Is it normal to settle for a home you don't like?

[Namedrop000]

We're FTBs. We've been patiently saving for many years for our first home. But there's just nothing on the market at the moment? The places we've seen fit none of our (pretty modest!) needs, and have been in terrible condition. We don't have the cash for big renovations.

We've been looking for about a year and prices are going up, so I think we just need to buy something we don't even like just as a stopgap so we're on the ladder, and have somewhere to live. Is this normal? We were hoping to buy a very long term home that we actually had a fairly good feeling about, but seems like that's unrealistic.

I find it hard to stomach spending 400k+ on something I don't even like or care about and would be embarrassed to invite friends or family over to.

In short yes.

We were ftb 20 years ago, we bought a pokey little 2 up 2 down with a downstairs loo, no heating, plaster falling off the walls, tiny rat infested back yard, permit parking next to a railway track.

Second property was a slight upgrade, 3 bed terrace near a park (full of drunk teens on a weekend, drug paraphernalianin the public loos regularly etc), this one had heating but the boiler was on its last legs, had a multitude of damp issues, needed a new roof etc, still in a rough area, not permit parking so always impossible to get parked on that road.

Third house in a lovely village, now up to a semi, lovely garden and views but hideous pebble dash. Needed new kitchen, bathrooms, boiler etc.

Looking for the dream home but can't face going back to a big mortgage. It's really not that common to just fall into owning your forever home as a ftb.

I’ve been looking for ages and generally found the following issues:

Good size / decorative house but bad area
Good size house in ok area but needing lots of work
Smaller house in a nicer location

I’ve just made an offer on the 3rd option. It is smaller (3 beds for 5 of us!) and an elderly person so very dated but is well looked after and has potential.

I would have been looking forever if I waited for a 4 bedroom in good decorative order in a good location! I think sometimes a compromise has to be made, as long as you can make it work. For me, although it has brown flowery carpets etc, it’s clean and tidy and we can live there as it is and slowly update.

I feel your pain OP - it’s very tough!

The 'lick of paint', as you choose to phrase it, was not the point. The point was property increases. It would no doubt have increased more had I done the bigger work. At the same time a friend's flat, increased less but she paid absolutely top whack for it. I paid very little for mine because it was all I could afford.

The small house I bought after it was in much better condition and stretched me financially and did not increase immediately but when I sold it a few years later DH and I had married, it had increased in value, interest rates had fallen and we had over-paid the mortgage and we had a lot of equity in it .

I have already said what happened to our next house- and we didn't benefit from that huge leap because we moved on before it really jumped, but we again over-paid the mortgage because interest rates peaked and fell a bit and we both had significant promotions.

We have benefitted from the most recent increases in value to our current house.

I think it is swings and roundabouts- if your house price isn't increasing, nor(usually) are other locally. If yours is, chances are you will be paying more than you might have a year earlier for what you want- but you'll have some equity.

If you buy new you can get badly caught with negative equity at first because you always over-pay for a new house- I have never had one.

That first flat was in a not great area, was about the cheapest on the market locally at the time and in not good condition. It still increased in value with almost no significant work apart from looking much better.

@LuluBlakey1
Again, this is not about your personal experience in the last 22 years when prices have generally risen (especially at the beginning of this period) and risen hugely in London and SE. My point was a general one, illustrated by a link showing both real and nominal house prices. You seem to be strongly implying that, just because you have made some gains in equity in a period which is likely to be a historical anomaly, that everyone else will too.

I understand it’s so hard to part with such a huge amount of money for something that doesn’t “do it” for you.
However, owning a property as opposed to renting does allow you to begin building up equity that will benefit you and your family in the long run. We were FTB 6 years ago in a v expensive area and have now moved twice, making a modest amount on each property. None of the houses have been what I wanted, and I started seeing it as a financial decision rather than anything else. I want to be in a position to buy the house I “want” in 10/15 years time IYSWIM.
As a FTB we limited ourselves to 2 non-negotiables because otherwise nothing would ever get decided! 1) garden space and 2) structurally sound! That was it.

Reality is really disappointing on this one. We are about to put in an offer on our second house (as in the second one we will buy, not two at the same time unfortunately!)

The asking price is £1.4 million, hopefully we will shave a bit off but it won’t be much as it’s a competitive market, and our mortgage payments are going to be around £6k a month. The house is… fine. It’s where we need it to be and it’s about the right size. Of course we are incredibly lucky to be in a position to afford it and we are very grateful to have jobs (and family help) that mean we can do so. BUT - in my head a £1.4m house is beautiful and perfect and big, this is a fairly standard suburban 1970s house which is liveable but really needs modernising in the less nice part of town. We definitely grew up expecting our money to go further so while we’re obviously very lucky it’s a case of adjusting expectations and buying something that will “do” rather than something that we love.

Our first house (bought five years ago) was a complete doer upper in an area that, quite frankly, is bordering on dangerous. Doing as much of the work as we could ourselves has helped us add value and increase the equity and I am glad we bought when we did rather than wait longer - I don’t think prices are going to drop enough to make it worth saving for ages and ages if you are able to get on the ladder so in your position I would buy, work on it and move to better when you can.

@Namedrop000 currently in the exact same situation.
I love how this comment section is full of boomers and millennials telling you you’re pretty much being unreasonable/too demanding in your expectations when they all had it easier and cheaper.

Part of what is wrong with the market is how out of touch people really are on many ftb circumstances or them just being deluded on the value of their run down houses.

I am moving my search to a different city now cause it is definitely getting harder to get on the ladder.

I was all over the place before but now have a list of non negotiables and I think you should do the same.

For example renovation projects, flats, poor transport link areas, houses on busy roads are a no for me.
But sadly we would have to settle for the bare minimum if we are to get on the ladder because you are right in prices and rates keep increasing.

Good luck & fingers crossed something comes through before the year ends.

Yes, I do think most people who buy houses will make gains. Even new houses near us that were bought by first time buyers 4 -5 years ago had increased by £150K up to very recently.

Most of the country is nothing like London and the SE.

Late to the party but first time buyers these days seem to want the perfect house right away. I blame social media and how everyone wanted perfect right away to show off their instagram life. The OP seems to have fallen into this trap about being 'embarrassed' about having friends and family over.

We had a FTB view our house and they wanted everything in perfect condition and were moaning about imperfections and how everything wasn't perfect. Our estate agent told us that these viewers were told to buy a new build if they wanted perfect but apparently they couldn't afford a new build as big for the price.

Now my house isn't perfect but it's well maintained with the usual bumps and scrapes of a 10 year old house.

My first house was a shit hole that I did up over time room by room. Was it a slog, yes but I cut my cloth. Many people don't seem to want to do that anymore.

Oh and before anyone says anything, this was only 10 years ago so not that far removed.

It would help if you said where you are looking. I live in a rather overpriced but very lovely town in the South East with a half hour commute to central London.

There are several 3 bedroom houses on the market here within your budget. They are terraced or semi detached. You will need to do some upgrading.

Most people need to compromise on their house purchases. When I bought my current home it was very ugly from the outside and had a horribly dated interior complete with swirly carpets, awful kitchen with barely any work surfaces, an avocado bathroom and dodgy boiler - just for starters. Airtex everywhere. Garden overgrown and covered with hideous concrete paving slabs. It took me 13 years to get a decent kitchen and that only came with a huge addition to our mortgage with building work. I worked with what I had in the garden and had multiple pots covering the shit slabs and nice plants in the areas with soil. I bought my house because it ticked enough boxes and I knew it would be a work in progress. I knew it would be years until we managed to get to the house I now love. Oh, and I was two years younger than you when I bought it. It was clear the lovely house I imagined it to be wouldn't appear until I was at least fifty.

My first home was a two bedroom maisonette on a new housing estate in an area of London I had no idea existed and grew to absolutely hate. But it ticked enough boxes to work for seven years. The fact we sold in a recession and the area was not great meant we barely made money too. But it was ours and fulfilled a function.

You need to play the long game. You need to be prepared to live with a shitty bathroom, kitchen or both. I'd actually recommend buying something that was owned by an older person as usually the house functions ok but needs work that is more cosmetic in nature (and by that I do mean kitchens and bathrooms rather than new roofs etc). I'm a big fan of houses built in the sixties and seventies for the space and light.

Very, very few people move into a home without a compromise. Even if you have over a million quid. And your friends really shouldn't care what state your home is in when visiting and nor should you.

This but buy a 3 bed flat if you can afford. In the se it's easier than in London.
That's my one regret but we couldn't afford it at that time. And tbh we don't have kids yet so don't really need the third bedrooms (though would always be nice to have more space)
.

I don’t disagree with your post about many people on MN being totally out of touch with how difficult it is to get on the ladder nowadays, but did you mean Gen X instead of Millennials? Millennials (which include OP, who is in their late 30s) aren’t one of the cohorts considered to have an easier ride on the housing market…

Op is an older millennial at 40. Older than me actually. Yes the housing market is hard at the moment for ftb and has been for millennials but houses were a bit cheaper when op was in their 20s and early 30s.

I'm the same age as the OP. I wouldn't have ever made it onto the property ladder had I not bought a very lowly first flat in 2007. My income at the time was less than £20k. I paid a £5k deposit and had a 5.5x mortgage for the rest of it.

Some of my situation is luck but the first step was being willing to live somewhere that most of my peers wouldn't have considered in their 20s.

That flat only gained £10k on its value in the few years I had it but chipping away at the mortgage meant that I then had a £30k deposit for the next place and my salary had nearly doubled in that time. I still had been priced out of buying a nicer 1-bed flat in London so moved out at that point.

I know quite a few areas in the SE where OP's budget would buy a very nice 2 bed house in beautiful condition or a very decent 3-bed with slightly less kerb appeal.

It sounds like you aren't looking at small flats - starter homes - though

The principle remains - it's your first home so you buy what you can and spend ten years making it your home room by room

Focus on location and potential and you actual needs ( not desire )

2 decent sized bedrooms in a nice area - so what if you live in one room with a microwave for the first couple of years ( ok anything over 6 months does west you down )

You only get to buy perfect if you are richer

Perfectly normal. The criteria for our first house was the location, roof and a door. You get pickier the further up the chain you go and less pickier if you are unfortunate enough to slide back down.

FTB i your 40s is different from your 20s though…you are more likely to rough it and have friends roughing it in your 20s…

I don't know many people who bought in their 20s though - my parents , me, my family , my friends , we were all in our 30s

There seems to be some myth today that in the past people bought homes in their 20s

But if you can’t afford to get what you want in your 40’s then there has to be compromises, same as when someone is buying in their twenties. Sellers aren’t going to offer a different price for a ftb in their 40s. That’s the choice people make, save and compromise earlier in life or wait until later on and it may be harder and house prices higher.

I think OP said approaching 40 - that makes her 30 soemthing

Yes op said nearly 40 so presumably 39. Not sure 1 year makes a different to what I said. Op is an older millennial and would have been in their 20s when house prices were lower then now. Im not saying this as an older generation, I’m younger than the op and also live in the south east.

Were you late 30s? I was in my twenties, not everyone I know was but they bought between mid 20s and early 30s. Now mid 30s and everyone I know has managed it. Most of us did have to make compromises though, which I think is pretty normal, it’s rare to be able to get the 3 bed done up house for a first house in the south east no matter what your age unless you have significant family help.

I’d forget any concerns about the appearance of the house and buy something smaller/a flat in the absolute best area you can get for your money.

What I am saying is that OP isn't hugely behind the curve for buying so feeling hard done by that it's a compromise house is very unreasonable