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?

My parents bought their house in the 1980s on my dads quite average wage (mum was a SAHM)
Their next door neighbours (attached semi detached fairly standard suburban house) sold their house that needed updating for £685k in 2018. In what world would that be achievable on one average wage now? (Admittely not a starter home)

@Dnaltocs could you buy that same house today with the same wage (or the wage thatsame job pays) ? Could you have saved the deposit with that wage?

My parents paid off their mortgage in the 80’s but there were no foreign holidays for us, no top of the range cars for them, we had hand me down clothes, second hand bikes and very little in the way of Christmas/Birthday presents and treats.
On Mumsnet nearly everyone seems to have everything I didn’t have growing up plus their own homes and with enough money to put their kids through uni and pay the deposits for their homes too!

If your job can be done from home it can be done from abroad where wages are lower. If I had an office job I’d want to be first in the queue to get back to work and prove my worth to my employer. I am terrified by what could be on the horizon for so many. - Kirsty Allsop

So WFH is off the charts too. This limits the number of places you can live if you are a dual earning couple who possibly may use grandparents for childcare or the afterschool club ends at 5.30 pm/6 pm. I know that I bought my flat in London largely because I wanted to be able to continue working after having a baby! Oh and moving to the north- there are jobs in the north I am sure but for every young southerner who can't afford to buy?

Can't we just see that she just like stirring up controversy maybe just to increase the ratings for her own show?

@PinkSyCo inequality has grown. My parents live in an ex British colony (so their parents had nothing in the 1960s and they had little in the 1980s compared to many British people) but they paid for me to go to university in London and were considering buying a house in London in cash (£700k) so I could live in London rent free and not worry about costs. I declined as my MIL is a Londoner and I was already staying with her rent free (albeit in cramped conditions) so I could save up my own deposit and buy our flat.

That's my question to all the Mumsnetters who are advocating their kids save up and they will help their kids..do you have £700k in cash or possibly more even after you release equity.my parents are wealthy but not super rich, there are many like them! Globally and also in the UK.so many of my classmates at university had apartments bought for them. And if you don't, can giving up Netflix/takeaways compete with these kids? It's not just the rich but also the middle class. My DH used to have a colleague on 40k whose dad was giving her money to buy homes in Birmingham (while she rented in London). You can save all you like but these people earn money while they sleep...

She's just a patronising idiot

Didn't she also smash her kids iPads because they didn't respect the screentime?

We bought a small small small flat in a not so good area, then sold and bought something bigger

Yes, that's how we started off too. The major difference is that we could afford to do so back in the mid 90s, even on my low salary (DH's wasn't taken into account because he was on a temp contract). I've posted earlier about this, but that same flat - which I bought for £33K on a 100% mortgage at 3 times my band 4 salary - is now worth £130K. Three times a current B4 salary gives me £78K to play with - and I'd need a sizeable deposit. e

Comparing what we had access to and what young people now have access to is like comparing apples and pears. The idea that you just need to forego having a new car, a designer wardrobe, or shop in Waitrose in order to afford that £130K flat on a £26K salary is very unfair and inaccurate. Young people now are the same as they were back in the 80s and 90s - some lead a profligate lifestyle, but many others don't - FB Marketplace and all these second hand apps exist for a reason.

I did it. At 23 I bought a flat in zone 3 London for £150,000. I was earning 20k. I put down a 20k deposit. And the way I did that? I worked holiday and weekend jobs since I was 16 - earning £2.50 an hour which then went up to £3.00. Doing double shifts in the local nursing home - so in a weekend I could sometimes work 32 hours. So it can be done - but you have to start learning about the importance of saving from the moment you can get a job. If they taught this in schools, kids might stand a chance. I was lucky to have parents to encouraged saving and are quite frugal - they didn’t give me a penny towards my deposit. It was all me. But also I didn’t have foreign holidays or any holidays in my early 20s other than one trip to Greece in a 2* apartment that cost £180. I know things are more expensive now but starting young and realising you have to make sacrifices is vita.

@takethegirloutofwales

Could you buy that flat at what it would sell for now with the same wage or the current wage of that job? What is the difference in how much you'd save for deposit?

@Dnaltocs

We wanted to live in London. Couldn’t afford even the rent. We had to move to an area we could afford. We bought a small small small flat in a not so good area, then sold and bought something bigger. We didn’t and still don’t buy new furniture or clothes. We’re now doing ok but still don’t buy new if there’s an option. My parents and family nearly all have bought houses but not in the areas they wanted to live. We’re all split up as a family but all own our homes that we struggled to pay for. No coffees or meals out for us sadly. The £3 for coffee would pay my child’s school lunch for a day and a half. It’s just a mindset. I’d love to have a new car and a designer wardrobe, shop in Waitrose, but it’s not going to happen as my priorities are different. I can’t imagine ever paying £60 for a hair cut or nails done. Just us I guess. We all make decisions and mine was to move to an affordable area got a falling down house miles from where I grew up. I’m happy and mortgage free. Feeling chilly, wear a couple of jumpers and 2 pairs of pants. Only heating on in the evening. Hurrah - fewer but affordable bills. Well I’m happy.

OK, so what about all the people who do all of those things, buy second hand etc. but still can't afford to buy a house?

A top aide to Rishi Sunak claimed workers in northern towns should "accept lower wages" to compete with the South because "London is London".

Rishi Sunak is the most likely candidate to be our next PM. And that's the thing, if the government are so keen to keep wages low in the north, how does that bode well for their ability to deal with inflation. Sure the housing is cheap but what about food, gas and all the other essentials. Less money for pension. Etc. Tesco prices are roughly the same whether you are in London or not (and in London, you can walk to Aldi with a shopping trolley which is what my MIL on a low income does).

@onlychildhamster

A top aide to Rishi Sunak claimed workers in northern towns should "accept lower wages" to compete with the South because "London is London".

Rishi Sunak is the most likely candidate to be our next PM. And that's the thing, if the government are so keen to keep wages low in the north, how does that bode well for their ability to deal with inflation. Sure the housing is cheap but what about food, gas and all the other essentials. Less money for pension. Etc. Tesco prices are roughly the same whether you are in London or not (and in London, you can walk to Aldi with a shopping trolley which is what my MIL on a low income does).

Have these people ever actually been to the North?

@PenguinIce

It’s ok the Dailymail have proved Kirsty right! They have found a young girl who has spent the last 3 years living with her parents, not having one night out or having a takeaway. She has worked 3 jobs whilst training to be a nurse and has managed to save £17,000 for a deposit.

Her reward for all this sacrifice….. a 40 year mortgage!

Seriously if this what we want for our kids? 3 years of barely existing just so they can spend the next 40 years paying way over the odds for a home!

I read it. Her 40 year mortgage is £210 per month, and she says that she couldn’t even rent a room for that in her area. That’s really not “40 years of paying way over the odds for a home”. She’s now 20 years old, with her own two bedroom home, paying her own mortgage, rather than someone else’s.

I do remain unconvinced that the chancellor will win the next tory election but thats a different issue...

Ridiculous woman.

The problem is people don't recognise how much things have changed. People even in their mid thirties who struggled and bought 10 years ago struggle to see how much has changed and assume if they could do it others can

In 2011 for example a band 5 nurse earning 21,176 and a minimum wage partner earning about 12k roughly had the buying power of 148.95 thousand.

They could buy the small 2 bed house pictured its gone from 144 to 285. It's a small terrace house in the bad part of town, no parking on street and is a very much ftb house. No garden

Ten years later you would need a household income of 63k for that same house. The couple would now earn 25,665 and 16k and only have a buying power of 187k. Even if they somehow managed to get a mortgage for same small perfect first time buyer house theyd need to save an extra 14,000
If the couple in 2011 saved 20% of their wage they'd have over the deposit in 2.5 years. The couple in 2021 need to save 20% for 3.5 years.

That's including the fact that the minimum wage and nhs wage increase is probably more than other sectors might have see

these threads are always full of "well I did it", and I can't help it's a deliberate push from certain people to encourage the public to think that people who can't are lazy and watch Netflix and go abroad rather than having to fix the housing issue. People who worked hard for their home get insulted because they think people are saying they didn't have to save, so reinforce the same save hard message.

@Capri3 £210 might be a meal for 2 at a semi decent restaurant (£43 now even in London). I. 20 years time! I have paid that for fish and chips outside London too!

@appleturnovers

Well its down the choices you make.

By the post looks like you choose to have kids before buying a house.

Oh right. My grandparents bought their first house age 22 when they were expecting their first child, on sole mechanic's salary.

My parents (a van driver and a secretary) bought their first flat with a 100% mortgage at the age of 24.

I'm 34, with a degree and a professional-but-not-highly-paid job, married to a man in a similar boat. We could easily afford mortgage payments but we don't have the £20,000 minimum required for the deposit on a 1 bed flat in the area we currently live, or a 2 bed house if we move out of our city completely and to a cheaper town. If I cut out all socialising, fun and treats whatsoever then I could save maybe £1200 a year (I've already calculated this in detail for myself). Assuming DH does the same, it'll take 8 years before we've got a deposit. (We had started saving, but Covid hit our respective businesses hard and wiped out most of our savings so we are now starting from scratch). By which point I might be too old to have kids and houseprices will have increased anyway so the £20,000 we'll have saved will be insufficient anyway.

So yes, I'm very glad I decided to start a family before buying a house, rather than wait and potentially end up with neither.

Well that's you then. You made your choice.

I'm younger than you and a home owner. I went to uni. We didn't have highly paying jobs but chose to prioritise saving for a house over everything else and we managed it. Then got married (very cheaply) and had kids. No way would we have been able to save for a house whilst renting a family home and paying childcare.

@Woahthehorsey

Could you buy that same property now for those wages or what the job you had now earns?

Getting on the housing ladder 10 years ago is very different to getting on it now

[quote Greenlight4]@Woahthehorsey

Could you buy that same property now for those wages or what the job you had now earns?

Getting on the housing ladder 10 years ago is very different to getting on it now[/quote]
Yes. It was almost 6 years ago, and whilst I appreciate property prices have risen we deliberately bought where we could afford. It didn't mean moving hours away, just to a less desirable suburb of where we were living (technically a better suburb than where we were renting though!) and a house in poor condition that we did up slowly over time. Most people would have considered the house we bought uninhabitable.

And our friends who have still not bought we're having the exact same arguments back then about affordability.

*were

@Belladonna12

But I can easily see how it happens. You start earning, you start spending, get a "taste" for the expensive hairdos every 6 weeks, the pricey boutique clothing. And then trying to dial that down and start shopping at H&M or Primark is going to be a bit of a shock to the system.

Actually, the good quality clothing lasts longer so overall, it's not necessarily more cost effective to shop in Primark.

But you have to be able to afford the good quality clothing.

Terry Pratchett's character Sam Vimes has a theory about this (though Pratchett lifted it from an economist, and then explained it better). The upshot is that it's cheaper to be wealthy...

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The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.

Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Good question. The flat is now worth about £450k. I bought it in 2002. At this point I’d been putting money aside for 8 years. Todays minimum wage is more than double what I was getting and starting salaries are higher. My first job out of uni as a radio journalist was 12k. My take home pay was £790 and I paid £180 a month for a room in a shared house. I was putting £250-300 away every month. I think similar jobs would now have a starting salary of 24k+ and rent for a room in the same location (in wales) would likely be £400. So can it be done? Yes I think it can in terms of saving the deposit. However…the problem really lies in whether or not someone’s salary is high enough to get a 405k mortgage - even if they do have the deposit. So I think outside of London it is way more achievable. I think we are now priced out of London. Our currently place is probably worth coming close to £600k but the next rung up the ladder you don’t get much change of a million. And I don’t want a sky high 25 year mortgage at my age. So our next move will be out of London. Perhaps back to wales. Who knows. I feel my kids stand more of a chance of making a life for themselves away from London.