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 personally think, if you want to own, you will both need to increase your wages. Second jobs. Better paying work. If you want to own bad enough you could make it happen but it’ll be hard work.

I'm amazed you are able to save earning so little, but frankly appalled by the hours you both work!

You need a larger income OP. Both of you only working 16 hours a week is not enough. Even if one of you worked full time and the other not at all, you'd be bringing in more money. You should be entitled to tax credits/universal credit too? Sounds like you would also be entitled to help with childcare costs or free childcare as well.

Even if one of you worked full time and the other not at all, you'd be bringing in more money

Exactly this. Both of you together are working less than one persons full time hours. If you want to buy a house then unfortunately that doesn’t make any sense at all.

We bought a flat on £15k wage with £5k deposit! One bed though.

Now if you have DC they take childcare into account and that your other outgoings are higher. It is much harder to get a mortgage now than 15 years ago.

I agree about one of you working full time. I've missed how old your dc are, but once they're at school, one could work full time and one could work during school hours part time.

What are your current jobs?

Why are you both working so few hours? I’m not surprised you think you won’t ever afford to buy a house on that amount. I don’t know of any couples who have managed to buy a house on less than one full time wage between them!

I agree with one of you needing to work full time. However it's not always that easy. My husband works full time and I don't work. We have four kids and I could never fit work around our family or afford childcare so until the kids are all school age I can't see a way for us to be able to afford a house, unless my husband gets a better paid job.

Just wanted to add a simple point, in relation to what you mentioned earlier about being close to family etc..

There is a reward and in taking risks. The idea of leaving family, friends and current jobs may seem huge in the mind right now, but if you got that process started they aren’t that big in the long term, especially if it facilitates the achievements of the goals you mentioned.

You sound like sensible people, living frugally and prioritising time spend with your children, no doubt you could make anything work if you allowed yourselves to go for it.