First world problem about moving up the property ladder. How do you do it?

[tinkersfig]

Moving up the property ladder seems impossible for us and I need to rant about it.

we have about 70k equity in our house and our mortgage payment is around £900 a month, which is doable on our salaries on a 3 bed semi.

I’d really love a 4 bed with a drive, as we both work from home so we need a bit of office space and the car is parked on the main road which is a nightmare. The car has been scraped twice this year already.

If we were to upgrade to what we want (in anything that’s near our max borrowing) would mean our mortgage payment would be minimum £2000 a month and the houses need at least £50k spending on them.

we’re early 40s now and it feels like we should do it soon, so we can’t get a longer mortgage term, but who has a spare £50k for new bathrooms an kitchen plus an extra £1000pm for a mortgage!

Well it depends on your incomes and how long you've been on the housing ladder. We are mid 40's but brought our first house in our early 20's and have since moved up the ladder 3 times so we have much more equity than you. I can only assume you got on the housing ladder much later in life which is why you have less equity.

I did it by buying complete wrecks and doing all the work myself using reclaimed, second hand, ex display, upcycled materials. I learned how to do the work on line and by attending courses. I did a woodwork course to learn how to repair my windows and am currently doing a welding course to learn how to make a metal walkway in my garden.

My current house was on the market for over a year because nobody wanted to buy it in the state it was in. The price kept dropping and I finally bought it when it went to auction for less than the reserve price.

I've replaced the bathroom kitchen, decorated the whole house and completely overhauled a garden that was like Sleeping Beauty's castle. I lived in the house whilst I did it, have spent less than £15k and it's taken me two years.

I moved up the ladder by buying a three bed semi (with attached garage) and converting the garage. I couldn't afford the 4 bed we needed and couldn't wait (as needed to move due to disability) so this was the compromise. I lost the garage parking but still have off road parking.

I think most people overpay to build up equity.

If you can afford the 1k a month stretch for a 4 bed now, overpay for a few years up to your limit to build equity and get used to having the money committed.

We only got on the ladder 6 years ago, so quite late in life @WonderingWanda

Omg @SeaAndStars that’s amazing! I’m literally useless apart from a bit of painting 😂

@NotABiscuitInSight that’s actually a really good idea

As others have said, find a way to build up equity.
DH and I bought our first house together for about 300k 11 years ago. Did it up and sold it 5 years later for 470k, after spending about 5k on it. We also overpaid on mortgage, max allowed each year, so when we moved we had about 300k of equity between what we paid off and anount it went up. We then took a 350k mortgage and bought a 4 bed detached with garden and drive for 650k about 6 years ago, this is now worth 800k after we did some low cost improvements. Our nortgage payments are just under 2k a month. We do need a new kitchen as current one ugly and impractical, but livable, and gradually saving for this.
DH and I joint household income is about 90k gross now (him full time and me part time as we have young children) just for context. However when we bought our first house 11 years ago aged 33, it was more like 60k with both of us full time, we have both moved jobs to increase income.
We moved due to combination of needing space for DH to wfh and horrendous neighbours meaning we wanted a detached so never had to deal with immediate neighbours again.

Moving up the property ladder is usually linked to moving up the career ladder with accompanying increased salary. The only other way to do it is to move to cheaper areas.

We did it but buying with a part interest only mortgage and then converting that part to a repayment mortgage as we got a bit older and salaries rose.

Lots of our friends didn’t move and instead added conservatoires , loft conversations, 2 storey extensions and did it that way.

We bought our first flat aged 27, it went up in value but we also got payrises etc and so had saved money separately for a next move. I had had 20k towards the deposit from my mums pension lump sum & we'd saved the rest.

We moved after 3.5 years to a house. Then over 10 years we overpaid constantly/saved every penny we could. Dh grandma left him 20k which was a godsend. With what we had saved we paid the whole mortgage off & had some extra savings for stamp duty, so took on another big mortgage aged 40 to buy our "forever" home.

We are very lucky though, we earn a lot, also had family support and our wages have continued to rise. We also live like church mice compared to what we earn - no flashy cars, expensive beauty treatments, relatively modest holiday each year, so we save a lot and always have.

Also - career progression has been critical for us. We literally earn about 3 times more now than we did when we bought the first flat. Most people's earnings peak in their mid 40s and so far true for us

Also - career progression has been critical for us. We literally earn about 3 times more now than we did when we bought the first flat. Most people's earnings peak in their mid 40s and so far true for us

I think it’s particularly tricky at the moment OP. Interest rates are so high, along with the cost of everything else.

I’m glad we don’t move a year or so ago when we first looked as we have more breathing space with our current mortgage.

We had no help getting on the ladder so started with a real fixer upper and have since moved to a slightly less dilapidated house. 😁

Much like seaandstars we have done it by fixing up the houses no one else wanted, so much cheaper. One we named murder house 🙈 all beautiful afterwards just took time.You can absolutely learn all the diy you need. You can source lots if materials for free too.
Unfortunately unless you've got lots of money Which we certainly don't it's been the only option.