To think you shouldn't expect to buy a home on a single salary?

[Fivebedexecutivehome]

Genuinely interested in people's thoughts.

There's no doubt there's a shortage of appropriate housing in the UK, and that prices make home ownership for many people on average salaries.

But I find a lot of reporting about the topic weird- lots of interviews with people who seem to want to buy a property by themselves.

most recent one on BBC but not unique:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7209lk8x2wo

My husband and I managed to get on the housing ladder a few years ago, early/mid thirties, both full time with a combined income of about 75k at the time, had been saving for about a decade towards deposit, plus a couple of grand from each of our parents to get it over the line. Got in towards the bottom end of the market of the (south eastern) town we live in.

I recognise both of us are quite privileged in lots of ways - having a bit of family support and salaries in the 30ks and 40ks. But there's no way either of us would have been able to ever buy a property by ourselves. But there's 68 million people in this country, surely the expectation can't be that everyone wants to buy a property themselves? And surely that's never been the expectation previously?

Not if the landlord is the state though as used to happen.
In fact one could argue that, the drive to have 'more homeowners' as a sole metric is a cause of the current crisis.
Gov sold off social housing , didn't build more but opened BTL. They decided to pay LLs to house people with housing benefit instead of bolstering social housing.

Even if prices dropped tomorrow it won't get around the issue that there's simply not enough suitable homes. Yes, some of the stock isn't being used fully but unless we build a massive amount it's not happening.

But nobody wants a big estate or large tower blocks near them.

So many threads in planning permission/traffic/blocks the light/blocks the view blah blah blahdy blah.

So unless somebody says 'everyone should be a homeowner AND I am happy for them to build loads in my area' it's all just empty words :)

I’ve always been single, by choice. Do you think I don’t deserve a nice little place of my own?

I don't think anyone is saying that EVERY adult should be able to afford to own their own home, the point of the article is that someone who's earning a decent salary (£50k, which is easily what 2 adults might also earn combined) which is in the top 15% of UK salaries should be able to afford to......because if they can't, then there's not much hope for the other 85%!! Your initial comment was that no one who's single should expect to, which also disregards the fact that many people earn more than some households with 2 salaries, and if they don't have kids their outgoings will be proportionally less.

@GettingAroundTown so, you agree with the the points I made (which you previously tried to antagonise about) and instead of just saying that you're moving on to something else?

You'll be coming out with anti-immigration twaddle next so I won't engage further!

That ^^
I couldn't afford rent

I have a feeling that if it wasnt single ppl with no kids we were talking about here you wouldnt be expecting them (families) to live in a flat.

Here is the reality.

Your Singapore comparison Artificialhouseplant · Yesterday 21:28
Singapore social housing is extremely well designed. I spent a week staying with a relative in their government flat. It was spacious, practical and very comfortable. Every block has a small supermarket and a car park. The lifts work and everything is clean. Plenty of facilities.
vs the reality in the UK.

<sigh>
certain organisations need to start using their common sense. Doing gas safety checks when its 30c so the bloody heating has to be switched on. When flats like mine are like a fucking sauna. Ours is due on Monday. Thank fuck we are capped. Our choice

There is only one entrance AND exit to this shithole and that leads out to the communal hallway which is concrete and a lot cooler and YES i have seriously considered sleeping out there. despite the ex offender downstairs The stairs then lead out to the main door which yet again is the only entrance and exit. Do you really need to be told about cavity wall insulation and how that has turned some homes into sweatboxes. My housing association has put loads of it into our walls. They get funding for it. ££££ Contractors get ££££ We have black cladding BLACK cladding Soaks up the heat. Other estates ive been to have white. The flats here are over insulated and over heated.
Im not staying a sweaty mess just to please others especially when im hated by many on here for being a social housing tenant.
My fridge freezer really struggles in the tiny galley kitchen in the summer. No problem with it in the winter. Because the kitchen is so small everything is so close together. oh and in 2020 they replaced the roof which is also black

Singapore is a city, a mega city. So is London, 50% of homes here are flats. DH and i live in London, hence we bought our flat as FTB as did DH's parents in the 1980s.

home ownership in different countries obviously looks very different but the one thing they do have in common is that at some point the mortgage payments stop . It is less important in some countries like Germany where historically many people had good pensions which enabled them to pay rent in old age. In the UK it is very important due to us having low state pensions. In Singapore too, government is ultimate freeholder for the government subsidized flats too but what gives them the edge over UK private renters is they can decorate their homes as they like, they don't need to move if they don't want to and they dont need to pay rent in their old age (in fact many higher income people in singapore who can afford private housing choose to invest their money in ETFs rather than pay mortgage interest for a freehold home that they would have to downsize from to release money).

When people talk about not owning a home in the UK, they are talking about potentially not being able to retire, being priced out of their area and having to move every year. All stuff we should really legislate on.

You're being pretty singleist, OP. Shouldn't people without a partner be entitled to live without the hazards associated with renting - rogue landlords, leaky roofs, mould, no-fault evictions...? Do you see them as somehow less deserving?

Eh? Our eldest is a teacher in her 30’s. She has a boyfriend now but bought her first flat in her 20’s on her own when she was single. She now has a bungalow that she bought on her own! I’m confused by your post to be honest!

One of our single bosses has just bought a £2m home, all on her own with no family help. Not an average salary of course but I'm happy for her.

Sorry but that's ridiculous. Some people are single and whether it's by choice or not, they should be able to afford homes too.

I get what you’re saying OP. And it’s not that single people shouldn’t be allowed to buy.

I think people seem to think there’s some crazy conspiracy. That we don’t have enough houses so houses are more expensive, or other macro economics.

Whilst the macro economics are true obviously to a degree. Really it’s maximum half the story. Because the fundamental is that a house is only worth what someone’s willing to pay for it. And it’s not the Saudi Prince or the foreign shadow corporation that are buying 99% of U.K. homes. Your competition is your colleague you sit next to at work, and the guy who’s managing or serving you in Tesco.

A couples obviously going to likely have double the buying power a single person. And that’s just life. I don’t know why people are confused about that.

Well unless your daughter is disabled, she's now breaking two MN housing rules. There was a thread a while back that stated only disabled people should be allowed to buy bungalows.

Single and able-bodied? How dare she?!

surely the expectation can't be that everyone wants to buy a property themselves? And surely that's never been the expectation previously

Weird OP, I mean why wouldn't people want to is probably a cultural point. In other countries they don't, here they do.

We are also not a multi generational household country typically.

Also your implication is that single people shouldn't want to, but that goes against my feminist principles. I think all women should focus on their financial independence first before anything else, including owning their own assets.

Plenty of people do buy places on their own, even if only a studio flat. It isn't at all unusual.

I'm single and I bought my first flat straight out of uni. Now, 30 years later, I'm still single and a homeowner. It would be bizarre not to buy just because I'm single!

Because I've lived here for 30 years, and people actually talk to each other!

It is very difficult to buy in an increasing number of areas for couples, let alone singles. It is much easier for couples, thats what the article is about. I am someone who bought at 26 in London (as part of a couple) in 2019 but i still feel it is very difficult for our generation.

www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2023/jun/12/interactive-tool-that-shows-where-you-can-afford-to-buy-or-rent-home-great-britain

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03668/

I have rented
I have bought

What an odd take. You could just have easily said ‘isn’t in reasonable to expect people who have children to all live in the same home together forever? After all it’s their choice to have children and there aren’t enough homes for everyone to be able to buy their own’, it would have sounded just as batshit.

Of course you should expect to be able to. Lots of people are on their own. I am a single parent, surely I deserve a house? It's a relatively new thing, needing two incomes to buy a house anyway. It only happened when the housing market got out of control and wasn't in line with wages any longer.

A secure affordable home is a basic thing to which we all should have access.
The same as we should all have access to healthcare roads to drive on, free education for our children.
A person working a basic full-time job should be able to afford a decent home and a decent life from the proceeds of that job.
Otherwise what's the point in working (working to make someone else rich) if a full-time wage isn't enough to live on.

thank you! There's this constant refrain in MN and the media that it's completely impossible for anyone under 40 to ever afford to buy a house, ever, which doesn't represent my life at all.

I'm in my early thirties and nearly all my friends and siblings had bought their first houses by their late twenties, at least half of those bought on their own even if they then moved a partner in or sold the first house and bought a second one together.

I don't know all of their financial details but the ones I do know (close friends and siblings) all have very normal jobs and didn't get deposits from their parents either.
I don't deny that it's very hard to impossible in some areas of the uk
but london and the south east isn't the UK.
I understand that people might not want to move away from friends family and support system just to buy a house.
I also fully accept that it's hard if you have children young or have other caring responsibilities.
But if it's something you want then it's far from impossible, you just have to prioritise it, which does mean sacrificing other spending.

Isn't the popularity of renting in places like Germany because of access to secure, social tenancies? I remember watching a programme about it with George Clarke. He gave us a tour of an apartment in a typical social housing tower block. Spacious, light and all had balconies as well as lots of communal amenities.