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Original poster

What position were you in by your 28th birthday?

86 replies

RemainsOfTheDay · 14/02/2012 13:20

I have just read an article that says the average first time house buyer is 29.

So in a few months I will have a year to go before I reach 'the average'.

DH and I don't have a mortgage. We are saving but have nowhere near what we need for a deposit.

We don't have any debt though.

Are we really behind?! Or does the average just included all the people that have massive parental help.

OP posts:

iwouldgoouttonight · 14/02/2012 14:13

When I was 28 I was single and had a mortgage - a little 2 up 2 down terraced which I loved! I didn't have any financial help but my house only cost £60k and I was allowed to borrow 3x my salary. So I was very lucky that I was able to buy before house prices were ridiculously high and banks were still lending 100% at 3x salaries.

My salary is still very similar but house prices have probably doubled since then. So I don't think 28 will be the average age to buy a house for much longer.

wonkylegs · 14/02/2012 14:18

At 28 I had had my own house (with a mortgage) for 9yrs.
Saved on my own for a 20% deposit at 19, bought a house and let out spare rooms to pay the mortgage/upkeep. Sold that house at 25 and bought our current house with DH (he also sold a flat at that time). Fast forward 7yrs and we've nearly paid off the mortgage, have no debts (bar my SL) and will be looking to move later in the year due to job commitments.
We both have okish jobs are good at saving, never buy on credit except mortgage only thing that has been a bit annoying is I only started my pension 3 yes ago when i had my DS but as I'll be working forever thanks to the ever moving retirement age I'm sure it'll be fine.

Milliways · 14/02/2012 14:19

I married at 20 (25 years ago) when you could get a flat or starter home for under £40k. For that reason we moved twice and at 28 we had a 4 bed detached home, DD and large dog. Mortgage was eye watering for us for a while though, and I had to work full time and DD went to a work subsidised nursery.

My DD will be getting married this year and they will have no option but to rent for MANY years. We have helped with Uni rent, modest wedding costs etc but no way can we give them a house deposit, as we have DS to get through Uni next.......

DavidaCottonmouth · 14/02/2012 14:20

We bought our first house when I was 24 and DH 26. We didn't have parental help, but it was in the days of 100% mortgages. Our savings, at that point, just paid the costs associated with buying the house (solicitor, survey, etc) By 28, we had one child and we were in negative equity.

No regrets though. Had we not been forced to stay in that house, we might have moved to an in-between one before the house we are in now, and that would have been more expensive in the long run.

It can seem really tough at the time, but there is, for most people, light at the end of the tunnel.

suburbandream · 14/02/2012 14:25

I wonder how they get these statistics -which "average" IYSWIM, does that mean that the majority of people buying their first home are 29, or have they just taken the ages of all first time buyers and divided it by the number, so it could range from 18 say to 50s! I don't know any people who bought their first home at 29, but then at that age (a while ago now!!) I lived in London and most people I knew were single, renting and having too much fun spending all their wages to think about saving up for a house deposit!!

VirtualStranger · 14/02/2012 14:30

I bought my first flat in 1994 at the age of 24. But if I was 24 now I wouldn't be able to buy that flat (or possibly any others!). The flat cost £97k and I borrowed £12k off dh's parents and got a mortgage for the rest. (I earned around £24k at that time I think and dh earned the same - so we got a flat worth twice our combined salaries approx. This wouldn't buy anything these days. ).

I was earning possibly the most I have ever earned by my 28th birthday. I didn't have children ( although was a few weeks pregnant with my first) so was working full time in a highly paid job. I was living in another flat by then, but can't remember how much that cost or how much my mortgage was. I can't afford that flat now though.

it all went downhill from there though.

COCKadoodledooo · 14/02/2012 15:50

We were married and I was on mat leave with first dc. We owned our house (well, the bank owned about 80% of it). Then 18 months later dh was made redundant and we had to move to where the work was.This meant selling up and renting elsewhere. Couldn't afford to buy where we moved to, and rent here is £300 a month more than our mortgage payments were so we can't save up to buy again.

Dh was made redundant for the 3rd time coming up for 3 years ago now. He's retrained and is in a career that pays a lot less. We have another dc and I have stopped being a sahm and now work 3 days a week. Financially/materially we are much worse off than we were then (am 36 this year btw), but dammit we are HAPPY!

tomverlaine · 14/02/2012 15:59

I had just bought a flat with my then DP in London. We had no parental help -I seem to remember it was around a 95% mortgage? It was cheaper than renting the equivalent flat at the time.

(By 30 I had split up from exDP- had had to buy him out of the flat and had a lodger for a couple of years to pay the mortgage )

Knowing the value of the flat now I am not sure whether two people in the same position could buy the same flat- but I think they could still do it in an equivalent areas (area was up and coming eg grotty but has up and comed since)

CogitoErgoSometimes · 14/02/2012 16:20

"I'm just really afraid of negative equity"

On that point, negative equity is only a problem if you need to move house in a hurry or if you default on your mortgage. Funnily enough, when I was 28 (back in the early nineties) I had owned my current house (my third property) for 2 years. It was probably in negative equity because there was a house-price crash and interest rates were up in the rafters. However, I didn't need to move, didn't default on the payments and, several years later, the prices started to creep up again.

In short, a 10% or better deposit will get you a pretty good rate on a mortgage. Don't let the fear of negative equity put you off if you would like to own your own home.

VivaLeBeaver · 14/02/2012 16:27

I was 28 in 2005. I bought my first house in 1998 and paid the mortgage off about 3 years later. But I was lucky that I got my first house for 31k, before the prices shot up. When I sold it 4 years later it was worth 72k.

noddyholder · 14/02/2012 16:31

I was pregnant with ds and living in a flat my parents owned but i paid full market rent for. I was earning about 19k then and 2 years later I bought my 1st flat with mortgage and savings. No one helped though just saved.

OhThisIsJustGrape · 14/02/2012 16:33

At 28, I'd been with DH for 12 years, married for 3 of those and we had an 11 year old and a 7 year old. I was working full time as a TA and DH ran his own business.

We bought our house just before our youngest was born, prices were still very low then. We had paid off our mortgage and things looked very rosy indeed, lots of weekends away for DH and I, holidays with the kids, fast cars etc.

Then, major broodiness took over us! We decided to have another baby, I gave up work when she was born, our house wasn't big enough so we needed to extend.

Fast forward 5 years, we now have 4 children, an £80K mortgage due to complete renovation of the house, I drive a people carrier and the business has taken quite a hit with the recession.

We're still doing ok, have a lovely house and mortgage should be cleared by our mid 40s. However, I look back very fondly at the time we had no mortgage and I was working. Can't afford Childcare for 2 preschoolers so not worth me getting a job just yet. DH working all hours keeping the business afloat, thankfully his is one of the few to have survived the downturn.

We're still miles ahead of our peers, if we hadn't bought when we did then I seriously doubt we ever would have been able to do so.

Pootles2010 · 14/02/2012 16:37

Weeell... I'm also 28 next month, and although we 'own' our own home, we don't really, because we don't have any equity in it. We're not in negative, i think we're now about even (roughly).

So really you're in better position, because when you do buy, you'll own much more than we do. Good for you!

KnitterNotTwitter · 14/02/2012 16:42

At 28 I'd been with DH (although then not actually a H if that makes sense) for 1 year. We were renting together and I was househunting and DH was going to pay me rent as he was in total financial shit creek and I wasn't prepared to buy with him!

I'd cleared all my debts including my student loan, and my parents gave me the money they'd saved for my wedding to use as a deposit which was fabulous of them.

Bought a 1 bed flat, extended it to be a 2 bed flat using money given to me when by grandpa died, sold it at £100k profit (partly house price inflation and partly impact of the works)

Then bought our current house (when I was aged 30) jointly with DH who was less of a financial liability by that point (although he still does have his moments).

So I guess I'm average - 28 was a turning point for me in lots of ways...

AnnoyingOrange · 14/02/2012 16:43

I bought my first house when I was 27. I lived at home and saved up before that. I was single with no kids

scaryteacher · 14/02/2012 16:45

Same as Milliways - was married at 20, (26 years ago) so by 28 we were in our third house, so had traded up from one bed cottage via 5 bed town house to 4 bed period property in a rural location. Was working f/t and very happy.

Now not working, living abroad and still very happy.

WMDinthekitchen · 14/02/2012 16:50

Bought my first house in 1978 for £11,000! I was 26. We were broke and fed ourselves on veg grown in the back garden. I am sure that there is no way I would be able to buy at the same age these days.

Jjou · 15/02/2012 09:52

I turned 28 a month after DD was born. DH and I had bought our house the previous year after saving for fees and deposit. We gutted the house and re-did it all - new central heating, ceilings, plastering, kitchen, bathroom, decorating and moved in when I was pregnant. We had some debt that we were paying down but nothing catastrophic. We had intended to move within a couple of years, but another baby later, and the economic downturn have meant that saving is so much harder so we're staying put for the time being. We're so lucky to have what do, but more space and a garden would be nice too

WaxyBean · 15/02/2012 14:39

At 28 (last year), I'd had a mortgage for a year, had a nearly 2 year old, no debt (including student loan) and fairly reasonable outgoings. I had/have a well paid job albeit part-time o/a small child.

No parental help (though they have given me some money for a wedding which hasn't happened yet) and I paid exactly half of the 25% deposit for our house, and for most of the renovations from my savings. I now pay 3/8 of the mortgage and bills (as I only work 3 days a week, whereas OH works 5 days) but we don't consider that the house is any less mine for that.

Bumblequeen · 15/02/2012 14:57

This reply has been deleted

Withdrawn at poster's request.

startail · 15/02/2012 15:12

I married at 22 (DH was just 26). Bought our first house 18 mints later (24&27).
90something% mortgage.
No parental help, but our rented place was cheap, I had a sponsored Phd grant and DH had a reasonable job. We were the last generation of students who finished university without loans.

thing1andthing2 · 15/02/2012 15:21

At 28 DH and I bought our first house with a massive leg up (50% of the value) from FIL and some of our own savings (and a mortgage).
It was peak of the market (July 2007) just before the crash but fortunately it's still worth the same as we paid for it (thought about selling in November last year and got three asking price offers in a week - didn't sell though).

faintpinkline · 16/02/2012 19:09

By 28 I had 1 child, 1 partner, 1 full time job, 1 part time job, no debts, and savings. We were renting a flat though and didn't buy until I was 34 so was clearly well past the average.

LynetteScavo · 16/02/2012 19:18

I was married with a 2 year old.

The mortgage on our lovely 3 bed terraced house was incy wincy (bought for £35K, only 13 years left to run.)

I did have a bit of debt on credit cards, but nothing unmanageable.

In the past 12 years I have taken a roller coaster ride .

trixymalixy · 16/02/2012 19:26

I was one of the lucky ones who bought with a 100% mortgage when I was 19, so by 28 I was on my 3rd property having made a profit of 20k profit on my first flat and a profit of £115k on the 2nd.

Luckily we assumed it wasn't real money and didn't spend a penny of it but put it down as a deposit on our current home so insulating ourselves from falling prices.

I know how lucky I was that my parents were able to act as guarantors on my first mortgage.

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