If your children have moved out in the SE. HOW?!!

[Sofa1000]

I don’t mean gone to university. Or even house sharing. If you have adult children who have managed to move into their own proper adult place how did they do it?

My three are 22-25. Earning between 28-42k. London commuter town. A 1 bed flat in this town is around 300k to buy and 1200 to rent. Anywhere further out and commuting costs make monthly outgoings much the same. One WFH almost completely. One works in our town. One commutes to Zone 4. All their friends/ girlfriends/boyfriends are local.

They would love to be able to move out one day and before 30 (ideally earlier) and I would like to be able to retire and move. When did yours manage it and how? Did they need financial help? Did they have to be in a couple? Did they move out of the SE? At the moment it feels as though the gap is too big and there’s no point even saving and working so hard.

Friends whose children have moved out have all helped them and I just don’t have tens of thousands each to spare them. Even five times their salaries doesn’t get a flat. Are they with me forever?

It is just madness, house price inflation has outstripped everything. It is much, much harder to buy a property now. I am in London also, which doesn't help.

I think it is disingenuous to say oh they can just save. Of course, they can subsist on gruel and rinse your netflix account for their only entertainment while living at home for 5 years to hopefully emerge with £70k or something - but I'm not yet 40 and I didn't have to do that. We were able to save while also going on the odd holiday, to the pub, occasionally out for dinner. Not living the high life by any means but more than the bare necessities.

It's not really any help, I know, OP. But I don't think your kids are doing anything wrong, it's just much much harder now. My children are still young, but I am already expecting to buy them a flat or at least contribute substantially when they're in their 20s. My dad especially is horrified by this, "they should make their own way", but they just don't have the opportunities I had, let alone my parents (the house I grew up in is now worth about 10x what they paid for it in the 90s, and they put 3 kids through private school on professional but solidly middle class jobs)

I managed it - was 20 years ago now but houses here were still 6x my salary at the time.

I rented a room in a house share with strangers for four years aged 23-27. Lived quite cheaply and saved up a 5% deposit. My parents gifted me another 5%. Still couldn't get a mortgage on my salary though.

Luckily my best friend lived in the same city and we bought a place together. It had a small spare room which we rented out which covered the bills and we aggressively overpaid the mortgage. Interest rates were around 5.5%.

Friend got married after 4 years together and I had savings enough to buy her out. But I still couldn't officially get her off the mortgage for another two years due to my salary multiple even though I paid it alone without a problem all that time! My friend was amazingly patient.

Dad died when I was 33 which allowed enough to get friend off the mortgage at last.

Lived at home and saved
like crazy for a deposit. Both went to work from 18 years. When I say saved, I mean made packed lunches to take to work, very much limited nights out, holidays, spending on clothes etc, just piled away as much as they could. I didn’t charge rent to them on the understanding that they were saving for deposits. Both bought mid twenties on their own.

But to answer the Op! My DD is planning to buy a flat with her boyfriend. They are both saving £1k plus a month, they have been saving for 9 months and probably have to save for another 9. I will also be helping DD with her deposit. They will just about manage to buy a 1 bedroomed flat I think.

Completely different. A house share in the 80s or early 90s was doddle.
2-3 years max in a house share and you’d save enough for a deposit for your own house /flat. Now you will spend years in a house share scraping by.

I moved from up north to London lived in bad house shares I earn just over £50k and I'm buying a 2 bed flat in London without parental help. It can be done just trickier

Edit I'm mid 20s

I am not used to older people saying we have it harder. To be fair my parents are just 1 year from being gen x and they think young people should just toughen up and become millionaires at 32 like they did. My MIL is 2 years older and she says we are just being melodramatic and would manage, she says the housing crisis is caused by adult children who insist on moving out of the family home and not knowing their place is in the family home (3 generations used to live on the farm apparently though we live in London).

Thanks all. Fingers crossed they all meet someone who wants to settle down!

If they get on well as siblings could they consider buying a property together ? This might help them get on the ladder.

I shared too as a young adult. And was able to save lots and buy my own house eventually. It's now not possible to live in a house share and save much, so moving out (even to renting a 1 bed flat on your own) is next to impossible.

We are crammed too. In a flat! ( albeit a nice one). i don't charge rent. Thats the most I can do. Not sure what others are doing but that's their issue.

That’s almost impossible. Both my dds did house shares and have now settled down with partners. So they have always “shared” the costs. Moving out to someone on your own is not an option unless you’re on a very high salary.

I am a boomer and my close friends are too and we are all very aware that our adult kids have it harder than us when it comes to being able to buy a property. Most of us have the evidence (our kids!) at home with us still as a result!

The other thing your kids could do is get a second job of some sort.

Our babysitter is a teacher in her 20s saving up for a house deposit - she babysits for a few families, it brings in an extra £200-300 a month for her. Not an extraordinary amount of money but everything helps

We’ve been saving into their junior isa / child trust fund (which is what it was in 2008 when you got a nice boost of £££ from the govt to start it off) since they were born with the specific aim of funding house deposits. When they’re 18 it’ll be drip fed into LISAs with the (hopefully still there) govt top up, again with the specific aim of funding a house deposit. They’re young/mid teenagers and we talk about house deposits a lot and how tough - but achievable- it is.

@kiraric our old babysitter used to be a full time nursery manager during the day and she told us her babysitting money was specifically for a house deposit. She got there in the end but she was very focussed.

I don’t have any friends who bought without parental help either cash gift, renting for cheap/free at home or both.

I am also GenX and SE based.

Another consideration is that we didn't have student loan repayments hammering the bank's affordability assessment. I lived in three house shares then moved into a rental with DP (now DH) but I could afford to pay rent, save and still socialise a decent amount. I am expecting our two to stay at home for some years to come.

I purchased my house at 29 with my partner. both put down 85k each. Saved most of my salary form when I was 18 to do it. Mum charged hardly anything for rent bless her but she knew everything was going into saving.

It is a massive waste of money to be in a WFH job and be living in the SE (when you have no dependents to consider or long term partner that needs to be there). The WFH one could move anywhere a lot cheaper. Even food will be cheaper elsewhere.

Thinking of my friends who had parental help, usually the parents sold up and the entire family moved somewhere cheaper.

I know entire families who left north London and went to Scotland and Peterborough for example. Seems like a smart solution.

DS rents a one bed flat in outer London where he works and has done since he left university. He now has a partner living with him (6 years) and they share costs proportionately in line with their earnings.
They are currently waiting to exchange on a house and move after Xmas. This has meant a longer commute for DS as they are buying somewhere outside of the M25 as they couldn't afford a place in the area where they rent and love.
They are very early 30s. No parental help of note.

Mine is going to. She earns 33k in London and is buying a one-bed flat solo, which costs 210k and share of freehold, also in London.

I agree with this. Young peoples expectations are out of whack, its been normal for decades to live in house shares for a few years after uni with a mate or two.
And yes they almost certainly will need to be part of a couple in order to be in a place on their own, its never really been the norm to rent or buy solo in your twenties!!!
Is that what their expectation is, and if so wherever did they get the idea thats the norm.
If your child on 40k + was with a partner on similar, with a combined income of 80k+ and a deposit saved i bet they could buy for 300k.

We are outer London, zone 5. All of the moved back home after unviersity - 4 did post grad law for 2 years so I was very supportive of that good career so no problem having them home for that. Oldest moved out about 3 months after starting law training contract as a friend had a flat near work with a spare room and then she married in her 20s and moved into boyfriend's flat, then they bought a 2 bed together, then a house etc. 2nd one - I cannot remember exactly it was probably when she qualified as a solicitor mid 20s and bought a one bed. All the children have had the same amount of financial help with buying a first property.
Next one was partly my younger ones' au pair, collected them from school each day, fed them so quite useful having him home for a few years. He then bought his first little house just outside the M25 and then moved to Oxfordshire buying a detached new house there on an estate in the countryside which cost about £315k; whereas my daughter are married and own a house with a husband.

Youngest 2 still live at home but could move out to rent as they are lawyers and also they h ave a house they let out which they bought with my help so could move into that or sell to buy a flat.

Lawyers in the first job I had in 1985 as a qualified lawyer can still buy the first little house we bought out here in zone 5 London today as they earn 3.5 times in real terms after allowing for inflation my pay from then so they are much much better off even allowing for student loan repayments - however most lawyers are not in a top high paid firm like that so I am certainly not generalising about all lawyers.

(The house where my mother grew up costs about £50k near Sunderland even today although her mother certainly never owned anywhere as they always rented)