I’m never ever ever buying a house. How do people even do it?!

[misstartan]

I’m 26 and I just feel like giving up. I currently flat share with a friend but want to move in with DP soon.

I have £2500 saved up and that’s it. DP has about the same so we’re nowhere near a deposit. We’re both earning a decent amount but we’re not putting enough away. I’ve tried budgeting etc and put about £300 a month away if I’m lucky.

But realistically deposits will be around 30k now, so I’m only about 28 away… 😂😭

Thing is, I’ve always had it in my head that I’d have bought a house and got married before I have kids. And I’ve always wanted to start having kids by 30. Only gives me 4 years..
I genuinely genuinely do not see how this is going to happen and it really upsets me 🙁

How do people do it?! The

Seeing as you don’t have children @Whapples why don’t you go full time or get a second job to increase your savings? You could also scale back on a 3 bed house with a garden, there are only 2 of you you could start off in a 2 bed.

This

I bought my first house at 20 with no help or inheritance. I'm in the north east too. Mortgage just about paid off in my 40s on a large detached 4/5 bed house

Would it be possible to move to an area where property is cheaper? It's about quality of life at the end of the day.
..

How exactly does everyone think OP is going to be able to afford to do up ‘a wreck?’

Lots of houses in the north east for 99k

Lovely 4 bed detached for £200k

A friend has just bought a 3 bed terrace for £65k to rent out. We are in the north east

We bought our house at ages 28/29 for £425k without help from wealthy parents or similar. Our incomes were good/modest (35k/45k) and we obviously could have afforded a cheaper house if our incomes were lower instead

What worked for us was:

DH (DP at the time) lived with his parents for a few years & saved majority of his income every month. Worked a lot of overtime

I lived in houseshares instead & didn't own a car, so again was able to save a good chunk of income. Regularly volunteered for overtime shifts and swapping day shifts for out of hours shifts which come with out of hours premium

Basically just not spending much money on things like new clothes etc. If we needed something, we either got it 2nd hand or waited for a birthday/Christmas and asked for the item as a present from family

You borrowed £350-400k? What fix did you get?

@BananaHam

good/modest?? A combined household income of £80k is not normal at 28/29. And that is in 2023, not whenever you bought.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65271214

@ThankmelaterOkay we borrowed just over 300,000 on a 2.little bit % 5 year fix through Natwest. We did use additional savings for legal costs and stamp duty so we didn't have to use any of the house equity in moving costs.

mortgage deal agreed April 2022 so I'm not sure there are such good interest rates now, we had it fixed just in the nick of time.

Wow. Incredible luck. Guess you earned it from the years of living like you did.

No, rates are minimum 4% now.

No one earns luck, it is just luck!

Had three kids while renting and just bought our first “forever” house at age 34/36.

I don’t know many people who bought a family house at your age and I don’t think there is any problem with having kids while renting! At your age I could have never imagined owning a house, yet here we are..

My husband’s grand daughter and her BF have just bought a small house. They saved £100 k between them, not high earners, just very frugal. No flash cars, go out in his works van. Not London however, don’t know how anyone’s buys a house there

True, but in @BananaHam ’s case, they did sacrifice a fair bit. So I’ll give it to them.

However, I wouldn’t agree with buying a do-er upper in the state they did now:
•Market 2017-2022 will not be like 2023-2028
•renovation costs higher
•interest rates double

Not sure you’d generate £120k equity on a £170k 2023 property in the 2023-2028 parallel universe.

But this isn’t the end of the world. @BananaHam’s dream house at £420k in 2022 had probably increased in value by 15-20% since 2017. So it was probably worth £350k in 2017. So if they’d stretched to that then, they’d have pocketed £70k, plus equity earned through paying off the mortgage.

We both worked second jobs for a number of years , saved and bought a house that needed a lot of work

We also didn't have children until after we'd bought a property

That may not be possible. Biological clock

I'm in my late 30s. Single mother to two children, though one is a mid-teen by now, but the other still needs wraparound childcare.

It's entirely doable. I did it after my ex husband and I split up. I have no financial backing from parents (I am non-contact with one and very low contact with the other). I started again with nothing and having left an awful lot of stuff in the marital home for the sake of a quick divorce.

The first thing I did was to push for promotion at work to get more money - something that was granted after 2 years of very hard graft.

I rented a cheap house in an undesirable area from a landlord who had no real interest in maintaining the property bar the bare basics. It enabled me to save, and I was brutal: £300pcm minimum went into a savings pot - more if I was able to work more days or make significant savings elsewhere.

I haven't been on holiday for about 5 years and outings with the kids are still very much cheap or free things to do, such as walking in the woods, natural crafts, the occasioanl trip swimming or ice skating - never anything big. My car is almost 20 years old and looks it.

A year ago I managed to buy a cheap terraced house, having saved a mere £18,000. Again, it's in an undesirable area, not very pretty on the outside, but, being ex-council stock, it's spacious and really well-built in that I don't hear my neighbours at all.

I learned enough DIY to get by - the teen and I painted all the rooms, I learned how to carpet a room and thus saved enormously on labour costs carpeting two rooms on my own. I bought flat pack furniture and built it myself, or got charity shop furniture. I fixed my own curtain rails. I changed door handles from ugly plastic shite to more modern ones, found two local roofers just starting out to fix things on my roof and clear the gutters cheaply but well. I sealed any gaps to save money and heat over the winter. I did some basic gardening to make both the front and back visually more attractive. I used end-of-season beachware, such as beach mats, to decorate my bathroom. Over the summer I will be tiling the bathroom, re-glazing the tub and getting a shower installed.

Every month I do one or two jobs on the house to make it slightly more attractive. It's a work in progress and if you want your own place and don't have financial backing then it's unlikely you'll land your dream home, but you can make any house into a dream home with just a little bit of work.

@Whapples

Here are a few things you could do to increase your savings:
Get a full time job or a 2nd job
Move back in with your parents
Get DP to move back in with parents
Move into shared accommodation where you rent a room

If you do the above your savings will increase dramatically.

Stop looking at '3 bed houses with a garden' - look at flats or 2 bed houses

I think your expectations are unrealistic. Also £10k on a wedding is huge, don't spend it all your savings on that. Good luck

@Skethylita that's amazing! You should be so proud of yourself

I read a comment saying that those of us saying to buy a flat are being unrealistic. I completely disagree. It's called a ladder for a reason. You can't just magically buy a house. You start at the bottom and work your way up as your mortgage reduces and income increases.
I bought a 2 bed flat in a rough area at 21. I now own a 4 bed detached in a nice area with a couple of houses in between.
I'm not disputing I bought at a different time but don't forget interest rates were different then too.
I didn't have any holidays etc in my early 20s as my mortgage was a lot for my lower income

What job do you do? Will your salary increase in time, will you be promoted, earn more in time? 26k is £1808 take home pay. Totally respectable salary, but not huge if you are trying to save for a house deposit.

What does Dp do work wise? Will his salary increase soon?

The reality is that you can’t have everything and you have to prioritise and think ahead and plan and be willing to make sacrifices for considerable periods to achieve what you want. Many people feel they ‘shouldn’t have to’ do this and won’t, or only do it for a short time and then give up…..so find themselves in the same position they were at 25 and 30 and 35…..except now they have 2 kids and the property they ‘need’ and means to boost income and reduce outgoings has reduced from what it was at 25.

If you have kids early whilst in rented, you need to recognise that it will be harder to buy. You are less flexible to take on a 2nd job, to live at home with parents to save up, or to rent just a room in a shared house or as a lodger. This significantly reduces your ability to save.

If you focus on this pre-kids and are willing to make sacrifices for perhaps 5 years, I think most people can save the deposit. The sacrifices are living so you can save. This means not renting a whole property for you and partner to live in, which is really expensive. It means going back to parents if possible and living cheaply ir rent free. If this isn’t possible, being a lodger or having 1 room between you in a shared house in a cheap area is the next least expensive housing option to allow you to save up. Both need to take on an extra 10-15 hours work in evenings or weekends. Holidays, car finance etc need to go.

Not palatable or acceptable? That’s the difference between someone who doesn’t manage to buy and someone who does (excluding parental help).

Some people see the reality of what is necessary to get a deposit and will do what it takes. Many others think they shouldn’t have to do that, so find themselves in the same position 15 years later. That’s their choice. Others decide to start saving hard, but find it miserable and within a year give up and spend the savings on a big holiday to cheer themselves up.

I think a key thing is being honest about the impact of having kids and especially kids early. People feel they should be able to have kids whenever they want. Well yes they can, but there are financial consequences of those choices.

Lots of threads tell of people living in grotty, bad area, very small houses whilst renting and saving, or as their first purchase. But lots of people say they couldn’t live like that …..but it’s all a choice isn’t it.

I'm 10 years older than you, live in the same area and me and DH bought our first place at age 23.

It's was £115,000, needed a complete renovation, and was on a dodgy council estate that no wants to live on. I loved that flat! We've moved twice since then.

We saved up, no one gave us a penny. But DH was able to lots of the work himself, so obviously that saved us a lot. Both lived at home and saved as much as possible.

I've just had a look on Rightmove and similar properties are around £280k now (can't find any in the condition had though!). So the only answer is earn more money and save as much as possible.

I wouldn’t panic about your age. I didn’t buy until I was about 33 and I was single and broke but I prioritised buying a place as I didn’t want to leave it any longer (having lived in Essex once upon a time but couldn’t afford to stay.)