How old were you when you bought your first home and do you wish you'd done it sooner or later?

[Halfwayoranges]

When I bought mine I had left it longer than nearly all my friends.

I didn't have any family help, but I did have 100% mortgage. Which was unusual at the time, but was related to my job; the lender I used allowed 100% mortgages for people in certain jobs. I know that wouldn't happen now though.

We got our deposit of £2.5k from me selling my shares in the Woolwich when it converted to a bank.

I only had a Saturday job ( was at uni) so DH paid the mortgage and I paid the utility bills. Food came from M&S 'waste' luckily as otherwise we couldn't have afforded to eat!

Am glad we bought though. Sold the flat 2 years later with a £20k profit which went towards the next house.

MeMy - no family help/inheritance for deposit. They were all very generous with helping us to buy furniture but the deposit was money we had saved from part time jobs through uni.

To be fair, 95% mortgages were possible at the time and we're both pretty sensible. We'd both stayed at home through uni too which makes a huge difference. all our friends were at home too, whereas on MN it seems more common that people move away and that must impact the ability to save.

I was 24 and DH was 26. We got married the year before or it would have been sooner but I'm glad we did it in that order because we certainly wouldn't have been all to afford a wedding after buying. I hope the work were doing to the house increases it's value!

23 and regret it every day. Market crashed within months of us buying and we needed to move a couple of years later, que a few years of bad tenants and stress and ultimately losing tens of thousands of pounds 😭😭😭

felt under pressure to get on the 'ladder' but realise now there is nothing wrong with renting as it gives you so much more freedom when you are young.

22 when we bought our large 2 bed flat for only £29K in 1992, 35 when we bought our house.

Wish now we'd bought the house sooner before prices shot up, but did enjoy the flat being within staggering distance of the town centre and spending our disposable income enjoying ourselves during those years.

Re the deposit - I mentioned upthread that I bought at 23 and we saved the deposit ourselves, no parental help. We both lived at home, no overseas holidays, just saved up for a few years. In our day back in t'dark ages we'd just come out of mortgage queues and you had to have a history of saving to get a mortgage!

MeMy Our deposit came from a very VERY unexpected inheritance. Neither sets of parents would have helped us with a deposit which is absolutely fine IMO, why should they? If we hadn't received an inheritance we had a loose 8-year savings plan to save for a deposit but it wasn't really a priority as we just assumed it would take us forever to get on the ladder.

Amazed how young everyone was. DH and I bought when we were in our early 30s. We were students until we were 28 and then I was postdocing so no point buying when we knew we'd have to move about despite being able to afford it. It wouldn't have suited us to buy any earlier and since we live in the north east we've not actually made all that much money on the house either, it's only just recovered the value it lost in 2007 and is about 30% more valuable than it was when we bought it about 15 years ago. In comparison the flat my brother bought in London is worth more than double he paid for it less than five years ago. But we have a smaller mortgage and bigger house and so can save in other ways.

MeMy- no family help or inheritance. SIL got £10k towards her deposit but because DH and I weren't married he got nothing. But that's another story

36, but we're in London so it took bloody ages to save up the deposit. Also, I enjoyed renting in areas I will never be able to afford to live in, so not doing it earlier doesn't bother me.

Glad I did it but just hoping we'll make some cash when we move as it's been a long two years of 'doing up'!

I was 21, all good no regrets.

DH bought his first in London in the early nineties when he was thirty. Made a fortune.

So I was able to buy with him when I was 26. We've been very very lucky.

I was 20 and DH 22 but as we both left school at 16 and had been in FT work ever since we felt quite old.

We couldn't have stayed in the first house long term as it was a 2 bed mid terrace with just a kitchen and a living-room. Really small garden so literally nowhere to extend to (loft unsuitable).

Moved to a small 3 bed, then a larger 3 bed, then relocated, over the course of 25+ years. Had we stayed there, we'd have paid off the (£137 pm) mortgage years ago. Instead we'll be paying it until DH is 65. I regret buying the second house, but I suspect if we hadn't we'd never have made the jump to the third, as the price of the 3rd was more than double that of the second.

Oh and we saved the 10% deposit ourselves. No inheritance or help from anyone. But much much easier to save when you live with your mum and dad and have few outgoings.

36, last year. No interest before that and always rented in the city centre and had a busy social life. Folks gave me a deposit last year and I love it but no regrets.

In my 20's I was travelling and saving was the last thing on my mind!

I was 23 in 1991. I had just started my new very well paid job in the City. 3 bed terraced house, north London.

I really feel for people who didn't have the chance to get on the property ladder before prices went crazy.

Re deposit - the house we bought was £36k - 5% deposit was £1800, which we put on credit cards.

We had a cashback mortgage so upon completion we got £2500 back from the mortgage company which we used to pay the solicitors fees and the deposit etc.

Same house now worth roughly £200,000.

Not sure how anyone can afford to buy nowadays.

32. It was in 2003. We had a 100% mortgage. The house cost £90,000 & we sold it 4 years later for £140,000 & bought this one. This one is still only worth about what we paid for it though.

26 - 25 years ago. 25 year mortgage but we paid that off a few years ago so I recently received a very nice payment when the life assurance on my original endowment mortgage matured.

It was absolutely the right time for me to make my first purchase. I had been working, post degree, for about 2.5 years. It took that long to feel secure in my job.

I'm surprised how many early-20s and younger people there are! I was 21, had just finished uni and got a job and was by far the youngest of my friends. Didn't have any family help with anything (was living in sin and my parents had said I was on my own in that case). But did get a cash back 95% mortgage and the deposit was on a credit card. Common back in the 90s. Interest rate was much higher then though, 9 or 10 % I think.

18 and 21 in 1985, 95% mortgage of £24000. Glad we did, sad my DD won't be able to, prices are so high around here, even to help her out with a decent deposit will run into 6 figures. I think we will downsize in a few years and give her some of the equity.

Bought ours in 2014, I was 22 DH was 26. It took a year of us living with my parents to save enough for a deposit. We also got a bit of financial help from my MIL. There isn't many of my friends that have been able to buy unfortunately, it's not easy at the moment! We wanted to get on the ladder as soon as we could as once we start having children we knew we'd struggle to put money aside. And rent on a house our size would've been more than our mortgage payments!