AIBU-Sick of the narrative that young people can’t buy homes?

[Henryhoover12]

I had a heated discussion with some friends who said it’s “impossible for young people to get on the property ladder these days”.If they do their parents either lent them the money, gifted them the money or they lived at home rent free to save up. It’s not just my friends a lot of people of this age go on about it.

As a young person myself I’m bloody sick of this narrative, anything can be done if your willing to make sacrifices and prioritise for your goals which most young people aren’t. I purchased my own 4 bedroom home at 22 (few months ago) WITHOUT any help from family and whilst paying rent on a flat WITHOUT help from my family to pay for.

I called out all my friends who are blaming how it’s going on their ability to stop online shopping for new outfits every event, going out for cocktails, getting hair/nails/tan done weekly, Taking flashy cars out on finance, etc. that if they stopped then they to could buy but I got told I was being extremely unreasonable and that it’s impossible, well is it or do they not just like to hear the truth.

@gabsdot45 I totally agree! When I used to rent my rent was more then my mortgage and that’s what made me make sacrifices to ensure I wasn’t doing that anymore.

@monkeysmum21 thank you! My friend funds Zara through all her spending then wonders how she can’t afford to buy a house. Would I not love to drive around in a flashy Audi and the latest trainers. Yes! But could I … no. So I prioritised

OP I think that what you have done is very admirable but agree with posters that it really does depend where you are buying. A 4 bed here would be 600k which I can't afford I my 40s! However, also inspired by a thread I read earlier, I remember saving for a house years ago and having absolutely no disposable income. I couldn't afford a haircut let along manicures, car on finance etc. I didn't feel hard done by as all of my friends were in the same boat. I think there has been a massive shift in what essential and luxury means now. It must be partly down to social media I guess. But a few decades ago you just wouldn't even consider that you needed a regular manicure if you were a student for example. I miss those days. Everyone expects so much now.

@FTEngineerM

Wouldn’t we all want to live in the Center of London

Umm.. fuck no

Can’t imagine anything worse tbh, I live on the outskirts of a Midlands City as it is (so I’m close to Uni) and it’s bad enough here let alone there,

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailypost.co.uk/business/business-news/workers-north-wales-county-third-13883114.amp

So, say you live in parts of North Wales and want a £200k house. The average wage mentioned here is £21k before tax. Max borrowing of £100k. That's a mighty big deposit to save without help and while renting.

Guess one can just stop eating avocados and buying Starbucks tho.

I don't know if anyone else reads things like Refinery's or the Independent's "money diaries", or Metro's "how I save", or "What I rent"- I'm a nosy cow so I love them . But a lot of them do prove OPs point, in that the person being interviewed says "Oh I would never be able to afford to buy" and then lists off a huge list of entirely non essential luxury expenditure costing several hundred a month.

Obviously if the person is a social worker in tower hamlets they probably won't be able to buy, no matter how many Starbucks they don't buy, and that is truly shit as they are doing a necessary, worthwhile and underpaid job. But often the person has an average or even highly paid job in a not particularly expensive location, but still thinks owning is completely out of reach, while getting 3 takeaways a week and booking their 5th trip abroad (pre covid obviously!). There's loads that are like "Can't be bothered to wait ten minutes for the bus so get a Uber home, £12" multiple times a week, which just makes me laugh!

Aren’t you a little superhero. Thank god we have you to put the rest of us in our place.

Not everyone is in the same situation as you, it’s a shame you can’t recognise this. Your friends don’t have the exact same life as you, they are entitled to enjoy their younger years and not just work and save for security. Life is for living.

Oh, and my Grandparents bought their first home outright aged 16 and 18, so why didn’t you do that OP?

Basically you just got lucky with the area you live in and had a partner to help you save the deposit and get the mortgage.

That’s a bit different to what your trying to portray isn’t it.

(Be careful, your only 22, your a baby, so much time for things to go wrong and for you to turn around and find your worse off than before and all your hard work has fallen down the drain. Just saying, it happens)

How much did your four bed home cost ?

I’ll bite.

DS2 and DDIL bought a house when they were 23 &24. They’re both nurses. It’s a 3 bed detached and cost £270k. They were incredibly fortunate in the fact that DDIL’s parents allowed them to live with them rent and bill free from the day they graduated, hence they saved a hell of a lot of money. We saved money from the get go for our children so we gave DS2 that, too. They are both fully aware that if they’d had to rent a house they would never have been able to buy a house when they did, never mind the size and price it was.

Me and DH are in the process of relocating. Where we’re moving to a 4 bedroom house is far less, almost half, of what a 2 bedroom house costs here. Not everything or everywhere is the same. In some places you can buy a house for under £50k, in other places that wouldn’t buy you a path.

Crowing like you are makes you sound a bit think tbh.

I cant tag whoever said this but “ Disclaimer: this of course only applies to people who do actually have enough money to save, but choose to spend it instead and then moan that they can't afford to save, can't afford a pension etc” this is pretty much what I wanted to say but perhaps I didn’t word it correctly. My issue is with young people who have every opportunity to buy a house as long as they just prioritise it but splash their money and then moan.

You are generalising though. Obviously if your friend has the same income as you, and the same essential outgoings, and you’ve been able to buy a house, she could have as well. But your OP was that the whole idea that it’s hard for young people to buy a house is wrong which I’m not sure is true.

Of course there’ll be people who spend rather than save for a house - I know someone who spent £30k on her wedding then complained she couldn’t buy a house. Nothing wrong with spending £30k on a wedding if that’s what you want, but don’t then complain you don’t have a house deposit.
But I wouldn’t use her example to generalise to all young people as a whole. And certainly your comment “anything can be done if your willing to make sacrifices and prioritise for your goals” isn’t true. Plenty of people scrape by, don’t buy clothes, or go out for cocktails and still cannot save.

3 years at uni and went travelling.

Really?

But you had a partner so that’s the big difference!!

No matter how hard you worked, no matter how much you tried to save, if you wasn’t with your husband and was a single person you would not have been able to buy that 4 bedroom house on your own. Period.

YOU GOT LUCKY! That’s all.
Cheap area and found your partner early in life, nothing to do with hard work.

You seem not to be able to accept that you bought in an area where housing is still cheap and where rents are also not astronomical. It's simply not like that for the majority of people in the UK and persisting in saying that it is makes you come across as pretty damn tone deaf.

WIth a £200k house you are probably also in a pretty well paid job - why are you being so coy about what you are earning? - and someone has to do the low paid work!

[quote Henryhoover12]@Broads93 oh bless you, must of forgotten to read my comments where I said I didn’t grow up in a life of luxury and that’s why I worked hard to get out of it. I haven’t been handed a penny from my parents and you know what I never expected it because they owed me nothing! They taught me the most valuable lesson that if I want anything in life I have to work for it and so I did[/quote]
Oh no, I didn't miss it. I just have an intolerance for bullshit and of course pissing contests, which you have inadvertently started here for some strange reason.
Your story doesn't add up, just saying what everyone else is thinking 🙂

I just think young people want everything handed to them. I saw it even in university the level of entitlement “oh my parents need to pay for this”. But why? Your parents aren’t the ones who chose to come to uni or benefit from the degree. Going to uni is a luxury so why should your parents foot the bill. “Oh our grandparents had it so much easier” yes they did but guess what complaining won’t make it better. Work hard and you’ll get there.

It is possible to buy young just not in London and SE

north of glasgow 2 bed terrace under 100k in loads of places under an hours commute to glasgow 40-45 minutes on train
a friend who is a dental nurse and her DP a fork lift truck driver have just bought saved up 12k bought at 85K 10% deposit and used the other 3.5K to buy furniture carpets and decorate and re tile bathroom themselves it now looks lovely they have a DD aged 6, in my village a 2 bed next to school is about 95K and 3 bed 110-125K, 250K will get 3 bed detached victorian house
when a 10 % deposit is about 10-15K not going out much and not buying flash cars and clothes will enable you to save this over a few years even on below average wages

according to BBC calculator www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033
if you have a 15,000 deposit and can afford £625 a month repayment ( 25 years for 115,000) you can buy a 2 bedroom property in 47% of the UK and 3 bedrooms in 28%, there really are jobs north of Birmingham

I’m torn between…

“Did ye, aye”

And

“Are you an accountant?”

@Henryhoover12

I just think young people want everything handed to them. I saw it even in university the level of entitlement “oh my parents need to pay for this”. But why? Your parents aren’t the ones who chose to come to uni or benefit from the degree. Going to uni is a luxury so why should your parents foot the bill. “Oh our grandparents had it so much easier” yes they did but guess what complaining won’t make it better. Work hard and you’ll get there.

There aren't enough bowls in the world to deal with how vomit inducing this comment is. Sanctimonious and self-righteous much?

I purchased my own 4 bedroom home at 22 (few months ago) WITHOUT any help from family and whilst paying rent on a flat WITHOUT help from my family to pay for.

Course you did 🤣 what did your friends say when you pointed this out to them?

OP you say you saved for 7 years but out of curiosity did you husband also contribute half of the deposit and does your friend have a partner/husband or is she single?

@Henryhoover12

I just think young people want everything handed to them. I saw it even in university the level of entitlement “oh my parents need to pay for this”. But why? Your parents aren’t the ones who chose to come to uni or benefit from the degree. Going to uni is a luxury so why should your parents foot the bill. “Oh our grandparents had it so much easier” yes they did but guess what complaining won’t make it better. Work hard and you’ll get there.

No, just your partner

Chinny reckon

(Be careful, your only 22, your a baby, so much time for things to go wrong and for you to turn around and find your worse off than before and all your hard work has fallen down the drain. Just saying, it happens)

THIS 100%

If you've bought with another person even more so.

I bought my own flat at 21, with a small inheritance, additional savings of my own, and I was only be able to do it because of the financial crash in 2008. I'm under no illusions that I was any better or harder working than any of my peers. I worked hard- so did they. It was a very specific circumstance that made me fortunate enough to buy- for one, I had been working and was also lucky that I didn't lose my job unlike so many others at that time. I find the OP's gloating really tasteless tbh, to not consider how she may have been more fortunate. She says about not having help- fair enough- but I think she's fortunate if she's managed to have secure employment. So many haven't.

But anyway- I sold that to be with my husband and years down the line- guess what- he turned out to be an abusive shit and all the equity from our house is sat in a solicitors account and the matter remains unresolved, and I'm mentally drained from it. And even if I get what I'm entitled to, houses here are so expensive that I don't know how I'd manage to buy what I need for myself and my two children.

Go careful being smug OP, you never know what the future brings.