Not sure if I want to buy a house, anyone else decided not to?

[Drumstick38]

I earn minimum wage, though I am currently applying for higher paid roles.
I have zero debt apart from student loans which is good, and about £1700 in savings.
I can't see how I could ever afford a deposit, as well as all the associated fees. I'm in Greater Manchester and having to look in Bolton, Wigan, Rochdale etc. As everything else is much more expensive.

Aside from this, I think the responsibility of paying a mortgage would be too much for me. I've already lost money this week due to having Covid and having to isolate, I'd be too worried about losing my job or something and not being able to pay.

The repair and maintenance costs are a factor too of buying a house.

I like the flexibility of renting, I don't have any pets and I like that more responsibility falls on the landlord.

The thing that people seem concerned about is in retirement age, and whether people can afford to keep renting, but surely there must be solutions?

Anyone else in a similar situation?

I wouldn't need a 4 bed house aged 60. My kids will be 43 and 30 years old by then.

I'm already 50 and in no position to buy even if I wanted to.

I know housing benefit pays the interest (after a substantial wait) but if I'm never able to work again, what is the point in that ?

Embracelife

£60 rent per month for 42 years is £30,240. The flats were about £7500 for a 2 bedder in about 1978. If he had bought 3 at the time he would have spent £22500. Which leaves nearly £8000 for interest payments etc

Does that make sense to you.

Plus he doesn’t even live in a 2 bed flat he lives in one room with a toilet and bathroom he has to cross the landing to get to.

SchrodingersImmigrant not everyone’s jobs survived the first lockdown and as most of our jobs were in the hospitality sector which was decimated, what people expect and the reality is something completely different.
Dh has applied to so many jobs and companies to find work at age 64 and the only time they invite him for an interview is when he doesn’t put his age and he cuts out some of his cv.
If he puts his real age then he just doesn’t get anything back. Even applied to the local job centre and didn’t even get a no thank you.
I haven’t worked as an employee for years (possibly due to having ADHD which I am now being tested for)
Dc and I applied for every supermarket job every fruit picking job that was in our neighbourhood and beyond and never heard a thing back.
Dd is the only one who has 4 years self employed tax returns and she doesn’t earn enough to be able to rent anything more than a one bed flat. Ds is too young to have enough tax returns

ChuckNoWorriesMyWay
I still have teenagers

As Thisnamewasnttaken123 says rents have climbed hugely this year. As I said we were looking at 4 bed detached at the beginning of the year and now are looking at 3 bed terraces for the same money.
Not that we even get to view any

To be honest I do think too much emphasis is placed on buying however, if in the position to buy rather than rent, I would pretty much always choose to buy unless I had a secure local authority tenancy on low rent. My mortgage, even when I first bought my house when I was paying back the most interest, has never been more than renting the same property wouldve been. I have overpaid almost the entire time as I figured we should pay more so that if we ever had to rent or upsize it would be more achievable. By doing that and paying any bonuses/money saved from wage increases onto the mortgage my 30 year mortgage will be finished in about half the time. Now it is about a third per month (if I didnt overpay) what it would rent for. There is no way the cost of any improvements I have done have amounted to the difference between renting and paying the mortgage so I am not out of pocket in comparison plus the house has gone up in price by about 90k in 10 years. Even if it hadn't, I would still have equity in an asset to release on retirement or whenever. And if times got hard we could sell and release the equity and rent (if rents were low enough but tbh we would still need to live somewhere and cannot even rent a studio flat here cheaper than our mortgage for our house. I've looked).

To be fair though I have been looking at houses incase we need to upsize and someone buying now in my area would find prices much closer to renting.

I would recommend to buy, my parents always rented and now coming up to retirement and struggle I would say compared to people I know who are mortgage free. I plan to buy and not be having to struggle.