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Original poster

Could you afford to buy property now, if starting over?

58 replies

aphen · 23/01/2019 09:39

Say you were born 15-30 years after you really were and we’re starting out in your grad job. Could you afford to buy, if on the level salary your job paid when you bought first time? If so, where are you?

What do you expect future generations to do?

OP posts:

BareBelliedSneetch · 23/01/2019 16:33

Although that’s assuming a 60% mortgage. If I change it to closer to 95% then the mortgage is more like £1100, so not that different to 2005.

MovingThisYearDefinitely · 23/01/2019 17:17

Not a chance lol. I bought my first place in 1998 for 20k with a 2k deposit. It was a 2 bed maisonette in need of updating on the south coast. I have ADHD & ASD so struggled with education & had a low paid job as a shift manager of a petrol station. (£3.70 an hour) It was literally at the limit of what I could afford back then. If I'd waited any longer it would of been completely out of my reach.

I am currently about to move into a 4 bed detached house in Surrey. I consider myself very lucky considering my educational background & difficulties. Sad that my kids won't benefit from the same opportunity. I don't ever see them leaving home with the state of the market!

Minniemountain · 23/01/2019 18:36

Yes. Yet another solicitor.
We bought our house for £110,000 in 2006 when I qualified. Sold it to MIL for £135,000 in 2016.

LookingOptimistic · 23/01/2019 18:59

I bought my first home only 3 years ago with partner for £213k (2 bed coach house apartment), our wages were about £38k then and we just about scraped together a 10% deposit but it wasnt till we added in the £3k dividends paid (from our little online home business) that we could actually borrow enough.

Our wages have increased about £22k since, so am now currently in process of buying 4 bed detached house in south west (fordingbridge, hampshire).

Its a real struggle for young people to get the mortgage as its at most 4.75 times their wages; and with the rapid house price increases, they just cant borrow enough even if they had a deposit (which is more likely lower % now than they used to put down).

notangelinajolie · 23/01/2019 19:06

Yes. Back in the 80's we bought the worst house on the worst street in the worst place anyone could ever have the misfortune to live. We made it look nice and 2 years later we moved. A lot of hard work and several moves later we now live exactly where we want to live. DH doesn't earn a high salary and I'm a SAHM so we would have to do exactly the same again if we were to start again.

One of my DC's on the other hand is currently saving for a deposit but does not have the same mindset. There is no way she will rough it and move away to a grot spot and therefore there is no way she will ever be able to afford anything. I think she will be with us for quite some time

CountFosco · 23/01/2019 20:41

I did a PhD and then a postdoc before I got a permanent job and we bought our first house in our early 30s, so not really new graduates. We live in the north and sold that house after living in it for 15 years. We sold it for £12k more than we bought it for. House prices here have not recovered since the 2007 crash. New graduates at work buy pretty quickly after starting work.

mumsy27 · 24/01/2019 01:50

i seriously advice people who can't afford to consider
shared ownership
help to buy
or even buy it with a friend with an exit agreement.

KanielOutis · 24/01/2019 06:27

No, the flat I own in the SE cost £100k. Ten years later it's worth £185k. The market must come down as a whole generation can't keep up.

DeloresJaneUmbridge · 24/01/2019 06:39

Nope. I bought a 2 bed flat in 1996 on a nurses salary.
Today a nurse couldn't do that. The same flats are selling for well over £150k well out of reach.

flatpackbox · 24/01/2019 06:42

No, my first house cost £89,000, my mortgage was actually for 110% as my ex boyfriend added the negative equity from his flat to the mortgage. House now worth £850,000.

So I would never be able to afford anything similar at 25 (or 50 for that matter!).

Faithless12 · 24/01/2019 06:59

All of you saying you could afford it, would you be able to save the deposit required? I recently had this conversation with someone and they bemoaned the fact that youngsters go on holiday and the latest phone etc and that’s why they can’t afford to buy. However when they worked out what they bought which was 3 times their husbands annual salary which was on the lower end of average for the time and has recently sold for 20x annual salary now. They soon realised that actually the deposit needed was horrific and ok it wasn’t a starter home but they had still afforded it on one salary and not an amazing salary.

Dothehappydance · 24/01/2019 07:07

We could afford to buy something but we would have to use both wages rather than the one. Our 3 bed detached was 80k and we sold for 165k. I could still get a house, albeit smaller, for 80k in an ok area

anniehm · 24/01/2019 07:14

Yes, but it's quite cheap here, houses can still be had for under £100k just and we both have degrees and he has a PhD

soundsystem · 24/01/2019 07:21

Definitely not! We bought a flat in London zone 2 in 2010 for £250k. The same flat now is worth around £600k. There's just no way. Our salaries now - at the same stage of our careers as we were then - would be a grand or two higher, maybe...

If we were 10 years younger we just wouldn't live in London.

mizu · 24/01/2019 07:26

2 bed houses where I live are around £250,000.
We bought our first place - a flat with its own garden and entrance - 7 months ago. We are in our 40s. It took us 7 years to save the deposit.

It can be done. Our mortgage is big though and I will be paying it til I retire.

ScreamingValenta · 24/01/2019 07:29

Yes, but I live up north where it's cheap.

Parky04 · 24/01/2019 07:41

No chance. Bought my house 1996 and it cost £67000. Live in Berkshire. Was earning £15,000 and put down a 10% deposit. Same house now worth £350000. Young people have little to no chance of owning own property in Berkshire.

wonkylegs · 24/01/2019 08:18

Yes I could and I probably could buy my 1st house again
I just looked it up and it's for sale again at just over 2x as much as I paid for it
Starting salary's in my profession are currently 2.5x what they were when I started but when I bought I needed 50% deposit and interest rates were 8% both of which are much lower now. I didn't have any parental help then and wouldn't now.

I am in the NE and I could if I chose further out make that even more affordable

I completely get that this isn't the case everywhere but I also understand that the much touted NOBODY of the current generation can afford it without the bank of mum and dad is also a sweeping generalisation. Circumstances vary wildly.

AwkwardPaws27 · 24/01/2019 09:13

We bought our first flat 4.5 years ago, 94% mortgage.
If we were on the same salaries as 4.5 years ago now, we couldn't buy a 1 bedroom flat in our area now without a hefty deposit. Prices have increased by in that period 50% due to Crossrail.

LondonMischief · 24/01/2019 09:14

Things have changed a lot for people buying with a mortgage. The goals posts have shifted from multiples of income to affordability. Interest rates are vastly different and just about everyone goes for a fixed rate these days.

If the fixed interest rate products we have now we’re available then, we could have afforded to spend twice as much on our first house as we did then, on our then salaries.

CinnamonToaster · 24/01/2019 09:30

Yes. We bought in 2004 and were paying 3- 5 times what some of our friends had paid a few years earlier. It was terrifying at the time, I was sure we'd end up in huge negative equity.

Whether we could have ever afforded it after children, while paying nursery fees, I'm not so sure. Nursery fees seem to have gone up an astronomical amount in the last 10 years.

Kazzyhoward · 24/01/2019 09:46

Yep. We bought 20+ years ago in our thirties, once our careers were well established and we'd saved up 25% for the deposit and a similar amount to renovate it (it needed a full modernisation).

Looking at house prices today, compared with the kind of wages we'd get at that stage in our careers if we were in our 30's today, yes, we could buy a house and modernise it. Maybe a bit of compromise on size and location compared to what we bought back then, but it's still entirely do-able.

20+ years ago, we'd have really struggled to get a deposit and be able to modernise any house if we were mid 20s at the start of our careers without a few years of savings behind us.

I'd be very surprised if there has even been a generation would could easily buy a house when they set out on their first grad job.

Bernadetteloves · 24/01/2019 11:25

I'm in Northern Ireland. Property prices are lower than when I first bought in 2006 and wages have risen so it is easier to get on the market now. I am aware that this is unusual for the UK.

howabout · 24/01/2019 12:06

I'd be very surprised if there has even been a generation would could easily buy a house when they set out on their first grad job.

My parents are both non-graduates. My DF had a non-graduate job and my DM was a SAHM. They were on the housing ladder with 2 young DC before either was 25. I grew up on a 70s new housing estate and most of the neighbours were similar. Very few had help from parents and many had themselves grown up in Council housing.

Kazzyhoward · 24/01/2019 12:31

They were on the housing ladder with 2 young DC before either was 25.

If they hadn't gone to Uni, they could well have been in the workplace for 8-10 years by the time they were 25, hence well established in their jobs, and not in an "entry" job like today's 25 year olds may be. They could well have been in work for 5 years longer by that age, so will be long past the trainee/entry roles, thus higher earning, more years of work/wages for savings etc. It's inevitable that if you stay in education for 5 years longer, you're going to have to delay your house buying for those 5 years during which you weren't working/earning/saving.

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