Did you have any parental help when buying first house?

[forceofagreattyphoon]

Obviously inspired by all the Kirsty allsopp stuff about buying first houses.

Did you have any help from parents or partners parents in any way?

We didn’t get any ‘direct’ money but were only able to save a deposit by living with my parents for very-low rent for 2 years. So technically they did help a lot financially with the process. A lot of people wouldn’t have this option so I am very fortunate and wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise.

I’d say about 80% of people I know my age (late 20s-early 30s) have all had some form of parental help when purchasing their first house. Ranging from the whole deposit gifted or help with all the fees.

We both lived with our parents (seperately) for a couple of years after uni paying token rent so we were able to save a 5% deposit on a house in the north west in 2019. Very grateful as it would have taken us years longer otherwise

Genuinely well done on saving all that money, but you must know that most people don’t spend £20k per year on Netflix and eating out?

Hence the "etc"

Even with the etc… after graduating my disposable income after rent, essential bills, public transport to work and food (meal planning, strict budget) was £200 per month. Hard to save £10k a year from that.

Inherited dh’s aunt’s house in South Wales. As we live and work in the South East that became a 35% deposit coming up for 10years ago. Ownership was a pipe dream before that.

None and will not be getting an inheritance either.

I’m actually surprised by how many receive so much help

Nothing. We were lucky to get a 100% mortgage and bought at a good time allowing us to put £80k deposit on our next house. Haven't moved since though.

Yes parents bought mine and DH outright in cash. We are very lucky. We do pay them a small amount each month towards their pension

No.

Not with first house - we were living in a rented flat and saved £30k between us over several years.

Second house - all my GPs died in the space of 18 months so I had an inheritance which we put towards a fairly big jump in house but couldn't have afforded without a big lump of cash. Crap period of my life though.

Not a bloody sausage! And my Mother was quite vocal about making sure I dodnt expect it, likewise paying for pur wedding 🤣They did give us some money towards a really nice oven but it's hardly a deposit.....I think they have felt guilty about it as time's gone on though and we have been gifted the odd none too significant amount, I'm still waiting for the catch on a few of these though!

don't know if this counts. My parents lent the money (90%) instead of paying interest to a bank. Same overall deal, but at least no fat cat got fatter on us. Did the same when we upgraded, but we had to pay off the rest of the first one before moving. Fair enough.
Life though is bit unfair (to some extent): we moved countries and kept the flat which we fully paid off and now my parents are renting it out. We see it as a supplement to their pension and "helping out". Eventually it will come back to us in one form or another (inheritance or by them giving up if they don't need the supplement any more). Only slight bitter taste as it leaves us with no real seed money for a deposit and with no real option to ever be home owners in this country. On the other hand we made the decision, noone forced us. and they do need that money.

My parents couldn't afford any lump sums but they sold a number of antique items that paid for the movers and painters, allowing us to move in really quickly (I was 7 months with DD2). I had a bit of inheritance left to me by a grandparent that I had put aside for this purpose, it made up about 10% of the deposit. DP and I scraped the rest together. We both work in the financial industry and yet barely managed. I haven't really managed to save anything since we bought the house, anything that I do save ends up getting spent on the house sooner or later. DP has recently started to make the odd small financial investment that might hopefully give us some income by the time we retire. He works full time and I work 3.5 days. I'd love to work less while the kids are still little but it's not really feasible from a financial perspective. I bless my lucky stars that we can afford enough food and the house came with geothermic heating so our bills won't be greatly impacted in future (and was actually one of the reasons the bank agreed to give us such a hefty mortgage after we couldn't find anything in the price range the bank said we could have)!

No but it was 16 years ago when the bank did 100% mortgages. We wouldn't have stood a chance otherwise.

No help at all. It was 1999 and I got no help. Never had any on subsequent houses either.

Bought with DH in 2019- 2 bed flat in London. Lived with family for 3 years.

Minimal - about 2% towards deposit.

Covered the solicitors fees (London leasehold) and the moving costs with a little left over to add to the deposit.

Definitely appreciated but didn't really make a difference to what I could afford in my own right.

No - I paid board to my Mum as soon as I left school but I've worked since I was 13. I had enough savings for the fees - stamp duty & solicitors, and borrowed the 5% deposit on a credit card. I was working full time and studying for professional qualifications too so had a career and salary plan.
The first year or so was really really hard, I had no furniture so slept on the floor, and the gas fire was condemned and no central heating, but it was mine. Eventually I paid off the credit card debt and then started to overpay the mortgage every time I cleared a debt or got a pay rise.
I did it on my own, but I was still very fortunate to have been able to buy in the first place, and by todays prices, if I also had to pay rent too, there's no way I could do it.

@ComtesseDeSpair

That's a great way of looking at it, thank you. I am happy with the way things turned out though, and the fact I was given that choice.

Nope. I did live back home rent free for 6 months, though, which allowed me to save quicker. They did - extremely kindly - give me £1k towards furniture, as I’d only ever rented furnished before that.

No but we worked five jobs between us (full time 'proper' job each and then add on weekend/evenings).

We only needed 14.5k (10%) deposit which seemed doable so passed like ships in the night for 2.5 years and did pretty much nothing that cost money but it meant that we could buy at 21 by which time we had a two year old and was about to give birth to our second. 17 years on our house is worth pretty much the same and we live in a cheap area but with affordability changing for mortgages I dont think we would ever be offered a mortgage if it was now. We have never attempted to remortgage or move and have 8 years left on the mortgage.

£50k gifted and had another £130k from investments made on DH behalf throughout his childhood. Also graduated from uni & grad degrees with no debt because families paid. Also had the option of living with parents for short periods while between flats, I realize in hindsight this flexibility let us wait for the right flat we could afford, instead of being pushed into whatever was available.

No.

We bought our house in the 90's but my husband was an IT professional but transitioned to a self-employed IT contractor based in Europe.

The pay was definitely much bigger in order for us to have the money to buy a home but we had to live apart for a while which was not ideal when we had young children.

Dh had 10k inheritance from his nan.
Properties were very cheap then and we were teenagers when we got our first mortgage. Very, very lucky and privileged.
I grew up in council houses and will never inherit anything as none of my family own any property. So I am extremely grateful.
I don't think we'd have done it otherwise.

Not directly. But my mum didn't charge me rent when I turned 18. I had saved from when I started working part time at 16. And saved most my wage when I started working full time.

The sale went through 2 months before my 20th birthday, which was 2002. I was lucky in that the house was only 64k and it went up and sold for 93, 2 years later. Unfortunately, I also married my then dp. Who turned over the course of a 15 year marriage slowly turned into someone who was financially and emotionally abusive. He fuxked our finances over several times. Including, near the end, using my credit card for his business. After that I spent the next 3 years getting that paid off getting nt credit rating sorted and then left. There was enough money in the house to get me a mortgage a small 3 bed terrace, which is where I am now. So at 37 I was in a similar position as I was at 19.

But we are looking to move in the next couple of years as I now earn quite a bit more. I have a job where I own shares so get a payment each year on top of my wage. The next payment will the one I use to get a house.

Mum has recently died and dad gave us a small amount of money but wants me to spend it frivolously. Its just sat in my bank as I can't bring myself to.

Mum and dad have always been helpful in other ways though.