To think we will never be homeowners?

[GroundToAHalterNeck]

House prices are completely out of my reach now. DH and I are low earners due to life circumstances, no family support and a SN child requiring high levels of care.

We currently rent our home. I’ve been looking at options to buy but even the cheapest home in the cheapest areas would require a substantial deposit. Help To Buy and other government schemes also require a huge deposit we are unlikely to ever be able to save whilst paying rent too.

I met a friend for coffee this morning and she was explaining how they’re planning to upsize and how she will make a huge profit on their current home. It made me wonder how on earth first time buyers with no financial help would get on the property ladder in current times?

Is anyone else in the same position?

[quote Tealightsandd]@ComtesseDeSpair

There is evidently plenty of land available for the many expensive luxury homes being built. Including the unaffordable for many Help To Buy.

As for cost. Like I say, it's an upfront expenditure but long term saves the taxpayer many many billions. The direct and indirect impact of the public health housing and homelessness emergency costs billions every year.[/quote]
I worked in development finance in some of the UK’s largest housing association for years. The problem is that social rents are too low to provide a sustainable business model for obtaining lending in parts of the country where land is expensive. Over 25 years, a standard term for a commercial development loan, the average unit in a London borough will generate less than half in rental income what it costs to develop the unit in the first place, which is why social units are cross-subsidised with shared ownership and outright sale properties.

I don’t think relaxing the mortgage rules will help - it will only drive prices higher. Where I live rent is astronomical in comparison with a mortgage. Truly astronomical.

in the UK renting is so weighted in favour of landlords the poor tenant never really has security of tenure. Fine if you're a student or a young single person who has just left home and is likely to be on the move again, but not if it's your family home and you can be turfed out at the drop of a hat if the landlord decides to sell or move back in. We need proper social housing for long-term renters then renting really wouldn't be the end of the world. To the OP (and others wondering how they can buy) I would say you need to look at what you can afford and what compromises you are prepared to make. You quite possibly won't be able to afford a house of the same standard and size or in as a nice an area as the one which you are renting, but if you want to buy you have to bite that bullet.

Totally agree

@Mountaingoat12

I don’t think relaxing the mortgage rules will help - it will only drive prices higher. Where I live rent is astronomical in comparison with a mortgage. Truly astronomical.

That's the point. Many people including some on this thread are paying far higher monthly rents than they would in mortgage payments. Yet they are turned away by mortgage lenders because of too overly conservative minimum income requirements.

The house prices are already being inflated. By Help To Buy (not genuinely affordable for many) and a growing need for housing. Relaxing the minimum income requirements a bit would help a lot of would be FTB currently stuck in the high rent trap. It could, perhaps be a scheme only for FTB, if there's concern over inflating prices.

Plus, this change needs to happen in conjunction with more social housing, because some people will never be able to afford to buy - but do still need and deserve a secure home. Those too disabled to work, families with caring responsibilities like a disabled dc, and people doing the low paid but very essential jobs.

@ComtesseDeSpair

The problem is that “we need far more social housing” is a pretty nebulous phrase. Firstly, Britain’s last home building boom, the heyday of social housing, took advantage of physical conditions which we can’t replicate. Land was cheaper and more available: in cities housing was built on wasteland formerly taken up by buildings which had been bombed out in WW2, on land vacated as Britain deindustrialised and factories closed, on the sites of the dilapidated tenements which were cleared. Secondly, from a societal point of view, we’ve since learned that building designated estates where we house the least advantaged people doesn’t work and leads to ghettoisation and poor outcomes for the majority. So our building problem is further hampered, because when you suggest building mixed tenure developments, or on smaller areas of brownfield in residential areas, the planning objections go through the roof because whilst people say “just build social housing” they all too often also say “but not near where I live.”

Housing associations took over the provision of social housing from councils because they have the ability and capacity to borrow money and build in a way that councils don’t: they aren’t a “middle man”, they’re fulfilling a purpose councils are unable to.

Putting people up in temporary emergency accomodation which often isn't fit for purpose, doesn't work either though.

You can say all these things but ultimately all these people need to go somewhere.

Yet we've got a bunch of 2nd home owners and foreign investors who buy up ruddy great tower blocks and just hold on to them. We've got supermarkets and builders who buy up land and put them into landbanks so they can push up prices / prevent others from building on the land.

For every, 'but we can't do this because', theres a bunch of rich people and organisations putting up barriers for their own person gain.

NIMBYism drives me mental. There was land near us that was supposed to be for the use of the poor of the parish and there was a covent that when the existing building was wound up, that it should be used for it. The original proposal was for 24 hours but the local parish council objected on the grounds that it would make the road too busy. Guess where one of them lived? Guess what they built in the end. Six £1.2million houses. I know the ins and outs of the story and could say there was a whole lot more that was dodgy about the whole deal. It was the thing that utterly made me think that the system is rotten to the core. Gross things, these new houses are too. Ignored tree protection orders and nothing was ever done. They say they want more affordable housing, yet the schemes the council have opposed most have been ones with more houses on.

Not forgetting the minor point of how you've got so many older couples or singletons living in massive detacted 4 or 5 bed properties whilst their kids are living in a 2 bed flat with 3 kids cos thats all they can afford. We have huge amounts of under occupation AND over occupation.

Its fucked up.

Good post by RedToothBrush

In your situation it is incredibly difficult and many people don't. In my situation we lived with the inlaws for 4 years in a joint family set up, dh paid the mortgage, bil bills and the cost of food was shared. At the time I earned £3500 after tax and would put £2500 in my savings account as soon as I got paid. I didn't drive but would car share with dh so I gave him some money towards the car. I saved enough for a 20% deposit and enough money to furnish the house. We lived frugally, didn't go abroad, holidays were weekends away in the UK, I made do and didn't buy expensive clothes. It is further out then I would like but dh wanted to be within a 10 minute drive of his parents. Dh would never have been able to afford to save a deposit whilst he was paying the mortgage at his parents home but thankfully when working full time I could. We were very lucky to have been able to have lived there as had we been renting it would have taken longer for me to get the deposit together. My in laws will not be giving dh any kind of inheritance but this was there way of helping us.

My income is a third of what it was previously and we have 3 kids so I would definitely not have been able to save for a substantial deposit now. My other half has had 3 promotions since then and earns a lot more than he did but it still would be a squeeze. We did also delay having children but I was extra motivated as living with dh's brother and wife too as well as my parents in law was hellish.

Not forgetting the minor point of how you've got so many older couples or singletons living in massive detacted 4 or 5 bed properties whilst their kids are living in a 2 bed flat with 3 kids cos thats all they can afford. We have huge amounts of under occupation AND over occupation

Here we go, I wondered how long it would take. The people who had 3 kids should have thought how they were going to house them, don’t have kids you can’t afford and expect people who have worked and paid for their massive homes to step aside to subsidise your life choices.

@Fleurty

“It takes a special kind of ignorance to insult people for being something you will one day become.”

Actually, no, I will never become (a) sanctimonious or (b) bad at maths.

@AmberLynn1536

Not forgetting the minor point of how you've got so many older couples or singletons living in massive detacted 4 or 5 bed properties whilst their kids are living in a 2 bed flat with 3 kids cos thats all they can afford. We have huge amounts of under occupation AND over occupation

Here we go, I wondered how long it would take. The people who had 3 kids should have thought how they were going to house them, don’t have kids you can’t afford and expect people who have worked and paid for their massive homes to step aside to subsidise your life choices.

They didn’t have to work that hard for it or pay that much for it though, did they?

There’s no way I would live in a massive house and watch my children and grandchildren struggling in a flat. I can’t get my head around people who do.

I worked in development finance in some of the UK’s largest housing association for years. The problem is that social rents are too low to provide a sustainable business model for obtaining lending in parts of the country where land is expensive.

That's where taxpayer funding needs to come in. Far better to go on genuinely affordable secure socially rented homes than the alternative.

Huge amounts of taxpayer money has been and continues to be spent (or lost depending on the scheme) on Right to Buy, Help To Buy, housing the growing number of homeless families and vulnerable individuals in expensive temporary accommodation, and housing benefits for high private rents.

Billions more goes on the indirect consequences.

The public health housing and homelessness emergency impacts heavily on the NHS (including mental health care), social services, the criminal justice system, and more.

Wrt the issue of downsizing for smaller households. There is, in many areas, a shortage of 1 and 2 bedrooms homes - and particularly of assessible homes for people (of all ages including children) with mobility issues.

They didn’t have to work that hard for it or pay that much for it though, did they?

Oh my bad, I must have imagined working full time since the age of 16 and barely managing to make my mortgage payments on my first home plus the crippling negative equity I suffered, yeah it was so easy a right breeze.

@RedToothBrush I myself am looking at buying a 3 bed flat cos I want to stay in zone 3 london. we bought a 2 bed flat in 2019, my MIL and her husband bought a 1 bed flat in 1989 as a first home so we are quite similar. Similar area of north london. What is different however is that the 3/4 bed houses are now £1 million due to it being attractive to richer couples with inheritance; the flats thankfully are less attractive (but are still expensive for the larger ones as they are attractive to downsizers). What I am saying is that many of our local areas have now gentrified beyond recognition so its not even the same area our parents and in-laws bought in. So therefore adjustments have to be made if you want to stay in it.

the housing crisis is nothing compared to the future pensions and social care crisis. the welfare state and the relative post war prosperity were blips, for most of human history, life was extremely unequal. 70% of the population rented pre war . when i visited the museum of the home, i read the history and it was located in an ex poor house where old people with nowhere to go lived communally I believe we will see a return to that- old age HMOs run by big corporations rather than mom and pop landlords. That or retire to Thailand. Which is why moving to dubai as an expat is relatively tame in comparison..

5% deposit mortgages are back in the market if that helps?

It is a complete mess.

We bought our house 20 years ago and it was 4 x our joint income.

Next door has just sold for what is 8 x our current joint income.

Even though our joint income has doubled, there is no way we could have afforded our house nowadays.

I have no idea how on earth our neighbours could afford it.

@Fr0thandBubble it actually makes the housing market harder for those who didn't have family help... If it was just based on income, that would make it easier. DH and I are the only people we know we bought london property in the last few years without actual cash from parents and we lived with his mum for 3 years (so its still help). Just that it wasn't 100k as 3 years of rent does not amount to that. Most of the people i know who bought lived rent free AND had a cash handout! 49% of FTB have help from parents; This equates to an average of just over £58,000 in gifts or loans for each supported house purchase. Does not include me or my DH in those figures. I would say the number of people who did not live with parents or have cash from parents would be tiny.

the housing crisis is nothing compared to the future pensions and social care crisis. the welfare state and the relative post war prosperity were blips, for most of human history, life was extremely unequal. 70% of the population rented pre war . when i visited the museum of the home, i read the history and it was located in an ex poor house where old people with nowhere to go lived communally I believe we will see a return to that- old age HMOs run by big corporations rather than mom and pop landlords. That or retire to Thailand. Which is why moving to dubai as an expat is relatively tame in comparison..

Life expectancy had already stagnated before the pandemic. Particularly with Long Covid, it will now fall for many people.

We also don't (hopefully) want or need to go backwards. It is possible to have a more civilised society.

One issue is widespread employer ageism. Over 50s face a lot of discrimination when applying for work and many end up never working again - despite being willing and able.

However perhaps the main problem is, as was reported last week, the growing number of the working age population too ill or disabled to work. A big issue affecting both welfare costs and social care. Long Covid and NHS backlog (increasing due to still high Covid cases) will add to this problem - particularly if we go without life, health, and economy saving mitigations such as masks and good ventilation.

The public health housing and homelessness emergency is a major cause of the poor physical and mental health of an increasing number of people. One of the (very costly) indirect consequences.

The post war welfare state including social housing came about as much as, if not more, because of self interest and economics than it did because of altruism.

@Whammyyammy
My goodness - you spent 3 years working overseas in UAE AND had a lodger for five years? Actually, fair play. Hats off to you.
I can see when I am beaten!
It's amazing that you had to do all of these things to get onto the property ladder but still acknowledge that it is even more difficult now.

I owned when I was married & now live in social housing. The only way I will be able to buy again is when my dm passes away & I Inherit half of her house.

I'll only be able to buy an ex council house like I previously owned that now cost at least 4 times what I paid for mine.

I feel the same. Never late with rent yet cant get a mortgage. It makes no sense.

@Scianel

Could you put your name down for social housing? I appreciate that you may not be offered something for a long time, depending on where you're based, but at least if/when you do get a property you'll have more security.

Social Housing near me isn’t much help. I have two friends in HA. One pays £750 and the other £800 both in 2 bed houses both working for local government on a low wage. It’s over half their income on rent.

Right to buy needs to end, we to reinvest in social housing (build more or buy it back). We need to make it expensive to own multiple properties. Get rid of BTL mortgages. Houses should be homes, not investments.
It shouldn't be impossible to get on the ladder if you miss the boat in your youth.

Everytime a shop closes in my town it's transformed into 'affordable housing' affordable for who?? Certainly not people like me who work but can't get a mortgage (even though I've managed to pay rent for nine years) this is what needs to change. I feel like writing to my Local MP but he's a waste of space.