really. Just to say that I hope you are all ok health wise now and despite the frustrations your children are well and happy. When they will look back on their childhood what they will most cherish are parents who loved them unconditionally and were there for them - never mind if their house was rented or owned. All the best to you and your family and don't listen to entitled, privileged people without empathy.