To wonder how anyone affords to move house?

[towonderwander]

We are a mid 20s married couple with our first baby due next month. Earlier this year we managed to buy our first home. It is an ex-council house which needed significant improvement in an okay area. Not the best, but good schools around and convenient motorway links. With kindness, practical and financial support from our families, we are slowly turning it into a beautiful place to live. It is now a really lovely home with just a couple of rooms left to upgrade. It is technically a 3 bedroom but the third bedroom is very small and houses our clothes as well as the boiler so would never be functional as a third room.

We are glad to be on the property ladder and feel lucky we had so much support, but the cost to maintain and upgrade this house has been more than I could ever imagine. We have a 4 figure mortgage as it is, thanks to interest rates. If we wanted a bigger house/slightly more desirable area, I can’t see how we would do it. Anything that wouldn’t need this level of work again would be most likely well out of budget plus the new stamp duty thresholds mean we’d have that to factor in as a large cost too. Plus you know, childcare fees and the general cost of living crisis.

How do people afford to move? AIBU to think nowadays it is increasingly harder and not as simple as just climbing the property ladder?

(To add before anyone asks why we didn’t start with a flat, most if not all have been bought by landlords round here, the ones that haven’t are leasehold and exceptionally difficult to sell on.)

I'm going to echo other posters here and very kindly say that you should work on practicing some gratitude and focus on enjoying the lucky situation you're currently in. Constantly looking towards the future and wishing for bigger and better is not a healthy or happy way to live.

And you don't need a bedroom just for your clothes!

People who earn more
People who have savings
People who have lived in their house a lot longer than a few months

The idea of the "housing ladder" is dead. I can't see us ever moving. We have a comfortable 3 bed terrace in a quiet area.

What used to happen (and it sounds like what has happened to you) us that young couples would purchase their first house and then need more space as their family expanded.

Now, a lot of people are buying their first house when their children are already school aged and they won't be having more. My SD is 14, my DD is 4, so over the next 20 years our need for space will decrease, so we don't need to keep looking for a bigger house. The closest we'll get to "climbing the property ladder" in inheriting my parents' house one day.

The fact you've been able to buy a house in your 20s makes you extremely lucky. It's not the fault of immigrants that housing has become so unaffordable.

Depends on the salary ceiling in your chosen careers and potential earnings. If there is limited room for progression with increased experience / expertise / responsibility to a level which will enable you to afford the house you want you have a few choices:

1. Move to a cheaper area with cheaper houses and commute further
2. Change career to one with better prospects or more aligned to your financial ambition
3. Take additional training or responsibility at work.

You will also find that as you grow older your spending habits change which may impact affordability. Inflation is also a gift, it tends to drive up houses prices in nominal terms and reduces repayments in real terms.

A lot of people do jobs they don't love but which are more financially rewarding than the one they would enjoy most because it buys a better house/car/holiday/lifestyle.

If you don't need to change career and will earn what you need then crack on.

You're only in your twenties, of course you're in a starter home. It takes years of savings, building up equity and improving salaries for many people to be able to afford something better, it's not just about the salary coming in.

Although the salary to house price issue is certainly real, I don't know anyone in their twenties twenty years ago who started with the big house either, it was all little flats for first purchases.

We’re mid 40s with my DH on 70k+ and we still can’t afford to move up from our 3 bed terraced house, with the 3rd bedrooms in this area being so small that a normal single bed doesn’t fit in. We have two DC and we’ve had to make the 3rd room work as a bedroom for one of them as moving up to a 4 bed in this area is out of our reach. We’re not in a city that’s seen as expensive but 4 beds here are 500k+.

You sound like you’ve been very lucky to have help making your house into a lovely home.

A house the size we have has been difficult with young DC - there is only one living space downstairs so the living room is also a playroom and there’s no adult space to relax in - but it will get easier as the DC get older. The 3rd bedroom size is becoming an issue as our DC get taller, but again, we’ll just have to find a way to make it work (a loft conversion isn’t an option in our house though).

We’ve had these issues for years; it hasn’t been simple for a long time.

Agree with this you sound so naive. You’re also choosing to have a child a lot younger than average and they cost money.

I also don’t understand how you expected your mortgage payment to be under £1000.

Equity builds up in your house, your salary tends to increase, and some point you reach a point where moving to a bigger house is achievable.

It’s early days if you only moved in last year. Enjoy what you have for now - some people can only dream of owning their own home. Then in a few years time, look at the figures and you might find you can afford to move to a bigger home.

I never thought I’d be able to upgrade from a 3 to 4 bedroom house. However this year everything fell into place for me and I moved a few months ago.

I don't think you are in "cgeap town" as you call it. Maybe cheaper for the area, but not "cheap" in uk sense going by the fact your mortgage is over 1k for 3 bed run down former council semi.

People afford it various ways. They pay off some equity so they have bigger one to be able to put down bigger downpayment. Or they stay and use the small bedroom as a bedroom (it can be done really well with some inspiration on small space) and move boiler downstairs. Or they move to cheaper area. Or they up their up their salaries

I bought a flat at 21, DH and I bought at 30. It was his first purchase and we have remained in our three bed house for 25 years. Compared to our salaries it may seem odd we didn’t climb the ladder. But here we are having retired both by age 56. Hopefully off travelling next year. We are of an age where you could climb the property ladder, our friends did. Now most have zero kids at home in their big 4 and 5 bed houses with all the extra council tax and bills that brings. Climbing the ladder isn’t for everyone.

No choice sometimes

Wages go up

You make money on your home

3rd room fine for a baby. If like my friends a cot will fit then turn into Cot bed till they are 4/5

Then build over boiler and have like a cabin bed

So even if have 2 kids it's doable

Or you look to extend /loft /downstairs bedroom

Moving is costly yes

But you have house and no more paying rent which is forever

Many people do have 4 figures so over £1000 a month mortgage

For the vast majority it’s made possible by help from families, simple. That’s how you did it, that’s how DH & I did it. Your post is going to sound very pointless and goady to people who don’t have the same luxury, unfortunately.
If you want to move from a ‘lovely’ house a good area to something bigger in a better area, after you’ve just spent a load of money on renovations and haven’t build up much equity then of course your current ‘normal’ salaries aren’t going to cut it.

It can be in cheap areas. There are still end of twrrace or semis available for 100-150k in quite a few places in UK and not total shitholes. With 10% down that's well under 1k

I am at least 10 years older than you and in our mid 20s absolutely none of my friends had got married, bought a house or had a baby.

We’re in our second property now expecting a first baby and moved, as most people do, through building up equity in our first house through a renovation and then salaries increasing over the period of 5 years. It’s not rocket science.

Our area is quite nice (quiet, northern, working class area, definitely not posh but not rough either) and our mortgage is around £600pm. We had quite a hefty deposit and we are anticipating a rise when we come to the end of the 5 y term, but not to £1kpm.

Is this really a surprise to you?

It's pretty weird to be moaning that you aren't in a position to move on while you've only just got your first house.

Agree. You need a reality check to realize how lucky you actually are.

You sort of answered it in your op.

A lot of people get help from family. Most I know had help for the deposit from family members. Not all, though.

It's the actual cost of moving too. Never mind carpets etc

Op do you understand what median means?

Op median means midpoint. So millions earn more, millions less. So yes you need to earn more to afford more. This is how money works.

So you’re earning around 35,000 each? You’ve got a 2/3 bedroom house. Presumably you’ll stay there for a while and as your careers progress you’ll get higher wages and be able to move.

Agree. You need a reality check to realize how lucky you actually are.

Yes, I agree with this

I thought by mid 20s people were switched on about politics and issues in society. I guess not all.

In London at least one spouse has to be in the top 10% (nationwide) to afford the median priced property... which is a flat and very much starter property.

We own a 2 bed flat in London and will probably never own more than a flat (maybe slightly bigger one in future with 3 bedrooms), we are in top 9% of couples in terms of household income of 7k nett (according to IFS). Even in London, DH is top 25% for full time male workers, and I am top 40% in terms of female full time workers. no kids too due to fertility issues which has delayed our timeline

Actually the secret is inheritance, most londoners buy homes with family money. Some like us save for 3 years while living with family in our 20s, which is how we bought the current flat on a much lower income and then increased our income. We bought at 26 and 29.