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.

@desiringonlychild

Yes, we were working away in the ME at the time so it was rented out. We came back in 2012 when things were picking up.

Wel I doubt she realises that you're on £20k each a year - that is extremely low. That was what I earned as an apprentice. I sympathise if your health held you back from promotions/more hours etc. She was insensitive, I just think when people start earning larger amounts it confuses them to think that others have remained on a much lower wage.

It all depends on the area. We were living in a cheap area and house prices were massively hit. They still hadn't recovered fully last I checked.

This for us to. At worst point they dropped 33%. They recovered to the value we bought in 2007 last year. We were never in negative equity as we had a large mortgage.

While I do truly sympathize, I don't think a lot of young homebuyers are prepared to make the kind of sacrifices many of us made e.g. buying an unmodernized home, living in a shit area for a few years, going without holidays or treats or meals out or tech or even delaying having a family.

There may be a ray of hope from the current situation though, as I suspect house prices are about to fall quite a bit.

I think young people are very willing to make those sacrifices but even with those sacrifices they are still unable to get a mortgage.

@Jaxhog wouldn't an unmodernized home cost a fortune to refurbish? I couldn't have afforded it when i bought my 2 bed flat, hence i bought a flat that was somewhat done up though not to my own personal standards. We think its good enough to live in for a few years and then maybe we can do some work.

It was marketed as fully refurbished and spruced up for sale.

wouldn't an unmodernized home cost a fortune to refurbish?
Not if you do it slowly. The money you used to put towards the deposit and the difference with the rent goes towards it.

My first home was cheap because it needed complete refurbishing. New wiring, windows, boiler, front door, painting, decorating, carpet etc... It took 10 years to get it to the standard I wanted and of course by then some things needed doing again. I could never have afforded it in the start it was when I sold it.

I think teens need to be taught to get on the property ladder asap.

I have a nephew and two nieces who bought flats a few years after graduating. One lived at home to save, the other shared a 2 bedroom flat in London with 3 friends and the youngest and lowest earner ( teacher) worked in Dubai where her housing was paid. The days of partying your twenties away has sadly gone for most and certainly holding off having children helps immensely.

I think the order of life events has changed for lots of people and this can make it harder to get on the property ladder.

It's been said lots of times that having children before buying a property makes it harder later. It is also harder if you are buying alone because you are not in a relationship or you are, but only at the level of renting rather than buying together. More people these days have children before committing/marrying and whilst in rented and when they come to look for property look for gardens and schools and things first time buyers can't usually afford. The usual first step doesn't suit them and the usual 2nd/3rd purchase isn't affordable as they haven't built up equity and would need massive mortgages and deposits.

Dare I say it, but background and attitude towards h aving children etc is making it easier for the middle class. So uni educated middle class background young adults, as well as earning more, expect to wait until their 30s or later for kids. Marriage is increasingly a class-signifier and lots still wait to be married to have kids. By that time, lots more have already bought and often start their families in flats or small houses or even family houses if they are onto a 2nd purchase. Those who have kids young or unplanned or alone, find it so much harder in terms of earning power and in terms of what a suitable first property is.

I also agree that some young people don't really consider skankey property or areas. Having lived in nicer student accommodation or seeing all the new build help to buy stuff with zillion an of ensuites can make it feel like a a grim 1 bed flat that is barely habitable or really not anywhere near where its all happening, just isn't a serious consideration. Add in a couple of kids and people don't even think they should have to consider it. But first time buyers have historically had to start at the bottom. It's hard. If by mid 30s and still. Alone or in a couple unable to buy and the clocks ticking for kids, really serious looking At moving to moving to other areas first would be a good idea. Those who carefully plan their children and think ahead definitely have more opportunities.

@Desiringonlychild

It depends how much work you're prepared/can do yourself! DH taught himself to do plumbing in order to install our water heater. We had a couple of leaks initially, but he soon got the hang of it. We had to do this because we had no indoor plumbing - only an outside toilet and a kitchen tap. Rentokil sprayed the woodwork and dry rot. We replaced the rotten skirting boards ourselves, stripped the walls, repapered them, painted and did all the tiling ourselves. I made all the curtains. Ikea supplied the v. cheap rugs. All the furniture was from junk shops, as was our old TV. We had to get experts in to reroof, install a v. basic bathroom and to replace a rotten floor.

I knew couples who bought a grim 2 bed ex-council house on an undesirable estate. Only 1 room was livabke and the kitchen had already been ripped out and everything left hanging off the walls. They essentially camped in the living room for 2 years and had to close their eyes to use the bathroom as it was so horrible and could never have anyone round, but it meant they could buy it. Gradually they saved bits of cash and slowly did bits of work until it was okay about 2 years later. Prices had risen a bit, their wages had risen a bit and they still didn't have kids and were able to sell it and start the same with a 3 bed in a enter area. 2 years after that they had a first child. Others had already got kids but no property and were then looking at a 1 bed modern flat or a 2 bed dump that needed lots of doing up again if they could even to stretch to it by then...but didn't want to to do it with the kids.

Too many people at all stages of life say ' I can't consider that because..'

• it's grotty
• it isn't near good school
• it isn't near family or friends
• area is a bit rough
• it doesn't have a garden
• transport is too far away a
• there aren't enough bedrooms for one each for the kids

Lots of people essentially want far more than they can afford. If they would tolerate lots of the things in the list above they could buy, especially in cheap areas. There is no requirement to live there forever, but making a start is a big positive move towards getting somewhere you like better and if you just set the starting bar too high, you may end up with nowhere or a help to buy deal which over 10 years costs you huge amounts more and makes moving later very difficult and expensive, and staying possibly even harder.

The cost of a child 0-18 is approximately £75K for a couple and £100K for a single parent
^^
This should be taught in schools.

Another impediment is the celebrity style wedding culture where the a house deposits worth of cash is spent on one day.

Unfortunately high house prices are what is destroying the economy, people just trying to save thousands for a deposit and only buying the cheapest essentials possible, people shoud not need to use help to scam or shared ownership schemes to get them self's into more debt, just need interest rates to rise and a max of 3.5 times lending by banks, prices will soon correct.

Marriage is increasingly a class-signifier and lots still wait to be married to have kids.

Is it? DP and I are very middle class and we aren’t married. In terms of my friends, it’s about 50/50.

@WombatChocolate yeah, I pretty much agree 100% with what you say.

Yes, getting on the housing ladder is hard, but I do think people have unrealistic expectations as well. Very very few people buy a nice three-bed with a garden as their first home - simply because the amount of money needed to do that is out of their reach. You start small, build up your equity and eventually, 10-15 years down the line you end up up with your family "forever home".

But nowadays, people don't want to buy in the cheaper areas - you see it on this thread. They simply won't consider any form of compromise order to become homeowners. They want to live in a nice area with good schools and good public transport for the same cost as the cheaper areas that don't always have those things. It's simply unrealistic. A nice family home in Oxford city centre is never going to be cheap. That's just life.

DH and I bought when I was in my late twenties and DH in his early thirties. It's a tiny two bed terrace in a small northern town that lots of people would never even consider. I have a lot of friends who say "I'd never live where you do" and in the same sentence, they complain about their rental costs in more expensive areas, and how they can't afford to save for a mortgage. Well, no, you won't be able to save if you insist on living somewhere where your rent is £900 a month compared to £400 if you rented further out.

@vanillandhoney people are also very against flats. There are flats with communal gardens and even private gardens. Also share of freehold so you can keep service charges down. my DH is a director of our flat's management committee. There was a vote on whether to increase service charges, everyone voted to maintain current level of service charges (unsurprisingly). Most families don't have more than 2 children, so 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom flats should be fine.

Thats a compromise I made to stay in London and still buy.

@desiringonlychild

There’s nothing wrong with flats themselves. My old one was lovely, with a large balcony. The problem is the leasehold model. Doesn’t sound like a problem in your case but it is for a lot of new builds.

I have a lot of friends who say "I'd never live where you do" and in the same sentence, they complain about their rental costs in more expensive areas, and how they can't afford to save for a mortgage. Well, no, you won't be able to save if you insist on living somewhere where your rent is £900 a month compared to £400 if you rented further out.

I have the same! And "I wouldn't buy in that postcode"🙄 Well, my crime rate is lower than theirs. And i have garden🤷🏻

This UK thing about postcodes is bit ridiculous. Postcodes are usually massive so have generally good and bad areas. Just find good bit in shitty postcode and voilà. 3 bed with garden for a bargain price..

ABSOLUTELY agree with @WombatChocolate and @vanillandhoney

I agree that it is hard to buy now with the deposits required by the banks. Our first flat cost less than £50k and we had a £2.5k deposit. The (dodgy) broker told us that we didn't need to hand over such a high deposit . Cannot imagine that happening now.

Surely most homeowners feel for their children and how hard it's going to be for them? We couldn't afford our house now as it has gone up so much. I often worry what DS will do.

@AnneElliott i guess those same home owners could downsize to a tiny flat and give the money to their spawn to buy overpriced homes. A family friend downsized from a 4 bedroom million pound house to maisonette to get 2 kids on the ladder.

I don’t think you can generalise that it’s all home owners who don’t understand how hard it is to buy because I most certainly do. We only just bought 2 years ago, both early 30s then. I don’t go around acting smug but we made lots of sacrifices.
Dh and I are immigrants so moved here almost 10 years ago. He came to study and I joined him. He was paying the international student fee so it was really expensive for us. I studied too but then we already had DD1 which meant I was paying int’l fee for myself, paying childcare for DD and only surviving on 1 salary. We had it so tough because when we weren’t studying anymore, we were either paying for visas, health surcharge, etc that we literally had no money to ourselves. No holiday and no family to help with childcare or to move in with as they all lived abroad and we were renting a cheap, dingy, 1 bedroom top floor flat and we had friends who used to tell us then that we’re depriving our DD because we didn’t have a garden.
We chose not to have another child till we had a house and we knew we could at least save some of the childcare fee when she started school and that’s what we did. We didn’t get any inheritance, I never will anyway as I still have to send money monthly to help my mum and siblings back at home. We’ve always paid for childcare and when calculating it, we’ve paid over 30k for visa and solicitors over the years and this is a cost that many of our friends here never had to pay.

Things are hard but most good things don’t come easy. Funny thing is that DH works in a hospital in Oxford now and we certainly can’t afford to rent or buy there so he commutes daily (50 to 70 minutes depending on traffic).
Where we live is a good commuter town, not run down and houses are still a bit expensive here compared to other towns but here we got our 3 bed house 2 years ago. It’s under 200k and our deposits was 5%. We’re not well off but saved it in 2 years (£500 a month) but that was when we were just paying a little on childcare as the childcare fee has gone up significantly again with dd2 but at least, we already bought. At the moment, we’ve only been able to do basic diy stuffs that we can do ourselves like painting on the house. we have no central heating so making do with electric heaters, etc because houses that had everything were more expensive but this will serve us for now

we’ve paid over 30k for visa and solicitors over the years and this is a cost that many of our friends here never had to pay

Well people make choices in life and you chose to move countries, knowing that there is a price to that. Is the quality of life better here? Better opportunities? Just wondering why you would commit 30k to staying here. I lived abroad for a few years but it was because the money was better and tax was lower, I didn’t want to stay there permanently though, the quality of life was worse than here.

@TazSyd, yes my quality of life is much better here and apart from the uncertainties we had before becoming British citizens due to changes in immigration laws, etc, I don’t regret paying that. We both moved here from a third world country

I have friends who have moved to Aus and the USA, they’ve had to pay a lot in visa fees too. Moving from one 1st world to another 1st world country is just personal preference though, I don’t see that the opportunities and quality of life are much better in any of them. I lived in Abu Dhabi fir a few years, it was a great experience but I was happy to come back. It sounds like you’ve done well for yourselves.

Taz, regarding marriage and class, the statistics are really interesting. If you look at the data for the last 10-20 years, fewer people get married and there is very much a swing against marriage and against marriage before children amongst certain categories of skill level in the workforce. I said it's a class signifier because in all classes, there are people who buck the tend and it doesn't work as a theory for everyone of course. People in the more traditional high skilled and high paid occupations are more likely to get married and be married before children. Middle class is a very broad category and there will be communities of people who call themselves middle class, where few with kids are married but in others where almost everyone is....if you go to a traditional prep or senior independent school, the vast vast majority of parents are married or some are divorced, but there is very little co-habittimg with children. I think we often see our own community and imagine it reflects everywhere but it often doesn't.