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?

Over the years
I have bought property as a single person
I have bought property jointly with another person

It depends on your location & finances

The person in the news article could probably buy if she expanded her location area

Damm better tell dd to give up her house. Her boyfriend obviously needs to give his up too. They can rent until they decide to buy together despite them both being easily able to afford to buy and run their own properties in their 20s

Edited to add: actually I need to give up mine too till I can find some man to support me

How do you know so much about your neighbours' circumstances?

I'm in my early 60s, and I've been single for decades. I bought my current 2-bedroom home when I was a single parent of two primary-school-aged DDs who've now moved out. It was a struggle for the first few years, but I've now finished paying off the mortgage, and I live comfortably. I realise that younger people in the same circumstances as I was in my 30s won't have the same options, and I think it's building up trouble for the future. I can now look forward to retiring in a few years without having to continue to pay (increasingly exorbitant) rent, and if I end up needing full-time care, I'll be able to sell my home to pay for it so that I won't be a burden to my adult children. The idea that as a single person I should have rented indefinitely, which would have meant saving far less over the period, and would have left me without significant capital, isn't a good one. I realise it's the position a lot of younger people are in, especially in some parts of the country, and I don't think it's going to end well for those people or for society/younger relatives that will end up having to foot the bill for essential care.

Can certain posters bog off with the performative misgendering? It's irrelevant to the issue and is just plain bad mannered and arrogant.
And yes, I've reported. More in hope than expectation.

How come you don't? I live in a small town and know loads about all my neighbours, I'm even friends with lots of them! Imagine!

I bought my property 5 years ago as a single person. Mortgage of £400 per month. Am I just supposed to pay £800+ rent per month for the rest of my life, never owning my own property, because I didn't have a boyfriend at the time?

Also who's paying for that extra £400 a month because my wage doesn't cover £800 on rent.

Some neighbours are friends. Imagine!

Thinking about this, my mum was married when a woman couldn't have her own bank account. I think it was 1975 when women had the right to her own. No idea how they actually went about getting one. So all mortgages had to be on the one wage.

Do you mean correct sexing?

We’ve bought three times on a single income. I was a SAHM and no benefits were involved.

That, of course, was in the dim and distant past, and I’m sad that my children are unable to do the same.

So people should just settle and continue in a relationship they don’t really want so they can buy a house. Then they should work full time for 40 years to pay off the mortgage on that house and stay in a relationship they aren’t happy in because at least they have a house? That’s a really depressing way to live.

Of course a single person should be able to afford a home. It isn’t just allowing single people to build a life for themselves, it allows one person in a couple to step out of work if needed (caring or health related reasons). It allows people to not stay in a relationship that is unhappy or potentially abusive. It gives a couple breathing space if redundancy were to happen.

I'm going out on a limb here, but not only should one wage be able to buy but a 'living wage' should be sufficient level of income to do so. 'Affordable' housing should be just that.

You absolutely should. Perhaps not a 'family home' type of larger house but an apartment at the very least. I live in an expensive city where single ownership (without massive handout) is inaccessible on even an above average salary. It's discriminatory imo. You shouldn't be forced to be assetless/ continue paying out rent money forever because of a romantic status/choice.

Of course single people should be able to buy a home. A home is not always a house. The individual in the report wants a house, which is why they're struggling. They can afford a flat on that salary in nearly every part of the UK, a flat is a perfectly acceptable home for anyone.

I mean exactly what I said but QED.

Not relevant to the discussion but shoehorned in anyway. And you say the opposite side have an agenda.

Look,doubtless I'll get another little warning note from HQ about how I should shush and stop pointing out when people are phobic. Being phobic is OK though, right MN? Free speech for them but not for me.
But tough. I'll keep on for now. And yes, I was born female and still am female before everyone jumps

OP are you seriously suggesting that only people in couples should be allowed should be able to buy a house
I bought my own house when I was single in my twenties. I feel so sorry for people nowadays because it was so ridiculously expensive. The house cost £69,000 20 years ago (I was on 22k gave a 5k deposit) it is now £300k yet that job I used to do only pays £28k so no way on god's earth could I have bought it now.

Lack of investment in social housing, allowing property to be sold to Chinese and other foreign investors and right to buy has totally mess this up.
We need to move away from growth and inflation being linked to house prices.

What's arrogant is donning a dress and expecting us all to pretend a man is a woman.

And 'expectations' feature heavily in this article.

You think it’s perfectly fine for the 90-odd % of the population who don’t earn £75k though? Not dehumanising?

They shouldn't need to own but they should have security if it's not owned.

I'm a parent to 2 children earning minimum wage. If I were to get divorced I would up my hours but even with the equity I got I would struggle to even get a shared ownership so it would have to be rented.

My issue with renting is that I would be at the mercy of the landlord, they could kick me out at any point or raise the rent to whatever they fancied. I wouldn't be allowed to make it nice, unlikely to be able to have a pet and I would just be treating it like a hotel room that wasn't mine. Not to mention the fact that even working full time I would need to claim UC which isn't popular with landlords and neither are kids so I would already be on the back foot.

It makes total sense why women feel trapped in abusive marriages because going it alone on a low salary is really really difficult. We shouldn't be making things harder for single people, times have changed and single people are an integral part of society and we should be treating them as such.

Phobic? I don't think anyone is the least bit afraid of you.

If only you'd told me 20+ years ago,@Fivebedexecutivehome . I managed to buy a house alone and without a handout from Mummy and Daddy.
Hope you are happy in your smug rung on the housing ladder.

A house on the road I first bought for has just gone sstc. It was up for 117,000. 2 bed terrace. Decent condition.

A starting salary on my degree comes up as 25-30k.

4x salary gives a mortgage around 100k. So, yes, I could probably still buy my first house, so long as I could rent somewhere cheap enough to enable saving nearly 20k first.

What a lot of nonsense...

Both my DS's bought a 3 bedroom house on their own. 1 has a gf he got after buying but she has her own home.