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

[rumtumtigger]

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?

Expat, the housing associations only withdrew the right to buy in 2001/2 I think.
that's why I asked if you had the right to buy as if you had been a tenant before that date you would have had a secure tenancy.

But since you aren't actually a HA tenant I see that it wouldn't have mattered for you anyway.

In my street of 20 flats there are 11 still owned by the HA. Out of those 11, 4 still have the right to buy as they have secure tenancies. The other 7 HA flats have all been given assuared tenancies when they moved in and so don't have the right to buy anymore.

Thanks garfieldsmum, sorry have only just had chance to catch up on the thread. We tried environmental health and even had solicitors involved, council still tried to deny there was a problem but put up false walls in both bedrooms. This stopped it for a coupe of months but of course all it had done was covered up the problem and now the damp has come through again. Now whenever i go to speak to someone at the council they are always busy and when i make an appointment suddenly there are a lot of emergencies and they have to cancel on me. Basically we have had enough of the council, the only time they take notice is when the tenant is the one in the wrong. We did think of withholding the rent but at the end of the day it is us who will go down as bad debters so the council would still win in the end.

I think i will look into the part buy schemes, maybe i will get lucky. As dh pointed out having a mortage will mean no holidays for a while but I could put up with that, if i had a decent house i wouldnt feel the need to leave it all the time

Good luck pebblemum. I know how you feel about living in awful conditions and how desperate you must feel.

the average price of a 2 bed 'home' in Edinburgh has gone up 20% in the past year. i wouldn't want most of them, anyhow, unless i were minted, b/c so many properties here are in terrible repair.

i'm glad they did away w/right to buy. i think it's done a lot to exacerbate the problem of out of control house prices and lack of affordable places to rent.

We're actually considering leaving the country cause of the house prices. We got this place for a song but could never sell it for enough to get anything better!

We have also thought about buying abroad, it is a lot cheaper and the weather is better. If it wasnt for the fact I would miss my family and wouldnt be able to afford to pop back as often as I would like, I would go tomorrow.

The only good thing this flat has going for it is the front and back garden, without them i would go mad. Also we have a grass area out front for the boys to play on and the neighbours are very friendly, they understand what the situation is and keep trying to tell me they whne they come into my home they are there to see us not the damp but it still embarasses me. I have often said that if it wasnt for the damp I could stay here for a few years yet. We could always find a solution for the lack of storage. We have been offered the chance to buy the fact for half the market value approx £49,000 but there is no way any lender will allow us a mortgage for it unless the damp is sorted out. We did think about getting a quote to see how much we would need to spend to solve the problem then asking the council to drop the price further by that amount, that way we would now the problem is fixed properly not just to council standard (ie hide it)and then we would blitz the flat and do it up exactly how we want. It may still be worth a try if we get no joy elsewhere but I cant help thinking that no matter what we do to this flat i will always remember the way it is now.Plus the boys room is just about big enough for the both of them so any chance of having baby no.3 would go out of the window.