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?

House prices are crazy. My dad has a family starter home zone 5 london, 3 bed basic, no room for drive, decent size garden. It was 182k when brought 16 years ago now houses on the street are 500k. That about the cheapest house you can buy now. Most of them are being brought and split into flats or small self contained studios. We have looked all around the extra London belt with less than 90 min journey into town for work and none bellow 350k. We can only get a mortgage for about 180k. So it's not our outgoings that are a problem.

Kirsty's opinion reminded me of the opinion of the employee of the bank of England with a salary of over 500,000. I really hope not all well off people are this deluded.

@SirChenjins

You've also forgotten to mention that you just need to drive a second hand car (a few years old should do it) and cut back on your foreign holidays. Buy clothes on eBay and get your hair done at the local hairdressing college (y'know, the one everyone has in their town).

It's really all about priorities

I have done all these things all my life.... in the north in the 1970s things were pretty poor. And I never got help with a deposit.... My parents bought their house for £5K. and yet still managed to have a mortgage til they retired... !
My son (7) is looking forward to getting his own place at 18, having 3 babies (as a single man apparently) ... bless. Our kids will find their own way, and its going to be more sociable and sharing than our current "thing" obsessed nation. I think it will be a lot more fun, less lonely and "things" just won't mean as much - so houses can be shared. It gives us the heebie jeebies, but they will love it!

It is, however, up to us to change this current shocking system, not feed it. Its a hard nut to crack.

The article actually said as long as you can live with parents, so that’s where the bulk is saved

Of course YANBU.
The only reason we could afford the house we have is because my dad died and I had some inheritance. Frankly I’d rather live in a hovel and have my dad back.

If your parents have done o work on their house, then their profit won't be £200k. Their house is not worth what other houses are if it is in bad condition. What fantasy world do you live in?
As for you, buy what you can afford not what you dream about. Or rent... Nowt wrong with renting. I personally see (new) property buying as bad for the planet and as theft of land that should have been wild. Might look like I am mad, but no madder than folks who need to buy!

I think living with parents who don’t want more money per month than if you were living in rented and not getting pregnant helps hugely.

My mother wanted £25 per week off me. Ended up having to work 2 jobs to pay her as my take home pay was £80 per month.

Ended up doing a flat share for £15 per week Because it was cheaper

@DillonPanthersTexas

You can't extrapolate your neices spending to an entire generation

It was like most things on Mumsnet an ancedotal example of how some young folk prioritise their spending. I recognise elements of this in many of the grads at my company. We take on about 30 each year and it is interesting observing their spending habits. You get the ones who make their own pack lunches, drink instant coffee, drive to work in a £600 old fiesta, rent in a less fashionable cheaper parts of town, forgo the use of the latest phones and buy suits from M&S etc. You get others eating out every lunchtime, wearing sharp designer gear, iPhones, BMW cars on finance, drinking in upmarket bars rather then the local boozer and paying crazy money for a room on a houseshare in the trendy parts of town. I know what these people are on and while it is not bad money their can't be much left over for savings with the latter group. It was hardly a surprise you hear that frugal ones are paying off student loans early and ultimately picking up keys for the first home way before the others. It is certainly not easy but I have been impressed with the savvy attitude and not give a shit what others think of what I am driving spirit.

There are savers and spender in every generation though and always have been. It has not unique to young people today and is not the reason that as a generation they are finding much harder to buy their first property than people did 30 years ago.

It's the modern day equivalent of 'let them eat cake'. Don't you just love it when privaledged people ( by that I mean £££££) give us less privaledged people advice.

@Darbs76

The article actually said as long as you can live with parents, so that’s where the bulk is saved

Yeah but that makes it a boring story that doesn't allow everyone to be OUTRAGED at Kirstie Allsop - She also acknowledged that not everyone could save for a deposit 🤷🏻‍♀️

@cookiemonster2468

Where on earth are you living that gym membership is only £14 a month? (jealous)

Anyway yes, of course you are right and there are many people who will never own homes now. Those who say cutting out Netflix and avocados will make a difference are living in cloud cuckoo land!

My gym membership costs £14 per month, as it happens!

Jeremy Vine did a great piece on his show the other day about this.

Going back about 20-30 years ago you needed approx 4.4 time the average wage to purchase a house.

Nowadays it's about 14 times.

fb.watch/b2sJTsurMN/

@ParkingFeud

“While house prices soar, I'm struggling on paying expensive rent in a house that doesn't reach over 16 degrees with the heating on and has wind literally coming through the closed windows.”

I feel your pain. I bought acrylic sheets and used Clip Glaze to DIY secondary glazing, it was £200 for 2 gigantic sash windows with rotten sills and wind blowing through, and water. It’s sick that the landlord can rent such a rotten hellhole out.

[quote onlychildhamster]@frustratedbiscuit2 also if everyone moves to the 'cheaper' smaller towns, they are not going to be cheap anymore, are they? I mean house prices in London have stagnated since 2015 particularly for flats, enabling me to buy but from what I have heard, a lot of young people in the SE commuter towns are struggling due to London salaries. Also people in Birmingham and other popular ex londoner locations. She is just amplifying the housing shortage by suggesting people move down north. The north has a low pay problem; its very unfair to add a housing inflation problem when they haven't even levelled up... What they do not need is lots of Londoners with savings from London salaries moving down to the north.

unless you are telling me the government is building lots of new small towns like they did post WW2. they are not.[/quote]
Don't you mean UP North??

@Woahthehorsey

I think it depends. I'm 30, and we've been home owners for 6 years.

Of our friends, they're in 2 groups, home owners and renters. We're all similar in terms of upbringing, education and employment. But those us who are home owners were willing to make more sacrifices. These have included things like nights out, holidays, location of our rental properties to get cheaper rent, longer gaps between hair cuts, home dye kits, not buying the latest games console, cheap Xmas pressies for partners and from partners, no take aways, no coffees, meals out, no nails, lashes or brows etc. We were also willing to compromise on the house we bought - smaller, worse condition and in a location we weren't keen on but we did it up, sold it 3 years later and now have another fixer upper in a better location.

Obviously, there'll be a number of people who already go without all of those things and rent too small houses in bad areas but certainly not everyone.

I've got friends who at 25 prioritised a nice (rented) home in lovely locations but now when looking to start a family can't get on the property ladder. And kids are expensive, so waiting until you've had them just makes it harder. Again, not everyone has that choice.

I think the issue that confuses it is though that your group is split between people who got on the housing ladder several years ago with years of equity, and people trying to get on it now.

For example myself and my friend. My friend bought her house 5 years ago at 24, she now wouldn't get approved to buy the house with her old wage because the house price has gone up significantly.

However she has now built up equity in the house. To buy her house my mortgage payment will be double her current(my rent is also significantly more for a smaller house). Because her mortgage payment is half my rent, she's saved up also.

We are both now looking to buy. We have the same wage and paying the same mortgage amount a month I can get a 250k house, she is looking at houses of approx 500k

Getting on the ladder 5 years earlier has had a huge impact

Take this typical house near me 2017 it cost 244,000 now it cost 380,000
It wasn't massively changed in those 4 years but what is changed is the following

in those 4 years you'd need an extra 14,000 deposit (so you'd need to have saved 3,500 a year on those coffees and cancelling gym memberships just to cover the rise in deposit not even the 24,000 you needed four years ago!)

Your mortgage payment on goes from 560 if you bought in 2007 to 1100 pounds a month a 40 year mortgage

Not to mention you'd go from needing a household income of 54 grand to 86 grand (using crude calculations) in that 4 years

That's ignoring equity built up, the likely hood of paying more rent etc

4 years has a huge impact there's lots of examples like this

She should have said “be born into wealth and then marry a property developer” if she wanted to share her own experience.

Annoyingly it's added the wrong screenshots!

Don't you mean UP North??

Depends where you are in the UK. It’s down north from here is Scotland (because the north tends to mean north of England)

I don’t see the problem. We did exactly that . Lived with parents and saved every single penny for three years to get a deposit.and my son did the same . Admittedly he had to get shared ownership but he still got on the ladder.

Do you know what irks me more than anything in this whole debate.

the idea that i’m not allowed to buy a sandwich or have netflix if i want to buy a blooming house.

i work 60 hours a week. i provide a good life for my kids . i try to help others sometimes .

i can’t by a house because frankly i had no idea what i was doing or how to survive at 21 -30 . sorted my life out. work hard etc.

but apparently i can’t buy a house because i’d quite like to have some fun and bloody netflix in my life as a treat to working all the time.

is this attitude to it all not ludicrous ? am i alone ? isn’t it more about the fact that the housing system is an utter shambles …

help to buy in my area - on a 600,0000house ..ridiculous

making shared ownership homes markedly of less quality than other new builds yet you pay rent and mortgage so you can never up your share

oh actually let me just move away from everyone and everything i know then …
because it’s my fault obviously …
i just can’t even …

OP you are not being unreasonable. Property as an "investment" has driven this disgraceful state we're in. Houses, flats etc are homes first, not financial instruments or "ladders" to climb.

I'm looking at you Kirsty, you and Pip were notable players in the selfish and kakistoricratic "property booms" over the last 15 years at least.
At the very least you should give your head a wobble before you spout myopic economics.

@Topsyturvyloo

Do you know what irks me more than anything in this whole debate.

the idea that i’m not allowed to buy a sandwich or have netflix if i want to buy a blooming house.

i work 60 hours a week. i provide a good life for my kids . i try to help others sometimes .

i can’t by a house because frankly i had no idea what i was doing or how to survive at 21 -30 . sorted my life out. work hard etc.

but apparently i can’t buy a house because i’d quite like to have some fun and bloody netflix in my life as a treat to working all the time.

is this attitude to it all not ludicrous ? am i alone ? isn’t it more about the fact that the housing system is an utter shambles …

help to buy in my area - on a 600,0000house ..ridiculous

making shared ownership homes markedly of less quality than other new builds yet you pay rent and mortgage so you can never up your share

oh actually let me just move away from everyone and everything i know then …
because it’s my fault obviously …
i just can’t even …

Absolutely! What a society we have become where it’s not enough that younger generations can’t afford houses, we have to gaslight them into believing it’s their own fault and these houses are affordable if only they gave up Netflix TV!

It was Kirsty Allsopp who thought she was doing “poor kids” a favour, by putting her own daaahlings into private school - thus freeing up space in the plebiscite schools. The commoners should be thanking her. Her TV-programmes could be enjoyable on a rainy Sunday morning. But don’t give her any more head space than that.

It does depend where you are. We were trying to sell a 2 bed flat for £80k which would have been a great entry to the property ladder. We got no decent offers so it’s back being rented again.
We bought our own house recently thanks to a family loan though, and we’d never have saved enough for it just by cutting back luxuries. If you don’t have family help, you don’t stand a chance just now.

@Topsyturvyloo

Do you know what irks me more than anything in this whole debate.

the idea that i’m not allowed to buy a sandwich or have netflix if i want to buy a blooming house.

i work 60 hours a week. i provide a good life for my kids . i try to help others sometimes .

i can’t by a house because frankly i had no idea what i was doing or how to survive at 21 -30 . sorted my life out. work hard etc.

but apparently i can’t buy a house because i’d quite like to have some fun and bloody netflix in my life as a treat to working all the time.

is this attitude to it all not ludicrous ? am i alone ? isn’t it more about the fact that the housing system is an utter shambles …

help to buy in my area - on a 600,0000house ..ridiculous

making shared ownership homes markedly of less quality than other new builds yet you pay rent and mortgage so you can never up your share

oh actually let me just move away from everyone and everything i know then …
because it’s my fault obviously …
i just can’t even …

Hear hear.

Do you know something? When I bought my one bed flat on my low wage back in 1995 I did it without having to cycle to work in the snow, or by living with my parents to save for 2 years for the deposit, or by not having a night out ever, or by living on beans on toast. I got a 100% mortgage and went from my rented flat straight into my own flat. That is what property buying (esp for young people trying to get onto the ladder) should be like.