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?

Oh, and I bought my first house by moving to the north, despite being born and brought up in the south east. I live in a nice area where house prices are above national average, but nowhere near as ludicrous as where I grew up. I managed to easily buy a 3 bed house here on my own, whereas I would have ended up with a one bed flat in the SE. I understand that not everyone wants to move, but it is a choice that some have to make if they want to get onto the housing ladder. Once you are on the ladder and have built up equity, you can move where you want.

@ComtesseDeSpair the objections some residents have to new housing is hilarious. There is a plan to build new flats in Orpington; they are going to convert a shopping centre. Firstly, its not a great shopping centre- shops include such 'gems' like Nandos, savers, wilko, the works. Its not like they are tearing down a parade of independent shops which have been there since the 1950s! And I thought the high street is dying etc. The residents' objection- this is not HK/Singapore, we don't neeed so many flats! Why would families want flats, and why would young professionals want to commute from zone 6? My first thought- why are they deciding what other people want?

If we can't build in Amersham or Chesham cos of the countryside; and we can't tear down Nandos to make way for homes for people, where can we build?

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees Maybe its just me but i find moving up much harder! Stupid question but if your property goes up in value, surely the next step would also be more expensive? And you have to pay more stamp duty as a result. Unless you move to a location with much lower price gains?

@leafcuttingwhale "
While I agree with this, I think NIMBYism plays a huge part in this. Housing, development, etc is politically toxic, particularly in the areas new homes are needed the most. There is always a reason to object to new homes "they're in the wrong place", "they're not affordable", "they're too affordable", "building on green space", "should be a hospital there instead"

100% on the news last night, some locals in Bristol were celebrating that a proposed development had been massively scaled down, as they didn't want the extra homes and families near them. This will mean the fewer houses that are actually built will be in higher demand, thus more £££.

Totally agree NIMBYism is a massive issue and some people think flats = druggies, convicts and layabouts which is clearly ridiculous. But many of the new developments being built aren’t actually affordable to anyone on an average income so they’re not helping people into secure housing!

I was lucky that my parents gave me a deposit for my first flat and I bought in the 1980s and went on to marry a high earner (with an equally high mortgage) and benefited from the increase in prices.
A friend, who had no help and was buying in around 2000 lived in a bedsit for almost three years to save up enough deposit to buy a part share in a housing association flat. Other friends bought with other friends initially.
We bought our big house from teachers, I sold it to bankers. No one else would be able to afford it. I currently live in a house built for blue collar workers that now sell for over £1m.

Maybe its just me but i find moving up much harder! Stupid question but if your property goes up in value, surely the next step would also be more expensive? And you have to pay more stamp duty as a result. Unless you move to a location with much lower price gains?

It is more expensive, but I think banks are more likely to give you a mortgage and I guess it depends on how long you stay in the house before moving and having children. We stayed in our first house for ten years before upsizing and having a child (did both at the same time - not planned I hasten to add!) so we'd managed to pay a big chunk of it off on two wages before having higher outgoings.

But I guess these days couples get together later so feel they can't wait ten years before having kids.

@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees I married at 22 and bought at 27. 30 this year. So I would definitely be together for 10 years before having a child! 10 years before upsizing might be a little late even if meghan markle did it! I guess TTC takes a while(could be years) so I could start trying and move while pregnant... Thats what my neighbour did, she is 37 i think.

[quote onlychildhamster]@Sweetpeasaremadeforbees I married at 22 and bought at 27. 30 this year. So I would definitely be together for 10 years before having a child! 10 years before upsizing might be a little late even if meghan markle did it! I guess TTC takes a while(could be years) so I could start trying and move while pregnant... Thats what my neighbour did, she is 37 i think.[/quote]
The problem with trying to move while pregnant is that you would still need to declare it and it may still affect your affordability

[quote onlychildhamster]@ComtesseDeSpair the objections some residents have to new housing is hilarious. There is a plan to build new flats in Orpington; they are going to convert a shopping centre. Firstly, its not a great shopping centre- shops include such 'gems' like Nandos, savers, wilko, the works. Its not like they are tearing down a parade of independent shops which have been there since the 1950s! And I thought the high street is dying etc. The residents' objection- this is not HK/Singapore, we don't neeed so many flats! Why would families want flats, and why would young professionals want to commute from zone 6? My first thought- why are they deciding what other people want?

If we can't build in Amersham or Chesham cos of the countryside; and we can't tear down Nandos to make way for homes for people, where can we build?[/quote]
The objections are very likely because the new development will be like all the others in London. Not genuinely affordable.

It will be like the developments near me. One is a supposedly affordable scheme. It isn't. Not for the huge numbers who need a stable affordable home.

I had a look last night. The required deposit for the shared ownership is, indeed, quite low. The same can't be said for the minimum income requirements demanded. As for the Help to Buy flats. Not by any stretch of the imagination affordable.

The other one describes itself as 'luxury apartment living'. There's zero need for this. Anyone who can afford the current local market prices has plenty of non new build option round here.

None of the developments include any much needed social rented housing.

The planning objections around here (London suburb) are almost entirely about new developments putting pressure on street parking, the blocks being out of character with the surrounding Victorian housing, plus references to “social issues” and “adequate community management” and “neighbourhood frictions” which are a thinly-veiled way of saying “we know that some of these flats are going to be lived in by people on benefits who were previously homeless and we don’t want people like that in our naice area.”

People aren’t objecting to new housing being built because they think it’s unfair that it isn’t going to be sold more cheaply, but because they think it’s more important to have space to park their household’s multiple vehicles, have a pretty street scape, and keep the poor out.

As for delaying children until you've bought.

Some people will never be able to afford to buy. Many (essential) jobs are low paid.

Or someone has family caring responsibilities (a parent or a sibling or other relative).

And of course there are the people too ill or disabled to work.

Also, relationships can breakdown. Obviously there's domestic abuse, but also many other reasons why it sometimes doesn't work out. There will then be a housing need post children.

I do hope nobody suggests a very unhappy couple stays together because of the public health housing and homelessness emergency. Even without domestic abuse, hostile or difficult relations at home is not a healthy environment for children.

And the suggestion that people move 'Up North' or wherever 'somewhere cheaper' is? Well then the somewhere cheaper is no longer somewhere cheaper.

We've all seen the many Local Place for Locals Only type posts and threads on here in recent years. Particularly directed at Londoners - who, priced out by everybody from across the country coming to London and pushing up prices, have to move elsewhere...and push up prices...

Many people can't so easily move. For one, the need to stay close to family for the childcare that allows to them to work (to pay the rent or mortgage).

But also there any many many people who are more vulnerable, eg. disabled adults or a family with a disabled child - and who need to stay near their family, community, and support network.

Separately, London and the wider south east need the essential but lower paid jobs as much as anywhere else.

The recent backtracking on the vaccine mandate for HCP is an example of the consequences of pricing out of London nurses and other HCP. (95% of HCP outside of London are vaccinated, but in London only about 60%).

There's now a growing NHS staffing crisis in London. A friend of mine is a nurse. She struggled to rent a studio flat in a not so nice part of London. She moved away and owns a 2 bed. Big problem if every HCP in London and the south east does the same.

We're fairly high earners, not looking possible to buy a house.
Prices have just risen to the point where we can't keep up.
It's shit, but what can we do?

People aren’t objecting to new housing being built because they think it’s unfair that it isn’t going to be sold more cheaply, but because they think it’s more important to have space to park their household’s multiple vehicles, have a pretty street scape, and keep the poor out.

Well that's not the case in my London area, not where any of my London friends or family live (inner and outer London including suburbs).

The local paper reader comments are just one source of insight into local feeling. Plus the objections sent to the council.

Oh yes there are indeed some NIMBYs - but there is also a good many who very clearly make the point that, whilst they'd rather not see the whole place concreted over (and they also object to unnecessarily ugly/shoddy constructions), they do very much want their children and grandchildren to be able to afford to buy or rent an affordable home.

But they know it mostly won't be their children and grandchildren housed in these new developments.

Anyone who doesn't believe me. Look up London Help To Buy type schemes. Check out the price being asked - and, for the at first glance more affordable shared ownership, look at the minimum income requirements.

The Orpington development. Like all London boroughs, Bromley has years long wait lists for socially rented housing.

The planned new development is not intended to tackle the public health housing and homelessness emergency though, is it? It's yet more overpriced unaffordable flats - that will actually worsen the crisis by pushing the prices up higher.

The locals objecting will be like many others in London. They don't welcome the choke of more housing being built in an already overcrowded polluted city. But - they're pragmatic that sometimes need comes before want. If the new developments were for genuinely affordable housing for locals, still some would object but many others would accept the need to support it.

Why should people support ugly overpriced developments that won't even help with the housing emergency?

When we first bought a property we looked at where we could afford and then built our lives around that area. Obviously not everyone can do this.

As @onlychildhamster has said the idea of buying before you have dc & the idea of climbing up the ladder is not the norm for the majority now.

That principle works if

you buy when young eg 22
entry level prices are lower
you are at the start of your career
you don't want kids or want them later.

Nowadays

people are older
you generally need to buy with someone else
kids are more likely to be on the periphery/present
people are earning more cause older so less wage growth
the entry price is very high & it's much harder to build equity.

Plus what you want to buy has generally gone up by the same % so it's actually harder to move up.

The vast majority of people I know who left London during the pandemic were stuck on the ladder.

@ComtesseDeSpair its the same here, we had objections from the Finchley society who said that a conversion of a house into 2 flats was not keeping in the character of the road! I am mystified as to what that means.

@Tealightsandd i think they are even less likely to support it if its affordable housing...

[quote onlychildhamster]@ComtesseDeSpair its the same here, we had objections from the Finchley society who said that a conversion of a house into 2 flats was not keeping in the character of the road! I am mystified as to what that means.

@Tealightsandd i think they are even less likely to support it if its affordable housing...[/quote]
Why should they support making the local, already overcrowded and polluted, area uglier and more crowded - for no acceptable reason.

Splitting a well built and attractive family home into shoddily constructed flats - for either overpriced flats or very expensive (to the taxpayer) crappy homeless HMOs. Why would locals support that?

It's not as if either unappealing option is doing anything good, i.e. tackling the public health housing and homelessness emergency.

The only new developments required are genuinely affordable to buy or rent - stable and decent standard (bear in mind the move to WFH) - housing.

And again. I urge anybody who believes Comtesse and onlychild - that the problem of unaffordable housing in London is because of NIMBYism, to look up the London 'affordable' housing developments.

Note the asking prices and minimum income requirements. Also, bearing in mind 10-15 year social housing lists in London, note how many are social rent (pretty much none).

NIMBYism is a problem, particularly in leafy shires outside of London, but it is not the main one.

@lykkelaa the places outside London are not necessarily cheaper! Esp now that work wants me and Dh back at least 3 X a week, we work in financial services. The people I know who moved outside London generally have 1 WFH spouse (self employed or in a profession which is WFH friendly) or a spouse who works locally. The people who moved outside London were able to afford a small house locally but just wanted a large house and had very healthy budgets even for london!

Tealightsandd i think they are even less likely to support it if its affordable housing...

Just like everywhere else in the UK, eg. Cornwall, The Lakes, and (the land of Rishi Twelve Homes Sunak) 'Up North', London locals want affordable housing for their children and grandchildren.

@onlychildhamster they've all bought large homes with off street parking & large gardens for the same price they've sold their flats for. It was difficult to make the jump in the same area for a house, 1 could but the houses aren't much bigger than their large flat so felt it was pointless although we all have kids so one parent already works p/t & we all have flexibility re remote working. Had it pre covid. They haven't gone that far, home counties