Let's do the math for Kirsty regarding an affordable home

[kirstyalslap]

I'm sure everyone has heard that kirsty Allsopp has came out saying that people can afford homes if they only cut out netflix, the gym and takeaway coffees.

I just worked out a meal deal costs £3 a day. X that by 5 days a week 52 weeks a year is £720. Netflix is £8 for 2 screens (?) so times that by 12 months is £96 a year.
Let's add a £20 takeaway every 2 weeks for good measure. £520. Gym costs £14 a month so £168 a year.

So in one year of cutting back on netflix, lunch for work and takeaways I can save £1504
Wow
Now I need 14000 for a deposit so I'm only 10 years away (probably a little but more actually including fees.)

Right now let's think about increase in property value.
My parents bought their house 8 years ago for £90 thousand. A massive 2 reception with 4 bed and 2 huge gardens with a drive.
Bad condition.
Last year the neighbours sold for £230k
This year the other neighbours has been valued at £280k. My parents are thinking of selling for approx £290k.
So in 8 years their house has increased by £200k
(this hurts me as I started saving 8 years ago, nearly 9 and was looking at saving for a smaller house for about 80k needed 4k at the time and had a 5 year plan to get there. No family helping with deposit)

£90k now would get you nothing at all.
Also you need a 10% deposit.
Also rents back then was £500pcm for 2 bed flat. Now they are £700+pcm for same flat.

So how can we do it? How? Please tell me!

Oh also, everyone I know saving for a house has already cut out take away, meal deals, gym (first to go come on!) and much much more.
Batch cooking, shopping around for deals, having friends round rather than going out.
Every thing is rising in price now, I don't know how my children will afford to live away from us, it is scary because as much as we are okay now, we won't be able to have 3 grown adults living in one bedroom until they are in their 30s! Or will it be 40s or 50s by then?

@mumofEandE

My DS and his g/f were both 21 when they bought a 2 bedroom flat - in the SE - commutable to London. No Bank of mum and dad.

Usually I can't stand Kirsty Allsop and she has phrased things badly AND it is grating when a v v privileged person lectures the rest of us but....

There are ways:
Buy with somebody else
Don't buy a 'forever home' straightaway (or expect to)
Have a job where there is a lot of potential for overtime
Think carefully about what you will do as a job after Uni / do you really need to go to Uni

The year they bought their place they were still going out / foreign holidays (although I must admit he uses MY Netflix log in)

This message ties women to men. Encourages dependency. It discourages self sufficiency, girl’s education and equal pay.

Many posters on MN literally obsess over a man’s potential wealth. yet we have a thriving feminist section

Is it too radical to imagine a society where people do not need to depend upon a spouse? Great if you choose it, but we groom our girls to seek it.

How many times your salary can you borrow now? It was three times when I was young ( early 90s).
If an average graduate wage starts around 25-30k now that would not buy you anything, so someone on less, like most workers in our average town, has no chance.

This thread has got me interested and looking at our nearest cities rather than just our town. The nearest you need at least 160k to buy a 2 bed ( mostly back to back terraced) anywhere other than the very worst areas.
Even Bradford you’re looking at 90k plus for anywhere you would consider living in, a lot more for a “nice” house in a “nice” area.

Let's not forget Kirstie announced that she had smashed her children's ipads because she thought they spent too much time on them.

Of course - the obvious solution!

Seriously, she has the awareness of an amoeba.

Living with parents whilst saving for a deposit is only way I know
DS is currently saving up for own home - he has estimated once he buys the mortgage - council tax and utilities will be £1k a month so he is currently saving that amount also helps to get used to it - he is hoping for 30k deposit plus 6k other costs
Where we live that will buy him a starter home

Think your taking what she is saying too literal! She is right though people aren't willing to cut out expenses that aren't seen as absolute essential like netflix, sky, prime, gym, takeaways, coffees etc. She obv isnt going to list everything!

I hear it at work now with the graduates all moaning how they will be able to afford a house but are off on numerous trips abroad, nights out every week drinking, always upgrading to latest phone, apple watch, air pods, laptops, cars. Then for women its the regular nails, tanning, waxing, haircuts etc.

So of course its going to be hard if your going to continue to spend like that.

It took me 8 yrs of no holidays, no phone upgrades, no gym or any TV subscriptions, flat sharing, cycled everywhere to save on transport. Only thing I allowed myself was an annual cinema membership cos I used that as my way of going out often without spending too much. I dont drink so meeting friends at bars after work didn't cost me anything just had tap water and maybe occassional coke if I wanted it.

I dont regret those years I still had fun and lots of good memories, dont feel like I didn't live my life.

Whats ironic are the recent threads about the energy costs but it really is for someone people going to mean they have to get rid of netflix. One month of nefflix is for me at least a week of gas and electricity.

Math?

‘ But we don't have room for two couples plus children’
But what you regard as ‘not enough room’ would have been normal 50 years ago. Before my Dad got married he lived in a 3 bed terraced house with 2 parents, 2 adult sisters, 1 baby sister and 1 adult brother. So he was still sharing a bedroom with his brother at 25 and there were 6 adults and 1 child in the house all sharing one bathroom and kitchen. Nowadays those people would want 5 separate houses, it’s not surprising demand has increased and prices have gone up.

@Butteryflakycrust83

I still think its sad that you are expected to live a completely joyless life JUST so you can take on a massive debt to have secure housing.

You're not expected to live a joyless life. There are plenty of fun free joyful healthy exciting things to do that cost nothing.

What is so desperately sad is that people think getting and spending is the source of joy and happiness. The terrible poverty of so many modern ambitions and expectations. A better phone. Home delivery of junk food. The label on a bag. Watching a film of other people having sex, doing sport, making a meal. Living life at second hand through strangers.

The winners: those with assets like houses, shares etc
The losers: the bottom 90%

These are surprising stats (at least, they were to me when I came across them a while ago), but in Endland the stats are (2019/20):
36% of households are rentals: 17% in the social rented sector; and
19% in the private rented sector
65% of households are owner-occupied: 30% with mortgages and 35% owned-outright

I was especially surprised at how many households own their properties outright.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/945013/2019-20_EHS_Headline_Report.pdf

The thing is East Ham isn't affordable now so you're looking further out for affordable or sacrificing transport time for price which starts eating into the savings available - zone 6 vs cheap bit of zone 2 for London...

There used to be "grotty" areas close in to city centres, now they're all gentrified and £££ themselves.

In London I rented in rotherhithe and New Cross, now they'd be unaffordable and you'd be pushed further out away from transport and adding transport time might well limit job options once you have to get to/from nursery and especially school (which you can't put close to work without going private).

It's all a massive jigsaw...

Have you knowingly had 3 DC while renting a 2 bed house?

Well to do folk never understand how hard it is for the average Jo.

@Gwenhwyfar

"50 years ago it was standard for people to live with family until they got married."

They got married much younger...

DH and I left similar home at similar ages to our parents - they left upon marriage- us having finished post graduate degrees and started on career jobs.

We needed rented flats as had to move around for work - less stable careers - they could buy houses earlier than us due to much lower prices and having been earning for years all since 15.

My sector was full of short term contracts and frequent job moves and DH was expectation of move around country till early 30s then fight to get a permanant job often with an accompanying move- ignoring most at that age are in couples juggling two carreers and not infrequently with kids or waiting to have them.

My experinced of the rental market wasn't great - I think it could be better for everyone - but there are a lot of structural and societal changes in last 50 years that have massivley impacted house prices often meant households are generally smaller at same time we've built fewer and fewer houses.

@CaptaNoctem

Math?

Excellent point, that fucker is getting so all pervasive I don't always notice it now - but it stinks.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

If you hit lucky and:-

1. Live in an area with lower housing costs
2. Are able to live somewhere rent free for a year or two

Then maybe it's possible.

A 2bed garden flat (non leasehold) near me on a good street will cost £125k
Deposit £12.5k
Fees £2k (obvs can add these to the mortgage)
Mortgage required £112.5k
Salary required £30k

But saving that initial deposit is pretty much Impossible unless you can bunk in with family or friends for a low cost.

Rent on a room in this area (Inc all bills) is about £450.

Salary 30k,
Pcm nett £1500
rent and housing bills £450
Car or travel costs £200
Food (basic) £120
Other bills (phone etc) £50
Bare bones replacement of clothes, shoes etc £50

This leaves roughly £630

So even living frugally and saving £600pcm, it will still take over two years to save even just the deposit.

By which time, housing stock has increased from £125k to £135k (as it has these last two years), deposit required is now 14k plus fees, and you've got scurvy from 24 months of eating beans on toast.

And that's in the cheaper than cheap North East of England.

Scurvy comment made me laugh!

@NoNameNoGane my mortgage interest is £17.23 per day, or £6288 per annum! Interest rates can go up and down, but there are few things you can fix the cost for 5 or even 10 years! That is time to pay down the debt, get a better job etc. And of course there is inflation which erodes the debt. I remember reading a thread on mumsnet of a lady who went to saudi arabia with her DS and DH so that she could save up to buy a house with no mortgage! I wouldn't do that but a lot of people who can afford the expensive houses do so with monies earned tax free in other countries.

There needs to be a punitive tax on second homes, and a serious look at the buy-to -let market.
Property as investment is the biggest issue driving inequality in society as a whole.

Maybe Kirsty is friends with Mollie-Mae?

@Gingernaut

The Honorable Kirstie Mary Allsopp, oldest daughter of Charles, the 6th Baron Hindlipp is in no place to tell us how to afford a place of our own.

Moron.

Next you'll be thinking that menopausal Drs know nothing about family planning or fertility issues. Or dementia and old age.

Would you tell Alan Sugar he is far too rich to know anything about business? Or far too ugly to employ handsome young men?

KA's looks, background and finances don't invalidate her common sense advice.

@notacooldad

So all move up north, good luck finding your dream house for 90k near here No one expects a 90k house to be a dream home. It can, however be a great starter home for a young person setting out.

Hahhahahhaha. Even 90k for a starter home up north is a laughable comment tbh.

@notacooldad you wouldn’t even get a “starter” home in most places “up north” now.

Calennig I think your experience of crappy jobs and relocating is the same for a lot of young people. As you said, the older generation bought houses at 25 but had been working and earning in stable jobs since age 15. Jobs were easier to come by too - my Mum left school on Friday and started work on Monday. In contrast I was unemployed for ages and eventually got a job temping which was insecure and unreliable, I lived in three cities in my 20s and went back to my parents house three times when I was broke and between jobs. The labour market isn’t the same at all and we waste an extra 7-8 years in education and incur huge debts that our parents didn’t have.

@notacooldad you wouldn’t even get a “starter” home in most places “up north” now

Hahhahahhaha. Even 90k for a starter home up north is a laughable comment tbh

First town I looked at and this is round the corner from my nephew. Decent house.
Someone else has put up a house for 90k earlier on

Missing the point but takeaway coffee presumably is cheaper than drinking in a cafe. (I never buy takeaway drinks - only have at home or in a cafe).

I'm really bored of the suggestion to move "Up North". I'm from Huddersfield (so not Leeds, Manchester, York or Harrogate, and often on the CrapTowns list!). My parents built a house for £90k in the 90s, with a mortgage on one £30k salary.

The house next door, 3 bed, was done for £80k. It's on the market right now for offers over £450k. That is over 8 times mine and DH's income and we are late 30s.

What's then happening there is that people our age aren't vacating the starter homes and flats, because there are so few couples in the area earning the £70k between them plus having a big chunk of equity to upsize.