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.

My mother gave me money towards buying a house, she had already done the same for my older brother and she'll do the same for my younger siblings when the time comes. She sees it as an early inheritance as I have siblings with special needs who will inherit the family home.

She also offered for me and my partner to stay with her rent free to try and save a bit more but I said no, I thought it would be too disruptive and unfair to add us to an already fairly full house. We would have been on top of each other and I don't think whatever amount we saved would have been worth upsetting my siblings with special needs. Also my partner would have felt uncomfortable as he doesn't come from a big family so mine is a bit hectic for him.

I didn't, but I bought in 1993 when home ownership was achievable. Fully expect to need to help DS and DD when the time comes.

In 1984, then DP had a small (£10k) from his late DM's life insurance, which he used as deposit on our first joint house purchase, which we paid in proportion to our salaries.

We agreed than when we sold, he would get that back and we would split the rest in the same proportion.

I bought my next house in 1990 by myself, using my share of the profit from the sale of our joint house as my deposit. A few years later, DF retired and split his pension lump sum between my sister and I. Seeing how much money saved over the standard lifetime of the mortgage, I paid that mortgage off as quickly as possible. I was nearly mortgage free when now DH and I decided to move in together and buy a new house together.

He had endowment policies to match my deposit (!) after divorce, and is much older. We got the joint mortgage based on my salary alone and paid it off over ten years.

Absolutely clear how lucky I have been and feel very much for subsequent generations priced out of buying a home when the stock of properties to rent is so poor.

No financial help but we did get second hand furniture from my grandparents house.

No

No

No. Neither direct nor indirect help for house buying or anything else really (i.e. I paid my own way through uni etc. But this also meant that I didn't buy my first house until I was 37 yrs old.

Yes.
I was in my early 20s when my mum died so I had a large chunk of money from that. My first purchase fell through from survey results and after that, my dad almost doubled the money I had from inheritance so we were able to buy a ‘step up’ on the ladder so I was able to buy a nice 3 bed.

I’m not proud of it but I am very grateful. Although I’d rather have my mum.

We didn't have any help buying our home but i know lots of people do have some financial help from parents.

To add; this is current day south east prices. I’m 29 and we bought last summer. Living situation was complex before that and circumstances meant I wasn’t in a position to buy.

DH parents leant us the deposit £5000, paid back within a couple of years.

My husband bought his first flat himself before we bought a house together a year later. However that was back in the early 2000's when younger people could get a 100% mortgage. His parents did help by buying all the items he'd need to move in like bedding, kitchen items like dinner sets and they bought his telly. He was also helped by the fact that the seller was willing to leave sofa, bed frame and white goods which made a big difference to him getting started. He sold the flat a year later at a very good profit, which set us up for our joint property purchase and we didn't require any help from family from that point onwards.

Not a bean, but we bought our house in 1996 when the cost of houses were relatively cheap!

Parky04 I think it was less common for parents to help then, I also bought my first house in 1996. I found after about 20 to 21 most if not all of my friends didn’t rely on their parents at all and most had moved out of the family home.

Yes. An inheritance from an elderly relative that my mum used to help me. Could never have managed otherwise. Both DH and I were on low wage jobs and renting and could never have saved enough.

In a nod to Kirsty, we had no gym membership, had take away maybe once every six months, went to a coffee shop as a rare treat, didn’t go out much - not a chance we’d have ever been able to save. Nice to have parents who can help isn’t it Kirsty?

No, and I bought about 5 years ago in my early twenties. I hate all this narrative about how much you need to save to buy in London. It’s b*llocks- there is a reason people live in commuter towns- most people have never been able to afford to live in London- it’s nothing new.

No help at all. Bought my first house aged 21 twenty five years ago with a 95% mortgage. Cheaper area. Second hand everything for about 5 years but managed to source some very well made furniture and near new kitchen appliances. Sat on a deck chairs for the 8 weeks and probably lived hand to mouth for the first 5 years. I took my double bed from home which was already 7 years old but bought a new mattress. My father in law bought us a washing machine as a present as we had a baby. We were unable to stay in our parents houses until we saved more money so we had no option but to get a 95% mortgage. Never any help financially in all the years other than a dryer and a washing machine as gifts

Yes, I moved in with my dad to stop renting privately and saved a load of money. I also got a second job. We were very lucky to buy a rubbish house in a nice area

We got a loan from parents to make up our deposit by another £3000. We loved the house, as did they, and they didn't want us to lose it for the sake of another few months (we'd been saving £700 per month and had a sizeable deposit ourselves).

Yes insofar as one of my parents died when I was a teenager and left me some money I was able to use for a deposit.

We had some inheritance from my grandparents, some savings and some from a TV quiz show win.

No. We saved for a deposit while renting. We bought our first house at 22 in 2002. We’ll be helping our kids to buy if they want us to, it’s so much harder now than it was when we did it.

Kirsty Allsopp has proved on more than one occasion that she needs to STFU. She’s not a nice person.

Yes, from indirect help (living with parents whilst studying and paying no rent) to inheritance from grandparents. My DH owned a house when we met. He’d had a bit of help from his parents to buy that. They then gifted us a large amount of money when we bought our current family sized house as well. We’d own a house now on our salaries/savings but it would be a lot smaller. I try to be honest with people as it’s nothing we’ve done that allow us to live where we do. Forever grateful to my in-laws.

Yes.

I bought last year with a massive loan from my parents, plus a smaller gift. My brother and his wife bought I think about 5 years ago with a gift-plus-loan from my parents and I think also a smaller gift from my SIL's parents. My youngest brother bought in about 2010 with a gift-plus-loan from my parents and a massive gift from his then-girlfriend's parents. They were 22 and 23 and they've never had a mortgage; they've just sold their one-bed London flat and they've got an absolutely sickeningly big budget for their next house, which will be outside London.

I try to be open about this because I have come across a fair few people who claim 'oh no, my parents never gave us a penny' when, like us, what they mostly benefitted from was a parental loan. It is a huge help. I don't think my parents could have afforded to lend all of us money at the same time, but it's made an enormous difference to us.

Nope no help, no money or staying there to save money however we're further north so it was hard but not too bad got 10 % deposit and sol. Fees in just under/ over a year. Bought just before an area became unaffordable and would price us out. It was choice between buying in X or saving more and hoping to get in y. Right call in general as area y increased faster than even we could have saved. I couldn't afford a shed where my parents live in se.

Our big boost was moving to a tiny rental that saved us approx 100 a month which went straight in the pot. Our lender also helped us further along by altering our years to match our old rent give or take so we asked for 25 years as we thought that's just what you do, she got us to 18 using the overpayment we were gonna do anyway.
Giving us the freedom to over pay more if we have it as none of this was in the 10% overpay limit as well as saving us 30k in interest compared to the 25 year one.