To think that renters have put up with big monthly rises for years

[Upthebracket22]

We rent because we have been priced out of the housing market for years & years. We have raised our kids in a rented house & put up with large rises in monthly payments. We’ve been ‘lucky’ in that we’ve been on our current house for 10 years.

Noone has given a flying fuck about renters & the amount we pay & have had to find extra each year but now it’s mortgages going up, it’s all ‘poor mortgage holders’ - it’s really grating on me.

As it goes, the coming housing downturn will mean we actually might be able to buy a house. Safe secure affordable housing is a good thing.

the current housing boom has been created by cheap money and that era is ending. An entire generation of people have been priced out of a safe home & while I don’t want to people in difficulty, renters have had to put up with it for years ‘move to a cheaper area’ being the main nonsense.

We are a normal family with good jobs but saving for a deposit has been impossible because of insanely high rents.

i am tired of the ‘poor mortgage holder’ rhetoric when those of us trapped in rented homes have put up with large monthly hikes for years.

i know this won’t be a popular view on here but for us renters, the last decade had been difficult and no one has given a shit.

Everyone saying buy before having kids... Will your own kids be able to do that? My 20 year old ds may not! He has another few years in uni, then unless he moves back in with me for many years it will be difficult for him to save up a deposit. If he lives with me his options for employment are very limited. If he stays in his university city his ability to pay rent and save for a deposit are limited. He hasn't met his future wife yet (as far as I know!) He has a lot of living to do still. He may not be able to follow the MN preferred path of uni, graduate job whilst living at home saving, home purchase, marriage, kids.

I don't think he's alone in not being able to do that. It's not always achievable, and failure to stick to that path isn't a poor decision that needs to be 'owned'! It also shouldn't mean that families ought to be at the mercy of unstable landlords, just because they had kids.

So he should get a graduate job earning say £25k. Whilst he is single, he can continue to rent in a house share. Say £400-500 a month all bills included. Add transport costs, food, some for clothing etc ...and a bit to go out once a week and he should be able to put at least £500 if not more aside a month. That's £6,000 a year.

If the future girlfriend dies the sane, that's £24k in only two years. Surely that still makes the dream of getting in the ladder very accessible.

Of course, that involves making it a priority and forfeiting a nice car, fancy food, Take outs, regular extravagant nights out, weekend away and holidays, regular clothes shopping. It really is about priorities.

Should we not have a society and economy that allows the occasional fuck up that doesn’t scars you for the rest of your life, and your children’s lives? We don’t all live in perfect lives that go completely to plan.
in order to buy a house now you have to manage school well, not mess up at school or have any outside issues that side track that.
get your head down in a good career that will pay above average wages to get the loan to wage value.
find a decent partner with the same views and ethics, hope they don’t cheat on you, develop addiction issues or debts.
live at home (have parents happy for that, financially secure to continue to provide and your comfortable with) and hope your contraception holds.

just to buy a secure home.

I mean, fucking awesome if you can at the age of 14 create that plan and stick to it. But shouldn’t we have an economy that allows a slip up now and then meaning your kids stand half a chance of being able to achieve it?

I don't know. I am in my mid-30s and don't have children but that's because I have been focused on my career and met my partner later (another factor that affects the ability to buy a house younger). We have the money to buy but are just waiting to relocate with my new job to an area where we have family so don't really have any skin in this game.

To play devil's advocate, I also know people that deliberately took out mortgages before having children as it would be easier to get on the ladder. Now they have childcare expenses or are on a single income and are panicking over remortgaging on a higher rate, so I don't think that's really the solution. The point is overall house prices are unaffordable.

In the same way people have been chastising millennials for eating avocado toast and having iPhones you could tell current homeowners to give up their car lease, cut back their lifestyle, move to a cheaper area if they can't afford the higher interest rates. (Not saying this is right btw, just that you could make the argument). It's crap all around but I think OP's point was that there is usually a lot more sympathy for homeowners, saying they shouldn't have to move to a cheaper area and "give up their home" when they can't afford their mortgage payments. (And I am an advocate for moving. I roll my eyes at the people who aren't willing to move to a less prestigious post code but you shouldn't be forced to move to the other side of the country either.)

It's not a race to the bottom. Yes, having your mortgage payments suddenly go up is stressful (although most people will have some time to plan for it now). It's equally stressful to have your rent go up each year and have to find a new place to live.

how have they funded Uni?

Well, who knows what the future holds, but I'd hope it would be possible.

Happy for our DC to live with us paying minimal/no rent for as long as is needed and I hope they would think that was a sensible way forward.

Fortunate that we're in an okay location in terms of job prospects/communtability though house-shares are obviously a cheaper option than renting individually/in a couple.

what if the girlfriend cheats on him? Or visa versa. Or they just decide they aren’t the one.
What happens about the flat etc

its fine if the plan works and nothing changes or slips up, but life isn’t like that for the majority

Student loans? Part-time job? I took a gap-year before university - not to swan off on exotic trips abroad but to earn money to pay for it.

When generation rents kids go to Uni it’s going to be an absolute nightmare for parents trying to be guarantors for two rents and paying rents.
Plus having them live at home whilst saving, whilst parents are dealing with rent rises so they can buy somewhere.
you’ll do it if you can of course.

your plan is based on having parents in a position to help. So your already disadvantaged people before they’ve even made their own choice

you could tell current homeowners to give up their car lease, cut back their lifestyle, move to a cheaper area if they can't afford the higher interest rates.

Yes, and that's what people will be doing. But to be fair, it is cheaper (and there are fewer logistics involved) to move to a cheaper rental than to go through the process of selling and buying somewhere cheaper.

Same here, but I'm tenant. We offered 50 quid more, because we liked the house and pay same rent since 2017, but my landlord doesn't pay mortgage, it's been bought for cash.

Depending on how much his uni loan gets and if he decides to work part-time during his study, he could have started to save for a house.

I've gone to University at a later age, and luckily I got a full loan, but I wouldn't have gotten any help from my parents anyway, as everyone is on some benefits/low pay.

But shouldn’t we have an economy that allows a slip up now and then meaning your kids stand half a chance of being able to achieve it?
It's not a slip up though. It's a life choice. I wanted 5 kids, I really did. I could have but wouldn't be in my comfortable position if I had.

I had a 'slip up'. My first was an accident and was renting at the time. To counterbalance, I return FT and saved every penny so that we could afford to buy before going for number two.

Being a house owner is a privilege and something you gave to make sacrifices to aspire too. Yes it would be nice if you could all have all we want, but life isn't like that.

how have they funded Uni?
Ummm I don't know, like mine and thousands of others, loans and working maybe?

This thread is full of entirely predictable replies:

• move to a cheaper area
• don’t have kids if you rent
• oh you are so bitter as a renter
• you don’t know how hard it is as a landlord
• you have made bad life decisions because you rent
• surely if you earn Xxx you can buy…

ETC

Its mainly the people who rent on this thread that really understand the issues of renting and how hard it is to save/buy.

mortgage holders should not be bailed out using tax payers money either.

what if the girlfriend cheats on him? Or visa versa. Or they just decide they aren’t the one.What happens about the flat etc
They sale, share the equity and either go back to house sharing until they've saved enough if their share is not enough for a deposit on a studio flat.

The thing is too many people only choose to focus on reasons why they can't do something rather than the options so they can.

Not everyone wants to own a house - I have friends in their 40s and 50s who are perfectly happy renting. They have previously owned houses, but prefer renting.

I have a friend in her 50s who's spent her entire life changing countries without ever owning a house and has no desire to. I quite envy her lifestyle!

I do think rents in the UK are alarming and there are a number of bad landlords. I have a few BTLs, and I just had to put the rent up on one (3%) for the first time in 7 years. That was because of a big increase in service charges. I don't usually put rents up - I'd rather keep good tenants. In my 10 years of owning BTLs I've never made a profit - it's not an easy thing to do. And yes, I'd love to sell my properties - but they're flats with cladding issues so are currently worthless. So I'm stuck with them.

And it’s bloody annoying which I get.

But I also know it isn’t accurate to claim that most people are priced out of home ownership: they aren’t.

I do notice on here generally - not aimed at you OP - that there is a fairly regular hark back to the days you could buy a three bed house with a garden for £30,000.

I think we have to realise as a country those days are long gone. House prices in the uk are high. They just are. Even in cheap areas, they are high.

At the moment there are a lack of properties to rent so that’s pushing the prices up.

This is not a comment on politics but Darwin did say a long time ago that the most successful species are ones that can adapt quickly to a changing environment. That is what we all have to do and a lot of the albeit annoying advice is reflective of this.

And to all the people on here who seem to have life planned out & haven’t made any mistakes, are you going to be the ones begging for government support when you can’t pay your mortgage or will you acknowledge that you made a mistake taking out too big a mortgage that you can no longer afford ?

Because you seem to have a lot of advice for renters about how we fucked up by not buying in the sequence we apparently should have done

This thread is full of entirely predictable replies
Indeed. So many posts starting with 'but', focusing on justifying why they couldn't do something, ignoring the choices they made that contributed to where they are and blaming others for it. Others who might have been in the exact same position than them but ultimately chose different priorities but made to be evil people for having reach their goals that others think they deserve too.

I've swallowed 4 mortgage rate hikes without putting my tenants rent up . She has been there 8yrs and her rent has gone up once but it's still 250/300 below market rate .We're not all bad .

One thing I have never done and would never recommend anyone does is to rely on the government, @Upthebracket22

Things can and do change but nonetheless I am not seeking noblesse oblige here.

Yes, but a lot of the people commenting (myself included) will also have rented for several (if not many) years before buying and will have bought much closer to 2020 than 1990! I was still a child in 1990! 😂

Considering you have kids and have been living in the same house for 10 years, you are very likely to be the same generation.

Completely agree with you OP.

When you're approaching 40 with a decent income, no luxuries like holidays for nearly ten years and STILL can't afford a house because of high rents, it's horrible.

When you've been unable to save due to high rents, why shouldn't you want to buy somewhere bigger than a one bed flat close to your child's school?

If you haven't had to rent for decades you don't understand. Having insecure homes, no fault evictions and forking out money for moving and deposits.

If you've faced as many no fault evictions as your average private renter you'd understand why we don't want to keep moving just to do the 'property ladder'.

And if they’ve got kids?