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?

I think the thing about house sharing is - yeah it's not generally the most rational choice looked at purely from the £ perspective - but it's often necessary to allow romantic relationships to progress.

Not everyone is that comfortable having their boyfriend/girlfriend over to the house they share with their parents and siblings and not all parents (I totally sympathise) would allow it all the time.

And as this thread has emphasised to get onto the housing ladder, you often need to buy with someone else

If they are saving £1000 a month then that is £60k in 5 years times. That should be plenty for a deposit and they can move out before they are 30?

30ish is a fairly typical age to buy a first property.

If they want to move out now they need to house share. If they want to buy then they need to play the long game and save.

I dont allow girlfriends and boyfriends to stay in my house. That way madness lies.

I wouldn't either.. but many people do.

Why don't you want them to house share?

I house shared all through my twenties as disd everyone else i know.

No one can afford to rent a one bed flat by themselves in their early twenties. You're being unrealistic.

My son recently went on a weekend break to Stockholm which he already as we had been several times when we lived in Copenhagen- now Stockholm isn't cheap but he worked out there him and GF could rent a pretty nice 2 or 3 bed flat in an ok area for around £1400 as opposed to the average £2.2k to £2.6k in London in equivalent area- and with way better security - and no commuting large distances. - and whilst you can rent for that in the UK it's not in the capital with far more jobs in certain industry's. We have made buying a necessity in many areas unless you want a total lack of security, rather than 'a choice' my own view is we need to be offering tax incentives for builders and pension funds to build/ develop purely for renting and at 'sensible' levels too - and not just flats- I actually think shared ownership isa good idea- however they need to get a grip on the leasehold aspects and restrict service charges etc .

They could move out like the rest of us did - and house share.

The obvious solution is they buy together.

Possibly the one who wouldn't want to share with the other two then sublets their room?

I can understand the idea of buying with a sibling may not be attractive but better that, than rush into a heavy commitment with a partner you haven't known very long...

They must do the legals properly though.

I bought at 21 in Essex (6 years ago) a 3 bed semi
We saved up like mad living at home
Bought in a couple
Bought one town over that was cheaper at the time

We just sold it with 90k profit and Bought our forever home so it's definitely tricker now!

I know a young adult who just about managed to buy a two bed flat. He rented the second bedroom to a friend as a lodger.

The Govt allows the owner of the flat to receive £7500 per year in rent from the lodger but the owner pays no tax on this sum received.

That sum can go towards the mortgage. The lodger also pays towards bills (half?) and half the council tax.

The owner pays the service charges on the flat though.
This helps the owner afford to live in the flat.
Facilities must be shared such as kitchen and lounge.

It's called the Rent-a-Room Scheme. See HMRC website. It's all legit!

I don't know anyone who didn't house share with friends or via Spareoom etc for a few years. It can also be a great experience. Then those in couples were able to find their own place (as a couple) sooner, with the single ones needing to flat share for longer. My friends started buying places from age 30 but all with some family help.

OP is another one of those privileged posters on here.

She said "they can't afford to move out".

We said "they CAN move out, they just need to house share like the rest of us did in our twenties".

She said "oh I didn't mean that kind of moving out".

So they can afford to move out, but house sharing is below them

Unfortunately this seems to be the reality of living in the south of England.

I've said it before. It's a UK wide problem. Some houses in the north/Midlands might look cheap but that's because the wages are lower and opportunities are fewer than in London There's a reason why people want to live in London/SE!

We have gifted a large deposit to each of our children and they have lived at home to enable them to save. It is pretty much impossible for young people to buy without help.

@VioletSpeedwell It really isn't a UK wide problem though. As I mentioned, all of my peers in their 30s who live outside of London have been on the housing ladder for some time and are now on their 2nd or 3rd (large) houses. These are teachers, nurses, accountants, people in the civil service, local authorities, the sciences, the arts. There are lots of decently paid jobs and opportunities outside of the SE, it's not like the rest of the county is a wasteland where no one works or earns a good salary.

Yes, it is mostly a London issue. Another factor which makes this much easier today i s since covid plenty of office jobs are 3 days a week at office and 2 at home. Both my sons who live at home are only obliged to go in 1 day a week to the office if that is the case then people can obviously live much further out than would be so if they had to be in the office 5 days a week.

2018 - DS18 moved out for uni and never came home. DS19 moved into rented with his GF, they saved a deposit whilst renting (not a house share) and bought a 2 bed house last spring. West Sussex.

Not high earners, probably about £28k each pa now.

They had no help.

My friend in the civil service owns a shared ownership flat in yorkshire and has 6k in savings. My DH and I (in London) have around 54k in cash savings even though our flat (400k 2 bed flat with 35% equity) is way way more expensive. We are all in our 30s, friend is 31, I am 32 and DH is 34. Granted we are a couple but it's still a pretty big gap. We are below average for our age group in London in terms of earnings and are low to medium earners in London (go on holiday a lot too,had 18 mini breaks and holidays this year so we are pretty big spenders for our modest earnings).

Anecdotal but I do think it's easier in London to breach the 50k salary threshold and then if you live in a modest place and don't go crazy with the spending, the savings do pile up. Council tax, bills, clothes are a much smaller proportion of earnings. Of course we did live with family in our 20s (though so did he!) but all those savings are now our home equity, the cash savings were accumulated in the past 5 years.

Once again though,
House shares are very expensive and competitive to actually get. They often have age limits also. Not only that but all the money someone earns would go on that and you can't actually save for anything else.
This thread is going the exact same way that one on the AIBU section did. It's like playing MN bingo. Someone coming along and saying

1. They slummed it in house shares, how weak and privileged those who don't are.
2. They conveniently ignore that they could afford to save and move to their own place in the future where as nowadays that isn't probably possible especially on a single wage. I know a 58 year old still in a house share as he can't afford to go anywhere else.

I think there is a lot of privilege and middle class/high earners on MN which is influencing the replies here.

Yes, they are expensive and competitive. But what is the alternative? Make your parents convert a living room into a bedroom? OP says her DC can afford houseshares so the expensive bit does not apply to her.

House shares are fine. I had a great time living in a house share in my twenties.

I house shared from 1984 to 2000 till I could afford to buy ( I’m an architect so good salary really ) and then had to move further away ( still commutable ) into a run down property that had been rented for over 20 years. Pebble dashed ceilings, an outside toilet, no internal doors and the kitchen was on a balcony!
My kids are all at Uni one at home but he works mainly abroad on year/ 3yr contracts ( zoologist ) so there’s no point in him signing up to rental contracts as he comes and goes.

Your kids just need to house share if they don’t want to or can’t live at home.

Another alternative my eldest did was a barge on the Thames, Poplar, but there are many areas. It’s not expensive just more work.

Agree
You meet loads of different people, it’s great

Yes, they are expensive and competitive. But what is the alternative? Make your parents convert a living room into a bedroom? OP says her DC can afford houseshares so the expensive bit does not apply to her.

The alternative here is they continue to live with her and save more than if they moved into a house share.

They are clearly an option just one Op and her sons consider less good than what they currently do - live together and save hard. If Op need to downside sooner and they want to stay in same area they may have to consider house share and save less towards deposit so take longer to accumulate enough deposit.

Our kids will likely have to live with us and save or do house shares in different parts of UK - with us they would have lower bills so more capacity to save - one of few ways we could help them out as we don't have cash to gift them.

I don't know anybody of that age who has been able to afford to buy unless helped by parents or in a relationship so dual income. I'm in Herts. My eldest lives in London and has a really good salary but still flat shares with two other girls. They have a lovely flat but none of them could afford it alone. I find it really rubbish for them. I was able to buy in the early 90's and it was easily affordable. It seems impossible for them now.

My daughter has already said she'll be a permanent renter but she will inherit from me one day and separately, from her Dad, so there is hope going forward.