worried we will never be able to own our own house

[BillywigStings]

DH and I are 28 and we are worried we will never earn enough to get a mortgage. Combined we earn about £14,000 a year. We have two kids under five so we don’t have a lot of money to spare but we have worked out it will take us 4 years to save for a deposit. However it’s not the deposit we are worried about, it’s our low income that will prevent us from buying a house anywhere near what meets or needs. Basically we can save 10K and the houses we are interested in are 100-125K but we’d settle for a fixer upper at 75K. At our income from what I can see we’d only be loaned 38-56K and add our deposit into that it would come to 66K at most - nowhere near what we would need.

There’s no chance of us getting better paid jobs without retraining and getting into debt.

Is there anything we can do to get lent enough money for a mortgage for the price of the type of house we would want?

I just hate paying so much of our income towards rent when for much less we could be putting it towards a home we could one day own :/

I'm astonished you can have two kids, live on 14 k a year and still save 2.5 grand a year. You all must live very frugally indeed.

There is really no need for you both to be earning 7k a year, one of you needs to work full time and the other a different shift system then change that when thr kids get free nursery hours or go to school.

Honestly plenty of families with young kids , you just need to think it through, right now I would say buying a house isn't something that's easily achievable for you I'm sorry, better to focus on improving your employment prospects.

Do you mind saying why you don't receive tax credits? And how you can save for a deposit on your income? I'm guessing no car(s), live in walking distance of work and rent for £450 ish per month? Tell me to bugger off if you like I'm just curious.

Whilst l think it is great you want to save for your own home, l don't understand why you both work so little....

There are so many options for extra...waitressing evenings, bar work at night, dog walking fitted in between shifts, ironing at home when the stay at home parent is there....you need to be filling every possible hour with money making work...Find out about any free courses available and do any you can to increase your earning potential..

One of you look at sales jobs, they often don't require higher education/retraining, and if you are good you will certainly be earning more than minimum wage...do a shellac nail course and work freelance between shifts.......stop assuming you have to stick to minimum wage jobs!

I’m curious as to where you live?! DP and I earn much more (not a boast just comparing) and we’re still struggling to buy, but we are in south east.

If I were to guess I’d say Wales?

Care work and warehouse jobs are often 12 hour shifts, you should both work full time easily with jobs like that.

One of you could work 9-5 monday-friday and the other work evenings/weekends and still have someone at home for the children but potentially up to double your income

DH works tues - sat and I work sun-tues

I don't understand this at all. For your husband to do 16 hours over five days he's doing on average three or so hours a day, and those are the days you're not working at all. So on thr days you work he is home most of the time.

And they days you work you must work a max of 5 hours, so there is a Ton of time you're home together with the kids during the day.

How old are they exactly? Are they not eligible yet for nursery hours?

Jesus, not even working full time between 2 of you, with kids. It’s a shambolic state of affairs when people get handouts in these situations.

Can one of you not do full-time in the day and the other not work evenings or nights?

Alternatively, you could skill-up a bit in the hours you're not working and go for a slightly higher paid job?

Plus you'll presumably get the 30 hours child-care.

You have options.

This is a really sad situation.

Not sure if you're being realistic or dreaming a bit as children actually get more expensive the older they get.

If your OH has a driving license he can upgrade it and start driving trucks or buses as these jobs don't require any skill apart from a certain license. Some of the companies give on job training. He'll be earning way over minimum wage. Trucks driver wages start from £12ph

He could also look at joining the army and could be earning well over £20k in the next 4 years. There's lots of perks that come with the army too plus cheaper rent if you use their married quarters.

As for yourself as you already have children you could look into child minding other people's kids? Ironing clothes from home ? Looking for a cleaning job or waitressing as they normally pay out above min wage but hardly any skills needed.

If you don't have money to retrain you can always work your way up to a supervisor, assistant manager, and then maybe move to other companies who are paying more for the role.

Not sure where you're living right now but in the north like hull, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Blackpool etc you can definitely get a decent house for £60k if you don't mind living in a village. you could always stay there temporarily whilst building equity and then maybe move when your kids starts secondary school.

As been said, you still have plenty of time of you consider you are currently expected to work for another 40 years!

Of course bring a home owner requires a higher income. You are comparing rent with a mortgage right now but seem to fail to understand economics and that mortgage repayments seem low right now because interest rates continue to be so low. Repayments could easily double in a few years time. Also you are probably not considering that being a home owner comes with costs you don't have as a tenant. Repairs, decoration, maintenance, all this accumulates and can run easily in £100 or more a month.

What you also need to consider is the longer you remain in pt mnw income, the longer it will take you to rise up the scale and increase your income even to the average national, so you really need to discuss what you want to do.

Sometimes working for nothing more at the end of the month is still worth it as an investment for the future from that perspective.

You would earn more if one of you was full-time five days a week and the other did evenings/weekends.

I totally understand your frustration OP, DP and I currently earn around what you and your husband earn but we had a six figure inheritance from his DM, still can't get a mortgage even though a mortgage with our deposit would make mortgage payments just over half what we pay in rent. I think both of you working opposite shifts and a lot more hours a week is the only way you are going to be able to get an income big enough to get a mortgage. It will take a while but you may well be able to buy yourselves a house within the next 5-10 years.

I think that the only way that you could buy is to purchase in a part of the country where housing is extremely cheap, even if you don't like the property yourself, then install tenants so that the mortgage is covered. Then continue to save.
Then you'll be already on the property market, so when you sell the tenanted house the next purchase will be your family home.
im far too invested in property programmes

Would it not make sense for one of you to work full time? And the yes, the other do evenings.

How on 14k between are you not entitled to anything more in terms of benefit?

Please don’t advise OP to get a buy to let! For starters it requires a large chunk of money to be used as a cushion for repairs, void periods etc but also, tenants can refuse to leave meaning huge legal costs for OP. Becoming a landlord is the equivalent of setting up a new business as a self employed plumber. You need to know what you’re doing and you need the money before you start to cover all the equipment you need, weeks with no work etc. Being a landlord is not a solution to not being able to afford an nice property. At least, it shouldn’t be!

Why cant one of you get a full time job and the other work around them (you did mention your husbands mh problems so that may be why). But when my children were young I worked days, my husband worked nights. He went to bed as soon as he go home but was up again at 3 to get the children from school. I always had the kids at the weekend as he worked weekends too.

Surely if one of you is working 3 days, you should be doing at least 24hours, if not more as other parent is home, and the person doing 4 days should be doing 30hrs.

I don't understand why your incoke is so low.

Yes focus on saving, but focus on increasing your hours as well!

The big issue for you is the deposit. I am not going to tell you to work more if that works for you at the moment and you can save. When the children are old enough for nursery and then school, you will have the ability to work more hours and save more.

You are looking at a cheap area if those are the sort of prices and that is something as in a lot of areas you would have no chance.

Help to Buy will probably not be much use as that is only on new builds and those will be at the more expensive end so you would not have much chance on your current wages.

One option is to look at something smaller. It depends on what you can get for the £100k you are looking for - if in your area that would mean a three bed property so the children have a room each, look at 2 beds where they share or properties with scope for adapting (i.e. a property with an attached garage you could convert into another bedroom or space for an extension in the future if you need).

Something else to look at would be a shared ownership property. It depends on what is available in your area - they are often through local help to buy scheme. They are not the best for everyone and if you could buy outright that is better, but for those you buy a percentage of the house and then pay rent on the rest. It means you need a lower deposit and smaller mortgage but have to pay some rent each month. You can then usually buy more shares in the future if you want to. That could get you a house the size you want but make it more manageable on cost.

can one not work days and one nights? not ideal i am aware....but worth doing short term if you want that house!

You need to work more hours between you . 30 hours for two adults is ridiculously low . Would you honestly expect to be a homeowner working so little ?

I don't think th op is coming back and her question was specially how she could borrow a deposit,,,

On top of the deposit to buy a house you also need money for solicitor fees, land registry, survey, mortgage arrangement fee, moving costs, post redirection, emergency money, house insurance, life insurance. Then pay the mortgage and all bills each month. So it would take many years to save all this up to buy a property, even if the property is in a cheaper area. Suggest you need a way to guarantee higher wages.