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High cost of buying a house - how has it affected YOU and your family?

131 replies

rumtumtigger · 10/04/2006 09:16

There is a story in the news that people are having fewer children and later in life due to the high cost of buying a house.

I am interested to see how it has affected us all - I am sure some people have benefited hugely from this phenomenon whilst others have found it a nightmare...what's your story?

OP posts:
brimfull · 10/04/2006 16:41

It means it was cheaper for us to extend the house rather than move.Would love a bigger garden thoughSad

expatinscotland · 10/04/2006 16:42

would love any sort of garden at all . . . Sad

ruty · 10/04/2006 16:43

me too...

foundintranslation · 10/04/2006 16:46

Here in Germany there's much less of a homeowning - or indeed more of a renting - culture. This means that rent is fairly moderate - except in a few very expensive places such as Munich - and tenants have a great deal of rights - for example the landlord has to have a proper reason to give you notice. The downside is that most of the properties available to rent are flats. We pay 430 € (incl utilities, apart from electricity) a month for an actually fairly small, but quite spacious-feeling 1 bed flat. It suits us fine atm, also because we'll almost certainly be leaving the area - possibly even Germany - in a year's time. In Germany if you buy a house you stay put - it's not common at all to buy a house and then sell it to move a few years later - also because it's very common to build your house 'yourself'. The lack of homeowning culture and relatively favourable position of tenants also means we don't have any of the headaches that a lot of you are describing. I do wish we had a house (I very much miss a garden), and harbour secret dreams of coming back to the UK, but I have absolutely no idea what we would do for housing - it figures on our 'against moving to the UK' list, albeit not as the ain point.

foundintranslation · 10/04/2006 16:48

main point

winnie · 10/04/2006 16:48

I pay £625 rent and can't afford a mortgage either.

Because we rent privately we have moved 24/5(?) [am losing count] times in 16 years Shock
I am absolutely sure that our inability to get on the housing ladder and set down roots was a reason our marriage broke up... but that is a long story.

Uwila · 10/04/2006 17:02

That's ver Sad, Winnie. And I bet is common. I know money is definately a source of tension in my house.

dhdonegood · 10/04/2006 17:17

It all stinks tbh. In London, house prices are crazy. Yes, we are lucky because dh bought at the right time, but I don't ever feel smug about it. I just feel hugely relieved that we are not facing the difficulties others describe on here, and I know many many people personally who are caught in the trap of paying astronomical private rents because they cannot afford a mortgage on a modest but stupidly priced home.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2006 17:21

It's not just London, btw.

edam · 10/04/2006 17:37

House prices are ludicrous. Compared to wages. I'm lucky that we do have a (modest) house in an area with good schools. But it's not the house I want (nasty 1970s starter home on three floors) and it's too small (with only one ds - God knows how we'd manage with another). We have a 107k mortgage which makes me feel faint when I actually think about the sheer amount of money. And we were fortunate enough to buy in the 1990s in London... if we hadn't I have no idea where we'd be living now. We haven't made as much money as other people in London because I was always too scared to borrow the maximum we could, having been through repossession as a teenager in the 80s recession.

There's no way I can afford, or ever will be able to afford, a house of the same standard as the fairly normal for average middle-class people one I grew up in (and won't inherit one either as my parents divorced and have gone down the property ladder). My parent's four bed dormer bungalow in a nice village in Yorkshire cost them £15k in 1972! Must be worth more than 20 times that now, I'd guess (if only they still had it...).

But that's a minor gripe compared to people who are faced with starting from scratch. No idea how anyone manages it.

homemama · 10/04/2006 17:57

Rental prices are shocking considering how much less you are getting compared to owning the house.
We are lucky in that as well as our house we also own a city centre flat. It's still got quite a hefty mortgage on it but we're able to rent it out for £180 more a month than the mortgage. Even if we were to take out the mortgage now, it would still be cheaper than the rent our tenants are paying.

Edam, at least by not going up to the maximum you have some leeway should the market go belly up, we have a 275k mortgage on a house worth 390k so not much room there. I try not to worry about it by thinking of it as a long term investment but being 400k in debt (the 2 added together) can keep me awake at times.

However, I know we are luckier than a great many people. I'm sure for those people it's the stability that matters more than the status. Expat, I never appreciated a garden until I had DS. I hope you manage one soon! Sad

homemama · 10/04/2006 18:01

Expat, sorry if that sounds patronising. I meant it in a genuine way. Blush

MrsSpoon · 10/04/2006 18:20

expat, I know very little about your situation except where you live but just wondered is living the other side of the bridge an option for you? Prices are better and in some areas could still be considered cheap. Of course I do realise that sometimes location wins out and have known families to move over here only to decide that the commuting isn't worth the saving on houses.

bubblerock · 10/04/2006 18:26

We were just lucky to buy at the right time (1998) We don't currently have a mortgage as we bought a house with my mum further north. It really is just luck though. Smile

GarfieldsGirl · 10/04/2006 18:51

We were lucky that my parents wanted to move somewhere smaller and were able to sell their house to us for a lot less than market value, so we bought it from them. The house is in a decent area, but is a lot smaller than our rented house was, and we now need more space as I was pregnant with ds2 when we moved. If my parents hadn't been in this position and offered us this solution we would probably be renting for the next few years at least. All we could afford was a 1 bed flat on a main road, and we're lucky that we have been able to buy, but it still isn't ideal and we need to move in the very near future, but I feel guilty about that as my parents basically gave us £50K.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2006 18:56

MrsSpoon,
I don't care that we don't own. I owned in the past and it was a PITA, IMO, unless you have high income. It's not that important just now. I'd rather live in a nice area than a crap one just to say 'I own my own home', which isn't true anyhow - the bank owns it till you pay them off.

No, I would never consider a long commute. I did that before I had kids and hated it w/a purple passion - I can only imagine what it'd be like w/two kids on top of that.

Also, who's got the money for that? It costs too much in this country.

drosophila · 10/04/2006 19:48

I know what you mean Expat, sometimes I think it's the house that owns us not the other way around.

MrsSpoon · 10/04/2006 20:04

Expat, I understand what you mean, I just wondered, this area is now made up so much of what is know locally as "the Edinburgh overflow" (I suppose this actually includes ourselves as we initially wanted to move to Edinburgh but couldn't afford it) as the 25 min train journey is an attraction for many. Although many also move back to Edinburgh and some, like my DH find employment/start businesses this side of the bridge as the trains service isn't all it's cracked up to be and the car journey is stressful.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2006 20:20

I don't like public transport, so that pretty much rules out a long commute for me unless I worked some place w/a car park. I walk into my work. It takes between 45 each way. BUT, I never have to make time to exercise! It keeps me fit AND saves us about £400/annum.

MadamePlatypus · 10/04/2006 20:51

I can't see how it doesn't affect people. Its difficult in Greater London to buy a family house (3 bedrooms?) for less than 200K. Assuming that you have a deposit of 20K (and how likely is that?), to get a mortgage based on three times salary you would need to be earning 60K. How many people over 30 earn that kind of money, never mind under 30?

Passionflower · 10/04/2006 21:37

I nagged DH into buying £135K when I was 25 and he was 23 and we had 2 salaries. Got a 100% mortgage as we had no savings. Am so glad I did, we were very lucky and made a substantial profit that enabled us to upgrade to our current house when DD2 came along. Making the repayments on the larger mortgage on one wage was very hard at first though, we had to borrow money from our pension trusts to make the repayments in the first year. DH's career has taken off now in a big way so mortgage is no longer a problem.

We have definitley benefited from the house price boom, having taken a few risks that have paid off along the way and I am aware of how very lucky we are.

TwoIfBySea · 10/04/2006 22:18

We currently are stuck in a housing association house in a town I really don't like because there is no way we could ever afford a house now.

Through DH dragging his feet we missed the boat completely and that is that then. We have no way of moving, no way of buying.

countrylass · 10/04/2006 22:20

We haven't been adversely affected by it. We live in an area where house prices are now pretty high, but we bought our four bedroomed house (terraced but pretty big) for £46K seven years ago. Its now worth about £130K, but we haven't borrowed any more against the house, and should pay our mortgage off in about 12 years.

Flossam · 10/04/2006 22:45

We've just brought our first house. Have managed to get a good deal with my bank as I am a graduate, and we got a 100% mortgage. We have left London though - not a hope in hell for a nurse and a policeman to afford to buy without a government scheme of some sort. Down here we didn't qualify. Buying means we save 200 pcm on rent. However, Dp's wages have dropped by around 5k, I have to work full time now and splash out ove 300pcm on childcare. So for us it is all relative. How any second child fits into this I really don't know just yet - lets see what my wages are first! Grin

nothercules · 10/04/2006 22:46

Even with government help we cant buy a 3 bed house. Around here they start from 250,000.