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?

And this is a normal part of growing up and becoming an adult.

I'm not sure what OP expects. That her adult children should live at home until ready to buy a house and start a family with a partner? How will they even know whether they can live with their partner if they haven't rented with them for a few years first? It completely changes the dynamic of a relationship, for better or worse, and things become much more complicated once you own a joint property.

They may be saving money by staying at home, but they are sacrificing an important part of growing up and becoming independent.

@Babyname2025 How did you buy a £400k flat on a £75k income, you wouldn't get a mortgage for that much surely? Unless I misunderstood your earlier post...

@MidnightMeltdown But it is reality, for many people who live outside of the SE. Hence my suggestion for OPs kids to look further afield. I can't think of anything worse than renting into my mid 30s or being stuck living at home.

I’d wonder if there’s a difference in attitude to living in shared accommodation with friends, between those who’ve been to uni and those who haven’t.

Those at uni live in shared accommodation and get used to it, enjoy it and understand how expensive buying or renting on your own is. These people expect to move around for a few years with work before settling down and owning property.

Perhaps those who haven’t been away but have always lived at home feel more of a sense of horror at the thought of sharing, particularly if it’s people they don’t know and can only conceive of living alone or as a couple. They have never paid full market rent for a house share but have often lived very cheaply at home and baulk at the idea of rents. Maybe as they haven’t yet had any indeoendence they are very keen to get out but are rather unrealistic in thinking ‘getting out’ must be buying and not house sharing or renting. And perhaps the parents also take this view, esp if they didn’t go to uni either, and back in their day were able to buy somewhere at a younger age with a moderate salary.

In the SE a lot of money is needed for a deposit. You’re either lucky enough to be given family money towards it or you have to expect to save hard for a long time. This is especially so if you’re not prepared to look at cheaper areas or doer-uppers.

I’d say again that the money savvy people avoid shared ownership with government deals, where staircasing of loans, limited and expensive mortgages and high fees can really hit people and also lead to them buying over-priced new builds which often haven’t gone up in value by the time people want to move on or stop shared owneserhsip. The slightly dilapidated maisonette that could be bought without shared ownership, by saving for one extra year, is probably a wider choice than the shiny new flat with en-suites that is over-priced but available now because of government schemes which really benefit house builders most.

I had a deposit of 58k. 4.5 times 75000 borrowing amount . I was 26 years old and dh was 29 when we bought. This was in 2019. we saved 60k in 3 years living with in laws (first joint salary was 42k I think and then we had salary increases). Dh had around 10k in savings when he met me though he reckons it probably did go down to 6k when we were living in Europe so we probably saved a bit more circa 2016 to 2019 to replenish.

BTW I am an immigrant. I studied in the uk but left after graduating (for 1.5 years) and only returned to uk in 2016 (was 23 years old). I didn't even have indefinite leave to remain when I bought in 2019 and only 3 years left on my visa (when I could apply for settled status) so I had to buy then or lenders may be difficult (despite having a british dh, i suppose i could abscond). The mortgage broker said this meant we could borrow less. Still it was a big mortgage and we overpaid an average of 600 quid every month for 5 years (less in the earlier years when we were on 75k combined). We also overpaid 15k for dh's student loan so he no longer has a student loan.

At that time in 2019 we both went to the office in central london 5 days a week. Though my job had shit pay at that time I was too scared to leave before I got ILR. If my visa was denied for whatever reason it would be much easier to keep my head down and continue working while appealing the visa. Even though they were an international company, I knew their hr was quite crap and they didn't keep proper records of whose visas needed to be renewed. I remember when I finally got ILR, I had to tell them lol.

I live in the north and everyone I know bought in their 30s.

I believe that Wales has the lowest FTB average age, but even there it's 31. The average age of a FTB hasn't been below 30 since the 1990s.

@Babyname2025 Fair enough, well done for making that happen! I can't imagine paying £400,000 for a 2 bed flat though, that just seems crazy to me. London really is another level of expensive

@MidnightMeltdown That's averages though. That means there will be lots of buyers who are under the average age and lots who are over.

Yes but it also not taking into account the fact that most people who bought young would have had significant help. The average age of a first time buyer without help would be significantly higher.

I think the thing that will sting the younger generation most is tuition fees & student loans. I came out of university only owing about £3K but even that took a while to pay off as I was living in London, not earning much and a lot of my salary was going on my house share and travel. I lived in my overdraft for years until my salary improved and I met my partner who moved in with me and my flatmate, thus reducing our monthly rent.

I was 28 when I bought and my partner 32. We hadn't managed to save much as our salaries were still low but my parents lent us the deposit. We paid them back about 9 years later by extending our mortgage once house values had risen and we had more equity.

House sharing is a great way of gaining independence and the idea of living with parents in my 20s would have horrified me - I was living 300 miles away anyway so it was never and option. But not everyone wants the same things, has the same wanderlust. Mostly, I didn't enjoy house sharing to be honest and was lucky enough to meet a partner early on and settle down.

Plenty of my friends left London without buying. We persevered and it has paid off. However, I now work for a company where people are largely home-based and many of my colleagues have done extremely well for themselves career-wise never having lived in London. It's quite possible to build a successful career outside of London but you have to be ambitious and job hop a bit to maximise your earnings. London really isn't the be all and end all.

I come back to tuition fees though. I really do think the impact of that on being able to buy a house and start a family is huge.

Most of my sons' friends from university flat share in London. My twins live at home (outer London) currently, but often have their friends over so I hear a lot about who is sharing with whom, who is moving out, where they rent etc They all seem happy - the shares are more like 3 people not the big 9 person per house shares of the university days. There is no doubt buying a first place is expensive. One son has a colleague about to buy a first flat so there is lots of chat at work about that. My son has a house he lets out so not in the same position. The only reason my sons have their house a bit sooner than their siblings is because their older brother was going to sell his first house just outside the M25 to move further out to buy his next one and rather than go through the hassle of selling the house I thought it would make more sense to help my sons buy at that point by taking on that house and for me it was win/win as I wanted to get over and done with forever financial help for children to buy so that is now all done before I am too old and whilst I still can work full time.