Do you feel lucky to have a house

[Lm1981]

I am early 40s and have a nice house which i constantly feel very fortunate to have. I rented all my 20s so can still relate to how renting felt like. I often think I am very lucky to be in this position and slightly embarrassed. I did work hard I just know that things could have been different. Does anyone else have any feelings like this?

Lucky on one hand.
On the other hand, I wouldn't mind to live on my own in an apartment as I used to (in another country).
Life was happier, or so it seems.

Yes, I feel a huge sense of gratitude to the universe at large. I don’t feel embarrassed because dh and I worked incredibly hard and lived in some fairly shitty house shares until our mid 30s before being able to afford our home . But I feel immensely fortunate that we have had the opportunities to make it happen.

Yes. Immensely

Not really. I have been pretty poor all my life despite having worked for over 40 years. I scrimped a lot to buy my home as even in the eighties, I couldn't even get a look in for a council house. Only cleared the mortgage two years ago and am now worried about how to maintain the house as I get old on a pretty low pension.

With average house prices in my borough being £645,000… that is definitely not the case for many people I know

I echo this.

I think you need half decent jobs to buy now but both my children are home owners with their partners.

Very very lucky. I really feel for those who are renting in the current environment, been there for over a decade and it’s gotten much worse.

But you easily can have all that, and still never have a house

Really interesting dichotomy on this thread and I can't help but wonder if it also reflects political ideology (not necessarily party alliance).

The 'yes, even though I worked hard I am very lucky' brigade perhaps recognise that some people who work incredibly hard will never own a house because of deep and systemic inequality in society. And recognise the value of the welfare state and policies directly intended to bridge the wealth divide (whispering 'tax the rich more')
And the 'No, it's entirely because I worked hard' brigade more focused on personal responsibility and freedom.

I could of course be waffling a lot of shite!😂

Yes. Partly because a huge amount of it was luck. Neither DH or I have degrees (I couldn’t afford to stay at uni. So dropped out to get a job). But, have managed to work my way to a decent salary at work (and live in a low cost area) so we now live in what is basically a palace to me (ie a 4 bed, 2 bath, 3 reception house… with a DRIVEWAY!!!)

growing up in a really deprived area in a tiny flat (at one point 4 kids in one bedroom). I’m so grateful.

and seeing how rent has increased since Covid, horrified how little our mortgage payment would get in the rental market

Couldn't agree more. I've had lots of setbacks and worked really hard to overcome them but there lots of luck in there that things weren't even worse. I think that's true for everyone.

This is the same with pension threads. If anyone posts about being worried about finances old age, without fail, someone will tell them they should have saved without considering that maybe they just couldn't save.

I'm extremely grateful to own my home (mortgaged) but I don't think of myself as lucky.. I consider myself hard working and driven.

We brought 7 years ago, I am now 32, DH is 34, we didn't get any payouts from parents, both rented whilst saving and both worked in relatively low paid jobs (sous chef and management in hospitality but not in a chain, so wage considerably lower) we worked our absolute asses off picking up any over time we could, cut back on all luxuries and weren't out at weekends with friends, holidaying or buying luxuries..

I'm grateful when I hear what friends pay on rent still compared to our mortgage but they choose different priorities so, it's up to them!

Yep, I remind myself often that although we have a high mortgage, we own a 4 bed period house in London, in a lovely street with fab neighbours, a walk away from the kids schools. We are very lucky.

Very. Not that we didn't work hard for it, but lots of people work hard and are still never in a position to own their own home.
Both DH and I are extremely lucky to have had the family background, brains and educational opportunities that meant we could become high earners.

That’s an interesting point. I’m very firmly in the ‘No, it’s entirely because I worked hard camp’, but my background is very working class. Dad was a factory worker, mum worked in a shop. I was the first person in my family to go to university and I’m bloody proud of having built a comfortable life & financial position entirely due to my own hard work.

I’m still firmly on the left politically & have never voted Tory. I don’t see a contradiction between that and advocating personal responsibility, self-reliance & hard work. That’s what proud, ‘respectable’ working class people like my family have always done.

Absolutely I do. We are fortunate and lucky, as everyone who owns a home is, and I never forget it. We’ve been able to help our older 2 DC onto the property ladder too, which has been a great privilege - and again comes down to luck and circumstance as our parents before us who also owned their own homes. Hard work is only one small part of it.

Tbh, it's no less than I expected to have when I got married. It just feels normal for me. We bought 25/26 years ago.

My parents and inlaws own their own houses, so it was just a natural thing that DH and I would own our home. I probably take it for granted.

I feel sorry for young people these days though, as it's so expensive.
I wonder how long my 20 + year old kids will still be here for.

I feel very fortunate but not "lucky". Our family count our blessings in that we each own a home. In fact my DD owns two. (She inherited her late father's house which she rents out at a very low rent to someone who was homeless).
It does, however, feel wrong that our family comprises of five single people who each own and live alone in a home, when there are so many homeless people.

Yes, very lucky. We went without a lot of new stuff, cars and holidays for years to get equity and move up but it could have been very different. The long term super low interest rates really helped matters.

I wouldn't like to be young these days having to compete with hundreds of thousands of new arrivals every year chasing the ever dwindling number of available rentals.

Yes. I rented from 18 years old until I was nearly 40 in London and then SE expensive area. I never had more than £2K savings at any time in my life. I expected I would rent and be poor forever.
I met and married my DH and he has bought us a lovely detached 3 bed to live in as he made sensible choices earlier in his life and lives further north in the country.
I am appreciative every day that I don’t have the constant worry and feeling of instability and expense of renting, losing huge amounts of money to ‘agent admin fees’ and ‘deposits’ I never saw again……..

This is interesting and probably reflects the fact that we are all complex beings with such diverse life experiences that slotting our beliefs into left wing and right wing doesn't actually work.

I think some people view it as a slight to say it was luck, or partly due to luck that they are able to purchase a house. Like it erodes their hard work without recognising it erodes other’s hard work when they can’t buy just because they’ve been dealt a shitty hand.

I’m fortunate to have my house. Yes, we went to university, worked hard, got jobs. Worked hard to get graduate jobs, we barely saw each other between the ages of 22-24 because we were working or studying. We saved, we didn’t have holidays. We bought a house that needed a lot doing to it, did it slowly. Then moved and bought a house that needed a bit less doing to it but still doing it slowly. It’s been really tight at times. It’s really tight at the minute with childcare costs.

However, none of it would have been possible if we hadn’t been fortunate. We both grew up on shit estates but both our parents valued education and would encourage us to read, would take us on trips to the museum, would engage with us on our homework. We both were intelligent enough to go to university (with student loans). We were fortunate to meet each other at university and so when we graduated we instantly started building a life together, we could share rent without having to do a house share and we could combine our incomes to buy at 27. We’re fortunate that our parents didn’t have a major illness or die whilst we were at university which caused our studies to take a back seat. We’re fortunate that we’re able to find somewhere relatively cheap for where we live and still be able to commute to work. We’re fortunate that those extra studies have paid off and we both earn more than the average UK wage. We’re fortunate that neither of us have any long term illnesses or disabilities and we’ve been able to work, change our jobs and increase our earning potential. We’re fortunate that we live in an age of YouTube tutorials for DIY because we live nowhere near family and can’t afford to get someone in to do stuff all the time. We’re fortunate that we bought early in our careers and our salaries will increase over time, so all being well our mortgage will only ever be this tight now and that’s because of childcare.

I can see it from two angles. In many ways I feel a bit unlucky. In a way many of us are.

I'm living in a small 3 bed semi, bought in 2021, previously owners were in not very well paid jobs. My parents were in a 4 bed detached house at a younger age in a more expensive area. Both me and my partner work. My job is relatively better paid than my dad's and my mum was a SAHM. Growing up my parents did a lot better than my grandparents due to generational social mobility. So I expected that if I got at least a good job aa my parents, I'd be doing better than I am. So, a cramped house is not what I expected when growing up

Although, I suppose I'm lucky because people who bought later than me would have it worse.