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?

Yes, very. And also that we found and were able to buy the house we did - we live in an area which is very much of a type, and both of us aren’t fans of it, so when we found our current home we practically danced a jig.

We have friends in all sorts of situations and I feel fortunate that we have enough space, a garden etc.

But - the foundations for this were laid when I bought my first flat in 2015. I had secured a training contract with a law firm and in the two year run up to starting worked three jobs around my studies to save every penny I could. I lived in a shit houseshare with eight others so that my rent was £400/month instead of £600 or £700. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I worked 6am to 10pm every day of the week. I managed to save £17,000 over two years, which allowed me to secure a 10% mortgage on a £170,000 ex council flat. I had an offer accepted the day I started my training contract.

It’s all good and well to say that everyone works hard but my experience at the time was that I was working harder than certainly everyone I could see around me.

A year later the area that flat was in up and came, and the next person who bought in the block paid £325,000. But it meant that I had the equity to buy a family home when the time came.

@Meadowfinch it made me angry at the beginning when I had comments like "it's alright for you with your flat" but I struggled ti get that place, had 40.00 a month left after I'd paid all my bills it was scary but it was mine. DB rents and loves to throw the fact I own at me, he had exactly the same opportunity as me but chose a different path. Every place I've bought since has been a wreck that I've slowly done up. I cried when I moved from my new build flat to my first house it was filthy and I put my finger through the rotting front door the day I moved in. But I took my time and made it into a beautiful home. I've done it twice since and we are considering doing it again now although the property we have our eye on is possibly the worst one yet

I feel lucky too - we were gifted a deposit.

Yes I do.

I remember to be grateful for my little house (I still have a mortgage) and gardens in a pretty coastal town everyday.

Although it is an older house, so more expensive to maintain, and I have to do a lot of sacrifice and savings to keep everything going.

But a lot of this is also down to planning and work. I first got on the property ladder with a shared-ownership flat in a not so nice 'regenerated' part of East London then I managed to sell it a few years later at a profit and moved out of London to be able to afford a small terrace that needed/needs work.

I am so happy not to have to deal with landlords and letting agents anymore.

The housing and rental markets in this country really need to be improved....

I really feel for anyone who still at the mercy of landlords and has to pay ridiculously high rents for properties that are often poorly maintained.

Also, 'hard work' these days does not mean you can afford to buy a house. House prices are so out of touch with average salaries now that no matter how hard people work and how much they save, they are always playing catch-up.

We have worked hard but I was on minimum wage and my husband wasn't on big bucks. We live in a tourist town and houses are really expensive here.

Anyone who doesn't feel lucky to own a house because they "worked hard" is either incredibly sheltered or just plain nasty. It's a very "bootstraps" attitude to think that you attained assets because you are somehow superior to others who didn't.

I say that as someone who worked hard to own a home, but also acknowledges my luck every day that my family and I are not disabled. That we had stable upbringings that supported us in getting good educations and well paid jobs. That our parents educated us about how to manage money. That I met a life partner to share the mortgage with. That we happened to be born in a time and place where buying a house was attainable. That we've never been faced with redundancy or sickness.

It is never just hard work that gets you places, and it's naive at best not to acknowledge that.

@Kitkat1523

I presume that poster was being sardonic

All luck here. Rented until early 30s with meagre/ non existent savings and a wobbly career, met DH who had enough for a 50% deposit (half him half his parents) bought 2 years later before house price boom in the northern city we live in, now only 50k left to pay over 8 years.

I did nothing!

No, not at all. We have worked hard for it, there was no luck involved

I'm still stuck renting. I'd love to own a house.

Yes I feel incredibly lucky to have benefitted from low house prices and cheap mortgages in the early 00s that has led me to ownership. The rhetoric of telling kids to work hard and get a good jobs these days still does not mean they will be as lucky as me and own a house. I feel very sorry for my young adult kids in comparison to the ease I had of buying a house at their ages.

Absolutely yes. We are lucky, worked hard but would have to work so much harder to be in the same position if we were I our twenties now. Also the massive rise I the housing market helped us keep improving our property. We have never been big spenders and do most house DIY ourselves but with 4 young people growing up we can see how very difficult life is for them.

Well the bank owns the house until you paid off the mortgage. Why would you be embarrassed it’s not that serious? A lot of people own houses. We have 3 without mortgage and looking to buy another pretty soon…..

People can feel a sense of embarrassment at their own good fortune compared to others. If they have empathy, which not everyone does. If you lack empathy it’s probably the case that a lot of other people’s feelings are hard to comprehend.

Yes, very lucky and grateful, and I feel for younger people who have worked and tried just as hard as I have, but aren't able to afford a home of their own.

Lucky - no. We worked really hard and made huge sacrifices to be homeowners. There was no luck, it was some of the hardest years of my life saving for the deposit, working long hours and looking after the kids while DH had to work away from home for a better paid job. Then years of evening and weekends getting it to a liveable standard while paying rent on our rented house at the same time as paying mortgage on our new house.

At what point do you stop being "lucky" with house prices? As in, people are saying oh its luck to have bought at a good time.

We first bought in 2014. Cheap shithole area (loved it mind) was that luck? Sort of I guess. Made a profit on it, inclined to say not lucky as renovated it. But lucky because someone else wanted to buy it perhaps?

Again the next 2 we've renovated. House prices went mad when we sold the 2nd so lucky, but then bought the 3rd for way too much. Again luck but then bad luck all in one go?

Bought the last one for what some round here would consider a small fortune for where it is based on prices historically but what others would call a steal based on the 8000 newbuild estate prices round here. I don't know if that's lucky or not.

I think there's an element of luck in that we are fit and healthy enough to reno, but on the other hand it's been an absolute shit loaf of hard physical work renovating but also overtime and that bit is the bit not everyone does or is willing to do. So is that luck? I'm not sure.

Oh the whole I do feel "lucky" to have a roof over my head, earn enough to keep it but it's not just luck really. I work hard too.

Yes, very lucky. It’s a small 2 bed flat with a patio but I love it.

Lucky you are fit and well enough to learn to do DIY?

Lucky you are intelligent enough to have decent salaries to fund your efforts?

Lucky you were born in/live in a country where it's even possible for you to work/own property (assuming you're a woman)?

There is a lot about our lives that we have zero control over, which is luck. And then we make do with what has landed in our laps - which is work. There can be both at play, but some people just have a better deck of cards to work with from the start.

I've mentioned a lot of that luck. What I will correct you in is the having decent salaries. We very much did not have decent salaries until very very recently. Again is that lucky or not?

If we view being able to own property as luck, then everything's luck surely? Lucky to be alive and not dead? Lucky to continue breathing each day?

I feel lucky but if that's luck every single human is "lucky" in some way and it loses its meaning. I don't like the race to the bottom, it kind of belittles the effort a little. That's why I've literally said we have been lucky but we've also worked for it and made sacrifices others wouldn't.

I have a flat in SE London.
I wouldn't say that I consider myself lucky as I worked and saved towards the deposit (and now towards the mortgage) and I made the conscious choice to leave the trendy bits of London in order to buy - but I'm very happy with my decision and I acknowledge it on a daily basis.

Well I guess I'm lucky though, fit to work, well-paid job, no debt, no dependant...

I don't think it's a race to the bottom to acknowledge all that luck! I think it shows a spirit of humility and gratitude, as well as empathy. 😊

The salaries thing is probably an inaccurate descriptor to use, it's more that the economy/cost of living is much harder on everyone now than it was years ago when many of us in this thread could be considered 'starting out'.

I bought my first house in 2016, so out of curiosity I put the cost of the house into the calculator - I sold that house earlier this year at 18k more than the inflation value it came up with. I did nothing to deserve that inflated sale price, apart from basic maintenance and updating things according to my taste and enjoyment anyway.

Yes and no. Yes because I know that I am fortunate, no because I only have it because I lost my parents at a young age. And now I can’t afford the maintenance.

I’d rather have a secure council tenancy tbh, that has far more benefits than being a homeowner.

Of course there was luck involved there - how do you think you would have managed to afford it if your DH had developed a chronic or life-limiting illness which would have prevented him from working, for example?

Every single one of us on here with a roof we own over our heads has benefited from an element of luck in this game.

We bought in 2014, house prices have definitely risen in that area but we gutted that house so we "deserved" the profit if you see what I mean. I think saying its just luck kind of takes away the hours and hours of physical labour it took if that makes sense!