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?

We didn't get any help from parents. We were 22 and had less than 10k for a deposit. We were lucky as we bought a 2 bed flat for 140k with a 95% mortgage in 2012. We sold almost 4 years later and our equity was 130k. We have been fairly lucky but even we can't afford a house yet and its because of the area we're in! Were still only 31 & happy with our maisonette for the time being. Every couple of years DH gets a promotion and he's gone from earning 35k, when we first bought our first flat, to know earning 80k. So we are closer to buying a house than we ever was. Its a lot harder now though.

It’s absolutely about area. Where we are, a three bed semi is around £240k. It’s so dependent on area - family member is currently looking in the Lancashire area where two beds start around £100k. x

@Allywill on that basis, i should be able to buy a 2 bed house for cash as my deposit on my london flat for 70k and I have since paid off 22k of the mortgage balance. (and also have savings). I could be mortgage free at 29!

I wonder why more londoners don't do it even as a BTL as most londoners would have savings of 25k even while renting. But my friend up north who lives in Ulverston where you can get such houses says that the only job options are BAE, the government or minimum wage. I must say that I don't really fancy earning minimum wage (even while mortgage free) and I don't think I could get a job with the government or BAE.

You need to compromise somewhere.
Is buying with elderly parents an option eg house and annex. Obviously needs financial and legal advice.
Buy a 1 bed and child in with you when little or sofa bed.
Conversation with parents - you are looking at moving away to x as you want to buy. They will need to pay for care. They pay prefer to gift you money now to enable you stay and provide care.
Look for jobs in cheaper area.

Have a look and see if any surrounding towns are cheaper without having to go too far from your parents. You can def get a (terraced) three bed house for 290 in my north herts town, but not in the next town over.

@FirewomanSam

A lot of the ‘buy a tiny fixer upper’ or ‘move somewhere cheaper’ advice is great if you’re very young but ignores the fact that a lot of people trying to get on the property ladder now are in their late 30s and 40s, often with kids and other commitments in the area we live in. We needed at least two bedrooms since we both WFH, and we are tied to an expensive area because of jobs and family so we couldn’t move, which is why Help to Buy was a godsend for us. Won’t be right for everyone but I’m so glad we did it.

I feel same about the trading up advice - we bought first in our 30s already had two children so flats or one or two beds weren't going to work.

Though we have moved around the UK for work. My siblings who haven't one been homeless and is now in a council rental property other privately rents as has two kids - and DP had another child so can't leave the area but can't afford to buy so have to privately rent they're coming up to their 40s and starting to worry.

Area is everything. My house was valued at £65k earlier this year. It has 3 bedrooms and a small yard. I'm now the sole buyer as a single mum. The downside is there are few very high paying jobs here. Most "average" people work in factories, shops, cleaning etc or industrial type jobs. The kind of incomes I've seen on here (not specifically this thread) are the exception not the norm, other than possibly my GP I don't know anyone on that sort of money.

We needed at least two bedrooms since we both WFH

Well it depends on what you both do and how many screens etc you need - and if you make lots of confidential or noisy calls. There is likely to be a co-working hub near you that you could use if you didn't have the space to work at home. People still equate working remotely with being in a bedroom and that's not the case when you're not locked down in the middle of a covid pandemic. I could work at my local council office if I wanted to - £10 a day - and about 10 minutes walk away. They have a business centre. Much cheaper than paying for an extra bedroom!

@Itonlymakesyoustronger

No inheritance in sight or support from any family or friends. It is just me and my husband. We both also work full time and are graduates! Maybe I need a change of career.

Its upsetting because I like to do everything by the books, but my goodness its exhausting and expensive! Its also looking very unlikely!

Yup. You will have to either change career, move to a much cheaper area, or buy a bedsit (or win the lottery). It's depressing :(

I bought 40% of a tiny 2 bedroom shared ownership house for £50K in 2015 and sold it 5 years later for £80K plus what I'd paid off the mortgage gave me £40K-ish as the deposit on my current 3 bedroom house

We also moved out of the main city towards one of the towns in our county where property is cheaper. Our 3 bed was £193K last year. We're not on a high income (approx £36K combined) but property isn't crazy expensive here. I could never have afforded to buy somewhere like London, we're in the East Midlands

No inheritance or big salaries, we bought a very small 1 bed flat, sold 5yrs later and bought 2 bed house sold another 5yrs later and bought 3 bed house, been here for 5yrs and have just extended it into a 4 bed that we could never have afforded to buy in this area. No special circumstances just worked our way up using equity in the previous house, oh and we've been together over 15yrs, I imagine it is impossible for people on their own or with one average salary.

When we got buy, we worked out we could buy a smallish flat in the city we were living in, or the cheapest 2 bed house in a town that we thought might go up in value. We opted for the house, moving a fair distance away, and it was quite literally the cheapest two bed. We put any spare money we got into the mortgage to maximise equity. We got lucky. House prices increased quite a bit there, and DH had a good salary increase in the five years we were there. Combined, this enabled us to step up and buy a more suitable house for the long term. So for us, it was:

• moving areas
• managing expectations
• looking at trends
• continuing to save hard
• getting lucky

It has always been a struggle. I bought my first flat in 1987 having saved a 5% deposit plus stamp duty. I slept on the floor for the first six weeks.
I Bought a fridge in month 1, a bed in month2, saved and replaced the kitchen in month 6, but it was a B&Q diy job. I fitted & redecorated the whole flat myself. The best moment was getting a washing machine on the 1st anniversary.

You could buy a very nice house for that in many parts of the UK.

A very high salary is meaningless when you have to pay it all on a mortgage.

Hampshire, bought house for about £280,000 nearly 5 years ago. Partner is in the forces and I work as a nurse in the NHS. Incomes were around £26,000 and £34,000 respectively when we bought and we used all the help to buy options available to us.

Now in a position where we will remortgage and borrow the government HTB money to pay that off by adding it to the mortgage, however we bought a 4 bed house which we could 'grow into', don't anticipate moving for a very long time, and are you enough (28 and 31) where we can remortgage again for another 35 years to continue to make the repayments affordable.

In short, we afforded it by moving away from 'home' and researching all the government options available to us to get us on the property ladder.

@Itonlymakesyoustronger
Bought a 2-bed garden flat in Ealing 4 years ago (single) as that was all I could afford - at the time earned c£70k pa +bonuses (finance). Got a mortgage at 4.5x salary and used savings to top up the rest.

No family support- my mum rents!

DH was gifted his flat from parents (no mortgage) in east London. He's an average earning civil servant.

We're selling both in order to fund our family home also in east (with a good safety net of savings post purchase of c.£40k) and combined income c.140k.

Its not easy doing it without family help. I'm the only one of my friends that bought with no family help and I'm also one of the highest earners. Good luck it is possible but as a few people have said you might need to buy in a different area to where you live.

Work harder! like we did in the olden days when you only got a lump of coal for christmas

We saved up 35k. Bought a flat for 265k with a 10% deposit which was a hole (dodgy part of South East London). Spent four years doing it up and sold it for 315k, which gave us 90k deposit for our next house (Surrey) which was 475k, so a 20% deposit. We've got one move left in us, which will involve borrowing the maximum we're allowed on our salaries (450k) and a 150k deposit (based on the equity in our current place plus some further savings) so we'll be in a 600k place as our final home. So from a 265k place to 600k place by climbing the ladder over 7 years. It's tough, but doable.

It always feels way off until you do it, then it always seemed possible. You have to compromise for your first house to buy within budget. We relocated 10 miles away, got a lot for our money, then sold it two years later for a 35k profit. Could never have saved that amount in that time.

Also how have you worked out what you can borrow? Did you see a financial advisor? I hope so as they will calculate what you can borrow based on affordability and you might find it's higher than you think.

We also bought a help to buy house, this gave us an additional 20% contribution from the government so we had preferential interest rates on top of that and had really affordable payments. To get to the next step we are going to overpay every month.

I'd imagine much easier when in a couple though for some couples, home ownership is still out of reach.

Following my divorce, I moved in with a family friend and lived rent free for a year. I managed to save 20k which combined with my 26k job at the time enabled me to get on to a shared ownership scheme and buy a one bedroom flat (aged 37) in the SE.

DH and I both brought before we had DC (before we met each other actually) and both had small 1 bed flats. Those went up in value, so we had equity to buy a bigger place together. I do think it's a lot harder now (though we are only mid/late 30's) but I also think people want to jump on the ladder halfway up, which is always going to be harder. Unfortunately I do think most people (who don't have external help) do have to start at the bottom.

We bought a house that needed a lot of work and slowly over the past 7 years have been doing the place up, mostly ourselves or with the help of friends and family. Could never have afforded to live in this S.London neighborhood otherwise. At times I have been sick and tired of the place being a constant building site and all our money going on renovating the house, but starting to see the wood from the trees now.

House prices in this area have gone up so much while we've lived here that we wouldn't be able to afford anything here now.

Being 46 and buying my first house at 23. Each house therein doubled in value until 2006 when it stopped going up so much. Gave us a very lucky foothold. I really feel for people starting out now, I got my first mortgage with a cash back deal that allowed me to put down a tiny deposit - not possible now but the only way I could do it.

Climbing the ladder for us.

First flat was in a dodgy area near where we wanted to be. £117000

Bought a house for 178000 (had 2 babies)

We didn't make much on either of those but increased wages and savings allowed us to buy a small house in the area we wanted for £1980000

Rising market allowed us to sell the small house we had put a new kitchen and bathroom in for £260000

Bought an ugly ex rental across the street for £278000

Sold that entirely because of a crazy market and desireable location for 437000

So, in our case buying in a gritty area allowed us to gradually move up to where we wanted to be. It's tough to get going though so I feel for people who are now trying to balance their commuting needs with homeownership.

@EileenGC

Everyone I know my age (20s) that has recently bought property had inheritances + at least 1 very well-paid job (80k and above). And they still had to compromise on location and/or size of the house.

Cousin in his 30s, works in finance in Canary Wharf and wife works in management. They tried to buy in London for a few years but it was impossible to save up a big enough deposit, no inheritances now or in the future. They finally bought a small house on the outskirts of Watford, and that was eye-waveringly expensive already.

See this I don't get and when I have heard similar comments, it's the expectation which comes with it which make it 'impossible'.

For reference, I am in pretty similar situation. Late 20's work at Canary Wharf, work in finance but single so saving on my own and renting while saving. I have just bought a 1 bed flat in zone 2, myself and 0 financial help from family/inheritance.

Could I afford a house? Absolutely not. But if i moved further out I could absolutely get a 2 bed flat.

And I am aware at just how lucky I am to have a job which pays well, although not in the ridiculous finance realms. It is harder without help which the vast majority of people seem to have, and my higher salary doesn't answer the overall inequality of the system. But the attitude and expectation does seem to feature often enough.