To wonder how the next generation will buy a house

[macaronitoni]

Surely there needs to be a massive overhaul of the system. A new build home with two bedrooms on a new development nearby is £315k. Not London. Midlands. Who’s going to be buying that? Too small for a family with more than one DC but way out of budget for most first time buyers.

Without significant family help, how will today’s children and young people manage to buy a house? Something has to change!

You can't be serious?

It's THEIR money to pay for their own care.

Couldn't agree more. I detest the vilification of huge swathes of people, many of whom are very far from living the easy life social media portrays. Many of whom were/are the pioneers in the green movement.

This is an excellent point. My son bought his house for a touch over £100k. It’s a terrace on a very long street of terraces. It’s literally 100 miles from where he was working so his rail commute took three hours a day but that was the only way he could buy. Not his ideal or anything close to it but his own house nonetheless.

100 mile commute. would be better off getting a new job, or else rent close to the current job.

prices are falling and will fall a lot more

Again, depends on location and price. Expensive postcodes are falling, cheap postcodes around me are holding up.

For now. interest rates only going to keep rising

So you’re given an example of someone who proves it’s perfectly possible to buy an house and your response is they’d be better off renting in a much more expensive area. I rest my case.

No. My point is that commuting expenses plus mortgage on a depreciating asset is worse than renting a place closer to work to allow some off time from work.

I rest my case x

My dd's only chance was through inheritance from her grandparents but the money is being swallowed up in care home fees so they'll be nothing left.

@lollipoprainbow her only chance was her grandparents money that they are using for care for themselves? What about her parents and herself? I've been saving for my DC since she was born for a house deposit, and will continue to do so until she is an adult. I will expect her to have a part time job when she's 16 and at uni (if she goes) and to save herself from that. She certainly will not be relying on grandparents money.

Your point is nonsensical. The house has increased in value by 30% The mortgage and season ticket combined were a lot less than paying someone elses’s mortgage rent where he worked. Just admit it, it’s not impossible to buy a place.

Oh, and please stop putting kisses on you posts.

Fwiw I actually don’t own a house. I am in rented.

I am well aware how hard it is to buy a place as I have 2 young adult children.

However one bought for cash at 18 (4figures) what she could afford, and no where near where she needed to be.
A tiny grotty flat in a grotty area 300+ miles away.
The idea being that she would do it up and then sell it. Then buy something else and do the same over and over getting closer and closer to where she needed to be.
Covid put a stop to her selling so rather than leave it empty she rented the place out

She is now looking at buying her 2nd place.

As I have said before. People say they can’t afford to buy. What they usually mean is they can’t afford to buy the house they want in the area they want.

Threads are started on here all the time, the op asking why they can’t afford to buy.

They usually state that they live in an expensive area and wants to stay in the area. But can’t afford to buy there.

People notice that a few minutes by train away from where they are there is an area that is cheaper and within the posters budget.

But the poster doesn’t see why they should for 1 minute live on a 70s housing estate and commute to work when they want a Victorian terrace in the centre of the city and walk to work.

But they can’t afford those houses and won’t compromise so remain in rented.
Bitching about how it’s other peoples fault they can’t buy

Yes we are in a cost of living crisis now but over the last decade we haven’t been.
Interest rates were low Mortgages were available but people wouldn’t compromise. They didn’t see the need.

When Dh and I bought you could get a 100% mortgage. IF your multiples added up.
Most peoples multiples didn’t add up so
would save for years, not going out, living with parents, working 2 or 3 jobs

I have seen people stating that people could afford to buy as the average wage at the time was £X and failing to realise that for the average to be an average that meant that for everyone earning over the average there were people earning significantly below that figure.

Having seen not just Dd buy but other younger people and those with children buy, maybe not ideal places, but places they could afford I can only assume it is down to compromise and nothing more.

I have friends who bought 1 bed flats and moved in with their 2 children just to get out of renting.

Yet this thread started off by saying

A new build home with two bedrooms on a new development nearby is £315k. Not London. Midlands. Who’s going to be buying that? Too small for a family with more than one DC but way out of budget for most first time buyers

Without significant family help, how will today’s children and young people manage to buy a house? Something has to change

Maybe what needs to change is peoples attitudes that you can’t possibly entertain having more than one child in a 2 bed home and even the thought that as FTBs the expectation is a house.

The answer to the question

how will today’s children and young people manage to buy a house

Maybe the answer is buy a studio or 1 bed flat and trade up every few years till you can afford a house like everyone else has done and is doing

Whilst the house might be “depreciating” atm it isn’t really relevant to the person who lives there unless you think houses are not homes but places to make money off
In a few years time it will be worth more than he paid for it and will give him a stepping stone to a property that is a closer commute.
One that he couldn’t have afforded if he had remained in rented

I completely agree and I'm a millennial, not a boomer. What is wrong with a 2 bed with two DC? Of course most people can't afford a 3 bed as their first house, let alone a 3 bed in a new build development. We bought an older 2 bed as our first house, in our twenties, and if we had to we would have made it work with DC. As it was, we sacrificed fancy holidays, cars and expensive nights out for longer and stepped up the ladder and now have a 4 bed in an expensive area. It can definitely be done you just have to compromise and prioritise.

I agree people think they need more space than they do but that’s across the board - so many elderly couples in huge detached 4/5 bedroom houses because they ‘need’ the space. I also agree children can share bedrooms and it isn’t ‘child abuse’ in fact it’s normal and healthy, although obviously same sex if they’re older kids or teens. I don’t think a couple buying a first home ‘need’ a 3 bedroom house, or even a house at all. What’s wrong with a flat? Nor do they need to be sparkling new and Insta worthy.

It’s already worth £30k more than he paid for it. He doesn’t do the commute any more.

In my area all the doer uppers are bought by developers so ftb dont get a look in so that way of starting out has dried up here. Yes people can move areas but whilst that works for an individual , its not healthy to have whole towns where the people that service those towns from shop workers, cleaners, healthcare assistants, teaching assistant, secretaries and even nurses, teachers, firemen cant afford a basic home. I mean a 100 mile commute might be ok for an office worker doing 9-5, but some shift work really doesnt fit with public transport well and driving long distance after a night shift is a bit dangerous in my mind.

The point is that the property will devalue, wiping out any gains and possibly the deposit. But if he no longer commutes 200 miles a day then that is different x

Exactly

but some MN's cant accept that.

Ok. Buying in Inverness or the highlands is possible. but people buy where they work x

They buy where they work if they can afford it. If they can’t it’s sensible to look at easily commutable areas with affordable house prices. If sitting on a train for two hours a day means you can buy a house instead of paying an extortionate rent, why wouldn’t you?

if you are paying 7k a year in train fares then you add that onto the mortgage

unsustainable IMO x

if you are paying 7k a year in train fares then you add that onto the mortgage

Given a lot of office based workers don’t go into the office 5 days per week anymore and the mortgage you get is usually smaller out goings than when you were paying rent. It could work out as less outgoings over all.

Or you could buy, and rent out and remain in rented.

Or you could do what people I know have done and that is move into what they could afford in an area all be it a 1 bed flat in the suburbs to house themselves and 2 dc.
They got rid of everything apart from the basics. Dc had the bedroom and parents had a sofa bed in the living room.
Other friend who was a single mum bought herself a studio flat with her very young dc. They are all in houses now.

This isn’t years and years ago.

People do buy when they are younger and without the help of family and when in low paid jobs.
You have to ask yourself why can they do it and others can’t seem to.

I said that. The mortgage and season ticket combined were a lot less than paying (someone elses’s mortgage) rent where he worked. Obviously it was sustainable or he wouldn’t have done it. Do you think people don’t work this out?

That is exactly what happened in the UK in the early 90s. People thought house prices would never stop rising, but they did quite abruptly. It took about 10 years for them to return to 1990 level.

Flat prices in my area of London (1930s build) have not risen since 2015. And it is definitely not going up in the next 2 years! That's like a 10 year stagnation...