To be fed up of my friend's complaints that she can't buy a house?

[loonyloo]

I feel like a complete bitch for even thinking this and I know I am probably BU, but my patience with a friend is really wearing thin.

She is saving to buy a house and is apparently far from achieving her goal and won't stop complaining about it. I get that the property market is ridiculous (I bought my own first home two years ago last month), but I'm sick to death of listening to her whinge.

It's got to the point where I dread meeting her as almost the whole conversation will revolve around this. it is becoming her whole personality. I don't want to lose the friendship as she is a decent person but she has got very tunnel visioned. If anyone has any advice on how to divert the conversation when she brings it up, I'd be grateful.

But I also think I'm being unreasonable because I feel like she can well afford one if she just cuts back a bit. I know I sound like I am being a bit "avocado toast" about this. She and her husband have been living with her parents for 6 years now. They contribute to bills but pay no rent. She keeps complaining about other people having help from the bank of mum and dad but doesn't seem to think they are getting help. I don't understand how they haven't got their 10% together yet.

She goes on holiday 3/4 times a year. She goes to about 5 or 6 gigs a year that are around €100 for tickets, with hotel stays on top of that.

She keeps saying that the bank won't lend her enough because of their rules on salary multipliers. She says the minimum price is €250k, as if cheaper options don't exist (they do). When another friend tried to help by sending her links to cheaper houses so that she wouldn't lose hope she said she wants to move straight into her forever home and those places aren't good enough. She doesn't want to have to move house again as she is too old (38).

She's been asking me how much my friends and relatives earn as "they all have lovely houses and bought them when they were much younger" - these people all settled into jobs in their early 20s and didn't go back to uni and keep quitting jobs to go travelling like she did. I travelled, I did postgrad study too and ended up buying a place a lot later than other people but I know that my own choices led to that and I wouldn't swap my experiences for anything. I know I would have a nicer place or have a mortgage nearly paid off by now. She just seems to be jealous that others have what she doesn't.

I understand that people want to love the place they buy but I feel like if she just got the head down and saved a bit harder and went for a lower budget loan she'd have a chance of getting somewhere nice. It's the complaining that is getting to me though, if she didn't moan so much I'd probably still think it was weird she hadn't got somewhere after 6 years of living with her parents but I wouldn't be so irritated by the whole thing.

YABU = you're being judgemental, the property market is crazy and your friend deserves sympathy
YANBU = I'd be fed up too

I suspect she doesn’t actually want to move out of her parents.

She has a good life living there. I am going to guessing she keeps repeating‘I want a house so bad and it’s not our fault that we can’t afford one’ and rebuffing cheaper properties as a cover.

She probably feels a bit embarrassed or feels people will judge her and her husband, or even knows her parents would like her to move out. ‘The housing market is too expensive’ is a convenient excuse. She may have just got used to talking about it obsessively so people feel bad for her rather than judging her. If her parents ask why she is going on holiday again ‘I just need a break I am so down and stressed about not being able to afford a home and a holiday gives us all a break from eachother’ and so on. While the cost of the housing market is a barrier to a lot of people, it doesn’t appear that is the case.

She sounds like a bore. Complaining you can’t afford - a home when you have multiple holidays and over night breaks is laughable.

What would she do if she actually did find this dream home that she could buy? The holidays would have to reduce or stop. And the concerts. Let’s be honest, she has a better standard of living, living with her parents.

When she asks about how much friends earn etc, just say, oh they earn a decent salary I think but they started off in a one bed flat as, like most of us, that was all they could afford at first. Or, yes so and so is doing well now but they didn’t go on holiday for five years and put the money towards a deposit.

That’s if you can be arsed of course. I would just change the subject. More than likely she will never change especially if she has got it all set up at her parents.

I think this has just become a repetitive conversation with the op and probably others. She knows she could afford somewhere but is wedded to her life style that she will not alter or give up. She’s not able to face up to what she needs to do and clearly family are not telling her to get a grip either. So just reduce when you see her and take charge of the conversation. Talk about you for a change.

She has all the expensive treats she wants, lives at home where she is pampered and wants suddenly to move into the house ( why not a flat ? ) of her dreams. That is a massive self entitlement and topped with jealousy seems like a friendship blocker. Does she mean you are not good friend now because you have a house and all other people she knows have lovely houses ?

if you and her friends still love her for who she is , then may be she needs to be told to relax and just live her life.

one of my managers wanted to buy a house with her second husband and they found a cheaper place in a town a bit not that popular with the most entitled people. She said: same house, different postcode. Job done, life sorted. Many perks came with it.

Another manager who came after this first one left just like your friend. Drives the biggest, flashiest, most expensive car, lives with her parents in a massive house and wants the exact same lifestyle the daddy provides. However he has some well paid job and our job at the time was only retail on you can imagine the minimum wage.

you are not unreasonable, there are people who feel their demands is what the world should revolve around.

Don't engage! She can either sim be this issue or she can. It is nothing to do with anyone else.

Shut it down every time she raises it. Here's some to get you started:

"There is just no solution is there? Let's talk about something else."

"I think you need to give up on owning a home. It is dominating your life. Let's talk about something else."

If she persists or raises the hysteria level, just end the friendship.

Life is too short.

That's the thing though, she's not really wading through mud. She and her husband have lived rent free for 6 years while both working full time and yet they haven't managed to pull together enough and all she does is complain the banks are being mean to them because they won't give €225k to 2 people who haven't been able to save €25k in 6 years (so around €350 per month between them) while paying no rent and both working full time. They are not people who have lost their jobs, barely go out or are paying sky high rents while trying to save

Yup this would drive me absolutely mental.

Next time she starts-
' friend, you're going on about this so much, either sit down with me and work out a budget to get you there or stop complaining about it.'

If she can't manage to save at least 1k a month between 2 for a few years for a decent deposit while living rent free then she's literally never buying a house. Tell her that. Then change the subject.

I appreciate your honest opinion, Biscuits. I was thinking that I am being smug as you say, and a bit "I'm alright Jack", which is why I posted. TBH I'm surprised that it's basically only you and one other poster who disagree with me.

I would say that I don't think that I did the "right" things though. I got on the property ladder much later than most of my peers due to life choices of my own making. I could have bought about 10 years earlier than I did but I chose not to. Even now I think from time tk time, bloody hell if only I had bought earlier I'd have borrowed way less and have it half paid off by now. But I made my choices and live with those consequences.

I know the property market is horrible. I have other friends and younger family members trying to save for a deposit and it's hard. I'm not saying it isn't. But those people are working their arses off and making sacrifices elsewhere and still don't complain as much as she does! It's the whingeing, hard-done-by attitude while doing absolutely fuck all to help herself that is doing my tits in

Her 3/4 holidays per year and her £1000s in concert trips would soon pay a deposits, next time she moans just be honest and point that out.

I would bet yourself an armoury of set responses.

id struggle not to go with "you know what, you're right. Your lovely mum and dad have saved you at least £1000 a month with you living there. Of £72k isn't a deposit the world has gone mad"

"oh you haven't put that away? You've been on holiday? Well whatever's most important I guess."

So in six years the pair of them haven’t been able to save £25k? That’s approximately £2k a year each or £166 each a month. That’s completely and utterly useless.

Tell her you’ve been feeling worried about her difficult situation and that you did some sums to find out why it was so hard… Then say, gosh, that’s weird, how has this happened?

I suspect she’s got used to living in style in a nicer house than she can afford and is probably subbed in multiple ways by her parents and actually what she wants is a nice free house with no bills because she’s special.

Or stop seeing her much. She sounds pretty dreadful.

I do partially get where she's coming from; 15 years ago I'd saved 25k from living very frugally for my 20s, including living with my parents (still a hefty housekeeping charge!) when all my friends seemed to be living in 'friends' type scenarios, not going on holidays etc, and it seemed that with the salary multiplier on my wage I was NEVER going to get a place. However I was trying..... Your friend is spending a lot and is not exactly being grateful for saving thousands of pounds a year on rent

(I've just looked on rightmove and the cheapest one bed flat in my town is £795 a month. So at £9540 a year for six years, they've saved £57,240 courtesy of the bank of mum and dad!)

I suspect she doesn’t actually want to move out of her parents.

She has a good life living there. I am going to guessing she keeps repeating‘I want a house so bad and it’s not our fault that we can’t afford one’ and rebuffing cheaper properties as a cover.

I think this may well be the case as well. She is happy and doesn't want to give up the charmed life that she has, but she realises that it's obvious that she isn't trying and is sponging, especially at the age of nearly 40; so her inbuilt robust defence mechanism is to get in there first and constantly complain that she supposedly is desperate to move out but the option is out of her hands. She probably finds that much less embarrassing than just saying "Yes, it suits us brilliantly living off my parents and having no mortgage or rent to pay, so we can spend it all on multiple fabulous holidays and events".

If this is the case, then all of her moaning to you is probably incidental in setting the scene; she has to live the act to her parents. In fact, she could be deliberately spending extravagantly on holidays and breaks - maybe even more than she actually would choose to - because she doesn't want to end up with a huge deposit, which her parents could then use 'against her' in finally getting her out of their house and into paying for her own. In spite of all her protesting to the contrary, she may actually see amassing a hefty wedge as a negative thing that must be avoided.

She might also be playing the long game and thinking to the time in the future when she will remain in the house, but transition from 'free lodger' to owner - when her parents eventually pass on - making out that she has ended up in that position 'accidentally', to stave off people criticising and badmouthing her, rather than it being her clear plan all along.

I have experienced this quite a lot this year. I bought my first property back in March, yes, I did have some help from a family member, who wanted me to live in a safe place, where I would be happy. I am visually impaired, have roughed it in some very hard accommodations, been taken advantage of, lived in a studio with mice For a couple of years, but I’ve worked my butt off over the years, despite my disability to do as much and what I can.

I set up an organization of my own, when I was 23, and was living full-time in Asia for quite a number of years. I lived with a colleague’s family, or in a very cheap guest house. While I was there, I wasn’t “traveling“ which is what so many people have a misconception of. I was doing very difficult work, spending long hours to make society a better place for those for the disability. It wasn’t easy, but people in the UK make me feel very guilty for supposedly having more than they do. Many of these people live at home with their families, have their families to help them , because they live nearby, my mother lives in the United States, I had to get through lockdown completely on my own, even while losing my very little remaining vision.

so I made a decision, that I just need to find better friends, and need to leave these ones in the past. I understand that people with disabilities don’t have a DC, but many of my friends have it much easier than I do, and yet they complain, and complain, and complain. Jealousy is not a nice characteristic. Also, many people with disabilities can be quite sheltered, and like financial literacy, or even information on how to go about buying a property to begin with. It takes a lot of research on one’s part, and a lot of asking around and learning, but sadly, many people just don’t have the motivation to do this. But why should they judge or get jealous of somebody who does?

it took a while to get used to my new home, but I have been here for four months, I bought my property in Greece, since I could afford it, it’s a place I know, and I’m happy here. It is a big adventure, not easy at times, but I’m getting there.

This. And also “can we talk about something else?”

Congratulations on your first home Hellokitty! I hope living in Greece works out well for you

Thank you, it gets easier every day, and the best part is knowing that I won’t be taken advantage of by a nasty landlord. Peace of mind is everything sometimes

YANBU. It really is frustrating when people complain about something they could actually have done if they had not made the choices they did. I have family members like this, they complain all the time about not being able to afford a house deposit, yet they spend their (reasonably good) salaries on expensive things like multiple holidays, expensive nights out with lots of cocktails and new cars. Every time they moan about it I just want to shout at them that if they hadn’t have gone on their last holiday to Thailand then they would have an extra £2k towards their deposit. But I don’t as that would cause a family row so I just keep quiet.