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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

How do people afford to buy a house!

407 replies

Itonlymakesyoustronger · 20/10/2021 15:42

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?

OP posts:
userisi2 · 30/12/2021 21:03

@Hothammock that's a bit of a generalisation, we lived in a very average priced area but managed to buy a house for our first home, no help, below average salaries at the time (and had kids- gasp!). I know some people's views are very skewed by the SE but there are a lot of areas in the UK where houses are affordable, not all are SE or "cheap" areas.

Sinthie · 30/12/2021 21:09

But a house in Bradford.

BigYellowHat · 30/12/2021 21:18

We bought a cheap house in the roughest area of our city. We then overpaid massively for 3.5 years and have now moved to a cheaper city, to one of the really nice areas in a bigger house. Luckily, our first house was in an area popular with first time buyers (possibly doing the same as us!)

Hothammock · 30/12/2021 21:38

@userisi2 well to be fair you are describing a cheaper area. Cheap doesn't mean less nice! In fact cheaper can mean nicer in terms of quieter and less pressured and more space!

userisi2 · 30/12/2021 21:42

@Hothammock I know you didn't mean not a nice area, but my point is it's not SE and cheap. Our are is cheaper than the SE maybe but it's average overall, it's not as cheap as the NE for example. Not everyone lives in the SE and not everything outside the SE is cheap.

Said cheap way too many times there Grin

addictedtotheflats · 30/12/2021 21:43

We earn a modest joint income of 65K, live in yorkshire, loaned a 10K deposit by my Mum and bought a 2 bed terrace 6 years ago for 105K. House is now worth 150K so still affordable. Ill pay back my mum next year when I sell and release equity.

notacooldad · 30/12/2021 21:44

I guess it depends on where you live.
My son and his gf bought a house on mortgage at the age of 24 and 22 respectively.
The house was £250k
They saved 50k and the mortgage is over 35 years but they have set up a separate direct debit for an extra 10% over payment.
My second son is 22 and about to do the same. A mortgage in principle has been agreed a few weeks ago so he is looking.

123sunny456 · 30/12/2021 21:51

Unfortunately you need to lower your expectations. We live in the south and bought our first home on one wage, a three bedroom doer upper terrace with no drive for £150k. We sold that ten years later at a profit and bought a three bedroom semi with drive for £340k, which we are currently renovating, 3 years later it is now worth half a million.

mumofEandE · 30/12/2021 21:57

I think it is possible / doable if a lot of factors align:
Buy with a partner
Choose house or big wedding or TTC
Have a job where it is possible to do overtime
Think about what job you will end up doing when you are thinking of a uni degree course

My DS and his g/f got a mortgage - they were both 21 (2 years ago) in the SE - area commutable to London without sacrificing holidays etc

JohnHuffam1812 · 30/12/2021 21:57

" they saved 50k" at 22 and 24 ?

What bits of information are you leaving out ?

As with a lot of these things it will be "lived at home rent and bills free for a number of years".

MrsJBaptiste · 30/12/2021 21:59

We're one of those couples who bought in the late 90's - £35,000 for a 3 bed semi that needed work doing. 20 years later, we're still here but the house is worth £250,000 now (Yorkshire)

It's all relative though as if we want to move, we'll need another £100,000 to get anything bigger that makes the move worthwhile. I've no idea how my kids will buy their first property although (sadly) I'm sure they will receive some inheritence before the time comes.

TangfasticsAreFantastic · 30/12/2021 22:00

We bought purely because of our age. First property I bought was in 1997 and was a 2 bed flats that cost £69,000. In 2002 I bought another flat in a London suburb for £117,000 that is now worth around £300k. The house I'm in now cost £430k in 2012 that's now worth about £700k.

I feel for people trying to buy now. Wages have certainly not kept pace with the property increases.

PurpleFlower1983 · 30/12/2021 22:07

We have three properties but we live in Yorkshire. I bought the house we live in as a fixer upper for 100k. It’s worth around £250k now.

UndertheCedartree · 30/12/2021 22:13

45k may seem like nothing? Wow!

I moved to a cheaper area so I could buy my 2 bed house. You have to lower your expectations. A lot of people would think it is not big enough for a family home but it is ours and I know how extremely fortunate I am to be in this position.

IncorrigibleTitmouse · 30/12/2021 22:15

We moved to the cheaper suburbs of an expensive city and both commute in so still get the higher salary/job opportunities available in the city. DH's commute is 45 minutes and mine is about an hour and 20.

We saved and put down a 10% deposit and got a 90% mortgage on a 300K house.

ChocolateRiver · 30/12/2021 22:18

Dh and I bought our first house in a cheaper area and got in the ladder that way. We’ve since moved to the area we really want to be in. I think you either need to live somewhere less desirable for a couple of years or live somewhere much smaller than you would like. I don’t know anyone irl who bought their ‘forever’ home as their first home. Pretty much everyone I know made comprises to get started.

NoNotMeNoSiree · 30/12/2021 22:39

You live in an expensive area, which explains it.
This.
290k would buy you a lovely big house with gardens around here!

S0upertrooper · 30/12/2021 22:56

@DelurkingAJ in the late 90s mortgage interest rates were around 15% and a high number of people were putting their keys through the doors of banks and building societies because they couldn't afford their mortgage payments. We sold our home with negative equity and rented a much smaller flat because we saw it coming and we were both on decent salaries. Don't believe the myth that house buying and ownership was easy in the 90s.

JohnHuffam1812 · 30/12/2021 23:19

Mortgage rates weren't 15 percent in the late 90s. Throughout the late 90s the average mortgage rate was between 4 and 6 percent ( using data from the building societies association).

Even on those higher interest rate the principle was a lot lower so mortgages were more affordable.

People may be remembering the interest rate being 15 percent for a short period in 1990 and 91.

And of course the average residence price ( including flats) at this time was 57,726 with of course as today London pulling up the average.

Today it's 234 947.

crossstitchingnana · 30/12/2021 23:24

Was lucky, bought first two bed house late 90s for 75k. Now worth 460k. Our endowment (remember those) was fixed at 7%, paid about £520 a month.

MintJulia · 30/12/2021 23:39

Start by buying a very small place, somewhere scruffy that I could do up gradually, sell for a profit, then moved when I'd had a pay rise.

Not having a social life while I was doing up scruffy house, and no holidays. Grim but doable in the short term - 2 years.

Torina · 30/12/2021 23:44

Neither my husband nor I will inherit anything at all. He has a chronic illness and doesn't work, and I earn less than 40,000 a year. We will never, ever get on the property ladder.

Torina · 30/12/2021 23:46

(And to me, 45k is beyond my wildest dreams - our savings consist of around 5 grand. Sometimes it's more, but inevitably the car is written off or something happens and the pot is depleted again)

HoneyFlowers · 30/12/2021 23:50

We live in a very small flat for a decade, very small mortgage of about £375 a month and saved about £70k. Moved to a detached house which seemed a fortune at the time, but these days seems like pennies compared to what's out there. I don't know how it's possible these days. 😥

Payitforward55 · 30/12/2021 23:52

@EurghCobwebs

Bought a flat (£250k) after saving up a deposit. Renovated it. Sold it 6 years later for £100k profit. During this period our joint earnings increased. So we had larger borrowing power and decent equity for the next place we bought.

Unfortunately you sometimes have to start from the bottom and work your way up.

We had no inheritance. Please don't believe that that is one of the only ways people get onto the property ladder. A lot of people like me from working class backgrounds have had to graft and I find it insulting when people think it's the only way onto the property ladder for younger people.

Agree, I don't know anyone who inherited. Most of my friends bought as early as possible and grafted like f#@Itonlymakesyoustrongerheir parents are still alive who are these people inheriting from? But I don't live in England inheritance seems to be more an English thing.