How do people afford to buy a house!

[Itonlymakesyoustronger]

Is it me or is buying a house a massive struggle!

Without boasting I have managed to save 45k, to some it may seem nothing but to me its a huggee amount. But after calculating mine and my husbands wage we could only buy a house for £290k, where we lived that wont even get you a decent 2 bedroom house! I don't know how people do it! when I search right move a two bed house is 320-370k.

How do you afford to buy a house, what jobs do you do?

Few people start out in an ideal position to get on the ladder. We didn't start in a blessed situation in 1987 when I bought my starter flat. But you leverage up via renovations and changing circumstances. I bought as a single female at 30, then met DH. You make good decisions that make money, and bad ones. I/We have made both. We've ridden out the bad decisions until the market turned, but I would be quick to acknowledge that we have been lucky.

Bought a really shitty flat in London for £90,000, spent 6 years doing it up then moved out to the Home Counties on the profit. Have a £200k + mortgage but the repayments are manageable for us on normal incomes.

We lived with our parents, so cheap rent until we bought.

Saved a 25% deposit

Bought a cheap repossession in the 08-09 financial crash.

Did it up, made a profit.
moved to a bigger house then did that up, made a profit then took advantage of the massive increase in house prices.

Sold that and bought a complete project near the top of our budget which we will still be paying back at 69 years old.
We will live in squalor for years while we do it up.

We have been very lucky as our wages aren't anything to write home about.

I feel really really sorry for anyone trying to get on the ladder now.

I really feel for anyone trying to buy at the moment. We bought a 3-bed semi new build in 2018 for 370k with a deposit of 55k which was mainly my savings (15 years worth) and a small inheritance as my mum died in 2010 at 56 of cancer. My husband paid the solicitor's fees and bought some furniture. Our house is probably worth 440k now due to location. I would have bought alone in 2006-ish on a great salary but was on contract work so no hope of a mortgage. I'm glad I waited. But if we'd bought when we started looking (2016) we would have saved about 50k, that's how fast prices went up. I think we got in just in time. We were tied to location due to specialist jobs and can't work from home.

No inheritance here either though dh owned a house when we met. Actually he was onto his second home.
In south east :
1998 bought house for 70k with 10k deposit he had saved. Sold for 95k
2001 bought house for 130k. I moved in, we sold in 2007 for 205k
2007 bought house for 246k. Sold in 2020 for 500k. At this stage mortgage was 100k.

We relocated to be nearer my family which just happened to be a less expensive area. We paid 300k for current house which is bigger and better than previous house. Bought this one outright and we are mortgage free. I'm 37 and dh 44. We are very lucky to be in this position. Only possible because we relocated and because our previous house increased way more than the national average over that time period (it was an expensive city).

All my siblings (5 of them) are homeowners and the youngest bought first home at 21. Where we live it's very doable to buy a house on pretty conservative salaries. I hope that my dc will have a chance of buying a home here in the future. Where we lived before it would be really really difficult.

Not only can I not afford to buy I can't afford to rent either. Rental properties are becoming impossible to get in my area and prices are rising massively. It's a huge worry.

We saved hard, but still had to borrow £24k from mine and DH’s parents towards our deposit. Will be paying this back but appreciate how fortunate we were that (after they retired) our DM’s could afford to help us a bit.

We also relied on 5% deposits coming back; we couldn’t have done it without that.

The major thing for us though was salary multiples. We’ve bought in a pricey part of the SE, so took our budget to the max to get a 3 bed terrace. DH is a lawyer, I work in financial services.

Unless you earn mega you have to consider the area you are looking to buy in and be realistic. If you can’t afford to buy but want to stay there that’s your choice. You could move to a cheaper area with your budget no problem.
We were fortunate to buy late 90’s and had a 98% mortgage or something. Did a lot of work and moved up the ladder.
Lived in shitty decor and worn out fixtures for years doing up each area ourselves. It wasn’t comfortable a lot of the time but now it’s a decent value.
So many younger couples I know want it all laid out for them ready to enjoy, nothing wrong with that but you pay through the nose for the beautiful interior and can’t add much cash value.

Moved up north. Started w a small flat.

@ilovebagpuss but i couldn't afford the cash to do up a property, but had the capacity to borrow lots as we are in our early 20s. we have an old 1930s flat but it was 'spruced up for sale' by a landlord- so had new carpets and fresh paint but fairly wonky electrics. We haven't done anything to it but will probably tidy up when we sell.

So when i look for properties, i look for those in a livable and acceptable condition so i know that I can live with it. my DMIL bought a doer upper, she is still living with it 30 years on as she can't afford to do it up and its not a very nice place to live in as a result even though it should be- its a lovely victorian terrace.

We bought our 3 bed semi for 250k five years ago when we had a combined income of just under 80k. We live in an expensive area so we had to compromise and move a mile further out, to a scruffier street, to afford it. Since we bought our joint salaries have increased by 20k and we have built up about 180k equity as our street became more desirable. We now love the scruffy street and so don't plan to move!

We moved back in with our parents for two years to help us save, and then bought a very dated terrace in a rough area. It was a horrible place to live but we sold it five years later to buy something a little bigger in a nicer area. Still not our ideal house though, by a long way.

I used to work as an estate agent and the number of first time buyers expecting to buy detached houses with garages and top of the range kitchens was laughable. Some people need to considerably lower their expectations.

Does "no inheritance in sight" mean no inheritance ever? DM died abut 7 yrs ago, leaving a bit more than I epected; nothing massive but just enough to buy a house in the cheapest area of an area that I wanted/needed to move back to.

Finally bought when I was 54 with a relatively small mortgage to pay until I'm 67.

5yrs later I'm still here, reduced payments now but still paying until I'm 67, pay it off or die.

Cup half-empty or cup half-full - I'm okay seeing as I've been an LP with a disabled dc for the past 20 yrs.

We bought the shiitiest mid terrace in an okish area. It needed tons of work

@TheHateIsNotGood

Does "no inheritance in sight" mean no inheritance ever? DM died abut 7 yrs ago, leaving a bit more than I epected; nothing massive but just enough to buy a house in the cheapest area of an area that I wanted/needed to move back to.

Finally bought when I was 54 with a relatively small mortgage to pay until I'm 67.

5yrs later I'm still here, reduced payments now but still paying until I'm 67, pay it off or die.

Cup half-empty or cup half-full - I'm okay seeing as I've been an LP with a disabled dc for the past 20 yrs.

It does for a lot of people. DP and I both have our DMs but no older relatives, grandparents, aunts, uncles etc so would only inherit from our DMs.

My DM is a healthy mid 60s widow who owns her house outright and might have a bit in savings, but this all comes to around £200k tops. But I have 2 siblings so her estate, if it doesn't go on care fees will be split 3 ways so at best will provide a deposit on a house, but would still need a mortgage on top.

DPs DM is also a healthy mid 60s widow with three 40 something DC (she's married again but likely to outlive her DH as he's older than her and in poor health) and she lives in a very cheap property that's probably worth around £100k tops and she spends money like water so when the time comes we have a mountain of worthless crap to sift through, there's certainly very little in assets.

But all being well, they'll both live for another 20 years or more, by which time all our DMs children will be at or near retirement age ourselves so if we were going to buy (DP and 1 and his siblings are homeowners, neither of mine are) we would have done it by now, otherwise it is probably too late.

It took me about 8 years of saving to get a deposit. My now husband also started saving once we got together for around 5 years. We initially bought a flat but when we wanted to buy a house we moved about an hour away where it was cheaper to live. We had no help from family and very average earners so it took a long time.

Buying a 'decent 2 bed house' isn't the first thing to aim for. Most of us had to start with a crappy one bed flat, I even rented out my living room. Then work up. That's why it's called the housing ladder.

@onlychildhamster no we didn’t either we had to live in it. For example it had a specially adapted bathroom but very old so we had to bath our first DD in the base of the shower unit for 3 years or the sink
I’ve only just had my lounge carpet re-done I think it was about 30 years old.
So many people would have wanted the new kitchen and new bathroom immediately.
Due to area and house prices it’s now about 200k more than when we bought. We probably paid out 30k slowly over 15 years to do it up.

@onlychildhamster also you aren’t wrong to want it a decent standard ours has been ok but it’s been hard living with the shit kitchen for 4 years for example. We could sell now and reap the rewards of that but it’s nice now and we have a 5 bed in a very expensive area we couldn’t afford if we came to buy now.

Bought a house that needed work and did it up as and when we could afford to
No help from anyone. We lived in a construction site. No heating, no proper kitchen. No evenings out. But it was well worth it

We Don't live in London/ south and we don't earn huge amounts and certainly didn't when we started out

I bought a flat (in a not great area) when 100% mortgagees were available - bought for 26k and sold for 50k 3 years later - this paid off my student loans and and saved the rest

Moved in with now DP - he bought a small 2 bed house (in a not great area) for 45k - we sold this 4 years later for 80k - this plus what was left of my flat money and after paying off all our uni debts meant we could buy a large 3 bed semi in nicer area for 140k and larger deposit gave us a smaller mortgage which meant I could work part time as we were pg with #2

Lived there way longer than anticipated as we had job crises plus waiting out housing crash 2008 - sold for 250k 5 years ago and used whole lot as deposit for current house which we bought for 380k - 5 bed period detached in same nice area and we are staying put. Probably worth 500k plus now

So we had the benefit of house price rises in the era we purchased and the availability of 100% mortgages and we had both bought separately and pooled deposits. Things which you can't really do now

I have older teens now and my advice to them is to live at home with us for as long as they can bear it and save save save a deposit to buy the smallest thing they can and then they should move up the ladder. It's bloody hard and I can see it's only getting harder

gettingolderbutcooler, the OP is in her 30s with a child. What use would a crappy 1 bed flat be for her. Also 1 bed flats are unlikely to go up in value atm. No one wants a leasehold. It won’t help them buy a reasonable house in the future.

@stairway a non leasehold in my area is £700k in a crappy street (or more likely 800k) or £1 million in a nice street. You can get share of freehold or garden flats however for cheaper than that. This isnt the most expensive area in London either. And there are many areas in the south that are just as expensive and not even in london..OP is struggling to get a 350k home and she isn't the only one.. my budget was far more than 350k but I didn't buy a house either. my next home wouldn't be a house either in all probability but a 3 bed flat.

You buy in a less desirable area or you buy somewhere that needs work and you spend years doing it up slowly.

I bought young, in a bad area, a flat and sacrificed a lot! No holidays etc.

I think to buy a 2 bed house as a FTB is amazing! It's baby steps to go up the ladder, well it was for me. We now have a 4 bed detached but there's been a journey to get there