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

This is the general message, yes
https://news.sky.com/story/bank-of-england-rate-setter-urges-people-to-accept-they-are-poorer-in-fight-against-inflation-12866426

I bought on my own at the age of 34 after years and years of saving. Saved about 28K. Tbh, I was (and sometimes still feel it) a bit bitter as literally every person I knew had been helped with deposit by parents/grandparents. I m not from the UK originally and had none of this.. surprised to see so many British ladies who also had to do it on their own.
And yes, my first house was a tiny Victorian 2 bed doer upper. Benefitted by mouse/rat infestation as it turned out 😂I then met my DH 2 years later, and finally we bought our current 3 bed semi 5 years ago

I'm also 26 and just bought a house last year (with my DH). We saved £17,000 ourselves for the deposit (which turned into over £20k with LISA top ups) between 2018 and 2022. When I say we had NO social life from 2020-2022, I mean it... but we also had 2 kids in those years so we were busy anyway lol.

We had a savings plan of £400pcm (between us) for 5 years to save £30,000 (inc 25% top ups from our LISAs) in the hope of buying the year we turned 30, but we were gifted an inheritance when DH lost a family member which sped up our timeline - not rich parents, but yes an inheritance. We were aiming for around a £45k deposit with our savings plan, hoping to be able to save more with wage increases etc (or buy sooner) but it would have been unlikely without the inheritance.

Obviously not everyone can do this but DH and I saved my whole wage and lived on his.

Never had any money spare but we made it work. I imagine when you and DP live together it'll be a lot easier to budget as a team effort

House prices are ridiculous at the mo OP I bought 10 years ago in the North West and similar starter houses like mine on my street have nearly doubled in price. The job I was in 10 years ago certainly isn't paying nearly double. I don't understand how the housing market can sustain this above inflation overbloating, and rents are ridiculous. In 2012 my rent was £650 for the house my (now) husband and I were renting, I saw an advert for a house on the same street recently for £1150! I don't think you can rent a 1 bed flat for £650 in my town nowadays.

Just keep saving as much as you can OP I think (hope) there will probably be a correction soon. I was about your age when I started seriously saving for a deposit and very few people buy their first house before 30 nowadays unless they have inherited wealth or substantial family help. Xx

I think these days people need to stay living with parents as long as possible while saving up for a deposit and getting on the property ladder with something really small like a one bed flat. You can't expect to rent and save for a deposit, it isn't feasible. This is obviously dependent on area.
I had two jobs and worked seven days a week to save up while renting, DH moved back in with his mum and saved up for a year before we were in a position to buy a house big enough for the three of us.

I think this is the bigger issue for OP as her salary is so low. Unless her DP earns a lot more than her, even with a 10% deposit they wouldn’t earn enough for a big enough mortgage for the rest of it.

Same all our friends had inheritance or the bank of mum and dad, we were the last ones to buy in our friendship group! But its nice to say that you did it alone isnt it…

I don’t see how buying a house is possible for most people. Our rent isn't far off £1000 month and then with bills, petrol, food shopping and everything else saving is pretty much what impossible too. We do have a toddler though so it’s probably quiet a bit different to your situation and housing needs 🤔

I started saving at 23 with my first proper job for my deposit, 25% of my income religiously. Zero social life beyond drinks with neighbours or friends over. I was living with DH and that helped. No holidays, clothes from charity shops, and packed lunches/cycling to work.
We bought a much smaller house that I would’ve liked, in a cheaper and rougher area, and very run-down, when I was 28.
No financial help from my parents, so it was definitely a slog.

Buying a house is not everything that we are told it is.

I bought a house and honestly it comes with a lot of problems. I want to move, but can't sell. So now i am stuck in an area that I don't want to live in anymore. If I was renting, I could move.

There have been a lot of problems with the house. Very costly problems. That I have had to pay for. If I was renting, the landlord would pay for it.

There are some pros to owning a house. But there is definitely a lot of huge stress too. My friend who just bought a house said "there were a lot of hidden costs that he didn't realise". My aunt said once that she thinks she would be better off renting than owning financially. With all the costs.

There is good and bad to everything

we did it on similar salaries and it was tough but in your situation there is no excuse.

your life becomes boring and dull but for a year at most of saving stringently. We bought somewhere cheaper and did market valuations and understood the area, we haggled the price and lived in a flat we didn’t want to be in, but owned, for two years. We made enough and continued saving with a cheaper mortgage and bought a £600k house. We are in the process of selling to move to bigger and our salaries are now much higher.

no parental help, no inheritance. Just slogging it away. Working two jobs each. Putting life on hold. I have always been a sacrifice now for long term gain person and it paid off.

Both my sister and I had to move to a completely different regions to become home owners.

Big decision as all our maternal family were within about a 15 mile radius but previous generations had been council tenants or had bought before the area became popular with commuters.

It’s shit, because it means our kids have grown up without the extended family network we had (she lives 100 miles from where we grew up, I love 200 miles away).

On balance it was worth it for the stability, having but it definitely had drawbacks.

Our mother died in her 50s so we didn’t have to consider elder care.

seems unlikely

I feel you! I was only able to buy a house at 43!!! We saved for years but our deposit was double what you think you need.

its the rent that did it for us!

It took many many years of living so frugally that we didn’t go out. No take away. Nothing at all. No days out. Wasn’t fun. But after the deposit we needed another 30,000 for stamp duty. Then solicitors. Was horrific!

Lower your expectations. You can get a 2 bed flat in Colchester for under £200K.

Live together to be able to save more.

Accept that you won't have kids by 30.

Just gotta be more realistic - not great but probably necessary.

I bought at age 22/23 (completion I was 23 but 22 at exchange). I didn’t rent after uni but went home and saved. I didn’t have to pay rent so saved about £30k in 2 years and also had family help. Prices were cheaper though then.
Once you are in the rent trap it is much harder to save, especially at the moment. You definitely need to be prepared to buy and sell a few times to get what you really want.

Our first place we bought together was a 1 bed flat. How much does a flat cost in Essex ? Surely you can buy a flat for less than £350k? What are you getting for 350k ?
We stayed for a a few years then moved to a 2 bed house, then lived in the 2 bed for around 5 years then bought a 3 bed. In 5years time you could both be earning more and have more equity. Good luck

I live in an expensive part of Essex and you can get one bed flats for 240k

Wow OP, that’s loads saved. I actually think you are doing really well! I didn’t have my own house before having kids. Just keep saving. You will get there.

Your question was how do people afford to buy a house

They do what everyone else does when they can’t afford to buy a house

They buy what they can afford even if that is a tiny studio flat that needs work miles away in a not so nice area then add value by doing the place up and then selling and buying a 1 bed flat then a 2 bedder etc

We could never have afforded a house as a ftb.

I know a few people who are younger than you who are working their way up. I think the biggest difference that is beginning to show is that those who took the Uni route are definitely the ones struggling.

What can you do to maximise your earnings? At 18 I did 3 jobs - main job, pub job & then night club job (bar work) and also cleaned the pub 3 days a week. Very hard work, but easy to save when not going out. At 25 I decided to get a sales job because I knew I could do it, and the commission would be my savings.

What can you do to minimise your expenses? Can you get a better paid job nearer home so you spend less on fuel for example?

Did anyone else buy a house and just feel like it added a load more stress to their life?

I feel like I'm the unhappiest I've ever been since buying a house by myself. It's just such a gamble buying a house, as even with a survey, some things just don't appear until after. It is so much stress. So many repairs.

I had to the the shower replaced. There was a problem with the pipes in my house.

I now have a problem with my chimney and roof , which is going to cost me into the thousands. I lot a fire and the neighbours noticed that the smoke coming out of the chimney was extremely black.

I got a guy out to look at it and he he said the chimney is cracked which is going to cost a lot of money to fix. Well into the thousands. Which I don't have. But I can't leave the chimney like that as it might get worse and structurally affect the whole house. So what will I do, I might have to get a loan to fix the chimney.

Any problema with the house go into thousands of pounds.

When you own a house, all the problems are yours to fix! It's been stressful .

I agree. Apologies as I know this may not be helpful but I think that it's your earnings which need to be addressed to buy a home. You're on a relatively low income which makes purchasing a house very difficult. It there's a way to increase your earnings then I would focus on that. That may not come to fruition for a few years but you have time. Given your income, it seems that you're saving really well and there may not be room for much more saving. I would also adjust your expectations to a small flat. A house may not be realistic without a big boost to your earnings.