Graduates returning to the nest, a new start for all!

[VanCleefArpels]

Carrying on from the 2019/20 Uni students thread let’s talk about what it’s like to have our fresh graduates home, for some of us invading our nice empty nest, for all of us creating a new household dynamic…….

Friday happy hour is a clever ploy to encourage people in - TWATS really are a thing in London anyway (Tues Weds And Thurs 😜) meaning Monday and Friday it’s more of a ghost town

Ha ha ha @VanCleefArpels ! Yes I think she has mentioned that Monday is a ‘down day’ but yet to find out what that means

Good idea @Benjispruce4 , am going to go a good walk soon. I'm definitely a sponge, although i don't remember my parents being like that with me, i was just left to it...maybe thats why i try to control things with my kids instead of leaving them to get on with it...who knows. Well, not control, more like help...Happy hour sounds good, i used to love Fridays in the pub after work..

Yes the city is dead on a Friday - Thursday night is the new Friday night!

And yes to bring sponges 😩

Being not bring, obvs!

I'm not sure about that. I went out in Broadgate Circle a couple of weeks ago on a Friday and it was rammed!
Fun night! WIsh I was still in my 20s and starting out ...

Ah yes, there’s lots going on around Liverpool St station!

Well, DD’s first day went well. Everyone really friendly and she was impressed with free breakfast and free drinks in the fridge obviously 🙄. She was meeting friends after work and missed train and had to get the slow one that stops everywhere so wasn’t home until midnight! She’s back in today so I think she’s glad it’s a Friday. 😴

That sounds great @Benjispruce4!

Good start. It does not seem long since the 1980s when I was first commuting into London for my first job even though it is decades ago. (Back then assured shortholds had not quite come out so there was very little to rent - worse than now - as if you let out a property you could stay for life (for generations sometimes) at very very low "fair rents" so the only landlords in the market were Rachman like criminals and there were 20 year council house waiting lists so people tended to live with parents, we spent our first months of marriage when I was pregnant in my husband's school provided flat sleeping on a mattress on the floor as teachers could not afford local rents nor buy very easily.
As Eve said, because of recent changes to tax landlords on profit they do not make (where they have loans) and other changes many have left the market so when my son who lives at home relet his house just beyond the M25 recently wed had 12 couples view within 2 days and bid on the little house and had to choose who got it.

Anyway hopefully everyone looking on this thread will find somewhere. We ended up out here in zone 5 (outer London) in the 1980s as inner London too expensive and still live out here.

Dh has a few properties and I have one that are rented out. We live in Suffolk. The call for rental properties is very high. So it must be so much worse in London and surrounding areas. One of dh's properties was up for rent 6 weeks ago. There were about 30 applicants, quite a few were from Essex wanting to move out the area. The agent chose 6 to meet dh and view the property. Then dh had to choose who to have. We try to choose someone we think will stay the longest.

ican, same here - this one wanted three years and even though they bid the asking price (so less than some) we picked them.

Those of you with rental properties, were you not tempted to buy in your DC’s uni towns and let them share with their friends? Something we would like to have done if we could.

BIL did that for his DS (at Exeter). Think the friends' rent more than covered the mortgage.

Please can I join? Mine graduated 2021?

The more the merrier @OneFrenchEgg! Please do join us.

Thanks! Off travelling now, but the adjustment to home was a bit tricky 😂

I thought DS was sorted with finding a flat with his girlfriend BUT their first bid for one wasn't successful. I can now fully understand why based on what has been written above about rentals being really in demand at the moment. She has current accommodation for another two months and DS is currently staying with her most of the time. But I'm not sure what's going to happen then.

Three of DS's bags of stuff are just cluttering up our hallway as there's no obvious home for them.

I have this feeling that he may end up having to come home for a bit which will be a squash and a squeeze.

Young people off travelling is a great thing to do and truly gives a bit of headspace for seeing the 'wood from the trees' in terms of what they want to do (or not do) next.

DD has been staying with a friend in Newcastle and says that agents aren't even responding to her applications to rent anywhere.

Interesting that it’s not just a London thing @RampantIvy.

I was reading that there is a shortage of rental properties in Newcastle the other day. Most rentals are student lets as there are 2 universities so there are a LOT of students.

It's round where we live in South Yorkshire as well @Benjispruce4. The local Facebook pages are full of posters looking for houses to rent.

That's depressing to hear @RampantIvy . As if our young people haven't had/haven't got enough to be contending with.

Recent graduates with no / little credit history and no guaranteed income in the form of student loans are never going to be as attractive as students. Could you stand as guarantor/ pay some rent up front to make them a more attractive candidate?

Benji, on " Those of you with rental properties, were you not tempted to buy in your DC’s uni towns and let them share with their friends?"in my case I just own my mortgaged house but I wanted each child to buy a first property so the youngest 2 only did that because their 10 years older brother was moving from his first house and they took that on and then the other had another house near that - it was not really feasible to do it in the university city because of stamp duty levels which means buying and then selling is very expensive, even more so than when I first bought (but even then stamp duty was far too high). So the twins are just landlords because they live at home and they just have that one house each which in due course they can either move into or sell to buy the first place where they will own and live in. My oldest child in years 2 and 3 lived in a house her friend's father bought for the son and the boy did it up over the summer holiday himself - painting etc which was a useful life lesson in DIY skills.

DS2 found it really difficult to rent in Leeds. Flats were snapped up before he could view. Several times he booked viewings, booked time off work and caught the train to Leeds only to get a last minute message that the place had been let.