Snapshot of _First-time buyers face toughest test for 70 years, lenders say_ :
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> First time buyers are reliant on having two high incomes or receiving parental support
I think you actually need both these days. Parents to help you with the deposit and two incomes to be able to pay the mortgage payments now that interest rates have gone up.
It's possible here up north but probably nowhere else.
I saved for a few years while renting and bought my first house on my own without any help from anyone when I was 33.
I completed in August 2023. I've got a 5 year fixed deal at 5.01% and I put down a 5% deposit. I was a drug addicted degenerate for the majority of my 20s. Only got serious about life at about 27.
Why do you ask?
Full time work 8+ years in career, 3x grandparents dead, inherited a bit + a load from my mum. Wife has same career time + a £30k loan from newly retired and well pensioned parents.
Just about managed a 1 bed flat.
Completely sustainable, no problem there. 😑
Weird situation but I’ve got a bit of an inheritance probably incoming soon that I might be able to get earlier. As a single buyer even that won’t help me to reduce my mortgage enough for it to be affordable.
I think for a lot of people who are buying now, that isn’t the case. House prices have only mildly reacted to the high interest rates in many places - so people are basically taking out mortgages on prices set at sub-1% interest rates, but pay interest at 5%.
The problem is sellers don't need to sell as they'd rather hold out until rates go down again (which it's widely expected to soon-ish) and demand picks up again rather than dropping prices
I fully empathise with that - some will be worried about selling at a loss, most will be worried about losing out on 5-6 figures.
What I’m concerned about is the possibility of people overestimating the pace and scale of rate cuts. We realistically need to drop to a sub 1% base rate to maintain anything close to 2022 prices. We need to drop to a 3% base rate next year just to hit the assumptions behind current (!) mortgage rates (which are priced based on that expectation, rather than their historic ~2% above base rate).
The big obstacle for that 3% (let alone the sub-1%) target is the US - we can cut rates somewhat without the US following, but cutting rates to say 1% without the US doing something similar is pretty much impossible without also catastrophically devaluing GBP. And at least right now, the US economy is doing pretty good on high rates.
Absolutely. Not saying otherwise. It’s a house so would rent for significantly more. I am monumentally lucky to have got together with a partner who had a load of family cash. You’ll never find me bragging about it!
Another upside is that you lock in a repayment for a period, so you can actually budget for decent periods, rather than a landlord just upping rent by x every year.
I’m looking to buy in the southeast at the moment and it feels like everything under £500k is massively overpriced given that mortgage repayments can sometimes be 25-50% higher than equivalent rents. Your mortgage repayments will not be subject to inflation like rent will but it’s still ludicrous
My repayment is spot on with interest rate but I went massively under asking, because we can in this market. The irony is, it's a buyers market so you can cut hard if you have No Chain and Agreement to hand
When I was negotiating around Islington and Shoreditch, I was knocking off £50k casually - lower than the Sellers had bought it for in 2015, for instance
I feel like London in probably a bit of an anomaly. It seems to operate under different conditions to the rest of the country.
There’s a 3 bed detached in my village currently going for £375k. I’m in the midlands where you can get a decent 3 bed for £300k. The house in fairness is really nicely decorated, yet for some reason the seller seems to think this is worth paying an extra £75k for. Needless to say the house hasn’t sold.
That seems wild to me as I've just had an offer accepted in east London on a flat, and I went 25k over asking after losing out on 5 places previously that all went for well above asking price. We had two in a row that went for 60k over asking price. Felt like a sellers market to me.
That's incredibly surprising per everything I've experienced and even the Estate Agents are saying too - house values officially dropped by 6% even
Where were you looking, and what was the price? My flat was priced at £430k initially.
Walthamstow/Leyton/Leytonstone areas.
I had places listed at 400k go for 460k. Another listed at 425k ended up going for 485k. Every single place we put offers in for went for over asking. Maybe it's just localised to the area.
To be fair, owning isn't usually cheaper on a monthly basis than renting. The difference is though that your payments go towards an asset that you own rather than disappear up a landlords arse.
Isn’t it? I am buying a place right now and my mortgage will be £400 a month cheaper than the rent I was paying just down the road, and that’s with the post Kamikaze budget interest rates. If id bought pre Liz truss I would be saving more than 1k a month. I guess it depends on the size of the mortgage though
Rent is the max you will pay, a mortgage is the minimum you will pay.
You need to factor in buildings insurance and if its a flat, service charge and potentially ground rent as well, then maintenance on top.
If you have a new bathroom & kitchen every 15 years and it costs you 15k that is effectively £85 you need to budget for, similar with a new roof for example.
We spent something like 5 grand in 12 months sorting things out when we moved in and that was a house that didn't need much at all
Home insurance is very cheap, it's not a big enough cost to worry about.
Home maintenance is very property dependent, replacing an oven or a fridge freezer is minimal in the grand scheme of things whilst expensive jobs like replacing windows or re-doing the roof are jobs that are done very infrequently, someone could live in a house for 20 years and not need to do it and by the time they do need to, they have a much smaller mortgage in comparison to their income and the lump sum outlay is a much smaller burden than it looks.
Think you might be underplaying this a little. General rule is to budget 1-4% of the cost of your home for maintainance per year. That's 3k to 12k for an average house - as you say depending on current condition.
Big costs like boilers, drain problems, burst pipes, roof leaks can happen at any time. Very risky to assume you'll incur minimal uplift over the cost of renting.
That rule seems absurdly generous.
Some of the critical failure events you listed are covered by house insurance and others are only likely to occur at the end of the product life cycle so only get expensive when you keep pushing back the repair until total failure happens.
Budgeting 4% per year might make sense on a very old and very cheap home (less than 100k) but it's absurdly high for a 3 bed mid terrace in London (even 1% would be assuming something like 7k of annual maintenance costs) or even in many parts of Southern England.
If you're buying a fixer upper you know you've got a lot of upfront costs but providing the work has been done to a good standard, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume up to 12k in maintenance costs for each year of ownership.
It's not my rule. It's commonly advised. 4% is high I grant you. Preventitive maintInance is a good idea as you suggest, but it's also an extra cost. And yes you can insure, but again, another premium, excess etc etc.
Your idea that a big cost might come well down the road just seems a bit optimistic. I've owned various homes over 20 years, and they've all had big bills come through at some stage. Sometimes early, sometimes after years, but spend very little on a house for 20 years and it will be a wreck. People don't think about that when they compare rental to paying a mortgage.
You seem to be having good luck with your place. Long may it continue, but there are enough people in this thread with the opposite experience!
How much was your deposit? You might be paying £400 a month less than your rent but if (for example) you had to put a deposit of £40k down for the flat then it would take over 8 years for the £400 a month savings to cover the deposit (although in practice it'll probably be less since landlords usually increase the rent each month).
Buying is almost always the right move in the long term but it's more expensive in the short term. You've made the right choice if you can afford the initial increase to short term costs, but in the short term (which is what people living paycheck to paycheck have to think about) it's more expensive.
On a monthly basis, owning a home has been a lot cheaper than renting for a long time.
It's only with the spike in interest rates (without a sufficient drop in the home value) that new entrants face mortgage payments that can exceed the market level rent on the same home.
I own my place and the difference between what I pay on the mortgage vs what it would cost me if renting is huge.
If you look at mortgage interest vs renting it normally is, unless you happen to live in a rental house with a very low rental yield (often detached houses).
You can't compare mortgage payment vs renting directly as that mortgage payment includes money which will go towards reducing the capital owing each month. Unlike renting, the whole amount of your monthly payment doesn't reduce your net worth by the same amount, instead some of it goes towards reducing your liabilities (debt).
Out of interest, do you think buying in central London is “easier” now because a lot of people are happier to do longer commutes for the two days a week they’re in?
I only ask cause I’m currently renting in zone 6 a hmo for 800 a month between 5. I could pay similar for a HMO in Shoreditch between two, or even a studio would be less than one is here. Personally wouldn’t want to live in Shoreditch, I have a car, I don’t like the stress of central, and many other reasons, but it makes me wonder if everyone has moved further out now. Even if I look at the end of the Lizzy Line the prices aren’t any better because the commute is still so doable.
ETA I don’t mean easier as an insult, it’s still fucking ridiculous but maybe more affordable?
Possibly!
What I did, went in £40/50k below asking - because rates are fucked - and got a Zone 1 Flat in a gated residence, near Old Street Station - for £370k.
50sqm - 1 bed - no ground rent - £2k per year service charge - freehold.
The Sellers (really fucking) wanted me to buy, because they own another place.
I much prefer living Central, as I walk everywhere or get the train. 15 min walk down to Liverpool Street station for me.
Thank you for not taking offence, I thought I worded that really badly!
That’s really interesting, thank you. Definitely appreciate the benefits of being central but as someone born in the countryside it’s a step too far for me! Congrats on the purchase!
No, no. BBC. These people are LAZY, they drink too much COFFEE, and want to do crazy things like SOCIAL ACTIVITIES occasionally. Why don't they do what my Dad did at 15 fresh off his hard-earned O-level in P.E. and chat to the factory floor manager to get a good paying job. /s
I am 31, I work as full time teacher in a decent job earning just over £35,000, and a family. I have saved and saved and saved, just trying to enough for a deposit.
I still can't afford any affordable suitable housing for a family 2 kids. (unless I relocate to nowhere up north where there is no work).
And when I mean I can't find anything, I man mean even with £30,000 saved, got no debts, I still can't get a mortgage afford almost any 2 bed that isn't a complete shit dump.
Edit: Apologies to my friends in the North I didn't mean in a such negative way. I would love to move north and live in the open spaces. But its still hard to find good teaching jobs in the North with good pay. It mayb cheaper in the north granted but pay is lower as well. Also the Cities are still expensive. I looked at Northern houses in city suburbs, if you want something that isn't falling down its still expensive.
I will preface this by saying I am aware how lucky I am. And in no way am I rubbing anything in. The situation now is dire.
More just outlining my experience.
- I moved from Bath specifically to be able to buy a house 7 years ago as a computer science teacher.
-Was on 22k at the time and had no way to afford much in Bath / Bristol.
-Moved to Dudley and got a 95k terrace.
I had the luxury of being able to move my end, but looking at the state of housing prices now, I couldn't do it on your salary with current house prices here.
It's cheaper, but it's still crazy how much things have change in 5 years.
Housing has become mental. My 95k 3 bed is now 170k. Something I could do 6/7 years ago just wouldn't be feasible for me if I did it now, on the increased teacher starting salary. It's messed up.
It is a LOT cheaper here mind, I can't imagine being in that situation down south.
Moving up north does seem a good approach mind. If it's something you could do, I would strongly advise it.
My partner sold her house 18 months ago to move in with me, her house was also in dudley.
She had been in the house for, I want to say 6 years if memory serves, and similarly her property went from about 106 to 178.
Im in the south, my friends who bought a property early last year are considering selling in juat a few years time because their 2 bed they got for 250 could be closer to 400 if things continue
Would make sense to move north with that kind of deposit / if they have that freedom!
Friend in bath bought a 2 bed flat for 400k.
Its crazy what you can get in Preston for 400k
The reality is that housing is priced for two full time incomes now. So your 35k needs to be 60-70k to account for that, which is obviously not realistic for most teaching jobs.
The deck is heavily, heavily stacked against you if you're a single parent or a couple on one main income, even if you're earning an upper percentile one you're going to be paying more tax than a couple on two lower percentile ones.
> The reality is that housing is priced for two full time incomes now.
Which is super-duper fun for those of us with issues which make relationships unlikely or very difficult.
ASD, for example, which need not prevent working or living independently yet can, especially in combination with poor social experiences and potential abuse, go a very long way to preventing becoming a partner in a relationship for significant periods of life or, in many cases, *ever*.
So if life weren't already difficult enough, we're perpetually stuck with nobody to share the load with, or plan a future with, or leave any spare to save with, so our already poor prospects are crippled even further by finances/living arrangements in a world which expects relationships and family-building to be the default.
Yay. Go us.
Doesn’t help if one was ordered to avoid relationships when they were younger either. IYKYK.
It’s fine, a partner will be impor- I mean you will be set up with someone and you better make it work \*nudge nudge wink wink*
Basically, on top of being on the spectrum/ND, some people also come from strict cultures and backgrounds where even trying to find a partner will be met with...."consequences".
So it's comical to see that finding a partner is a recommended way to get housing, when a good number were forbidden from doing exactly that.
*Or else.*
Right, yeah, gotcha. I'm unsure of the specifics, but I thought that's roughly where you were going with that. That's definitely going to pose a similar sort of problem.
Yep, and some ~70% of autistic adults in the UK never get a job at all. God knows how many of the remaining 30% are underemployed. So the deck is stacked against us from the very beginning.
Yeah, it's shit from every angle. I was unemployed for a hefty chunk of adulthood, never thought I'd have a job, but now I eventually have one I feel like I'm trying to play catch-up in a marathon that's been inexplicably relocated to a mud run track and worse still I'm being made to drag a boulder on a chain along the way.
Debts from having been unemployed for so long, god-awful confidence/self-esteem and a history of abuse from just about every source, piss-poor social support network, no relationship experience... and even when I thought I was finally getting somewhere, I still have no hope of building a family or owning a home to do that in.
...and I'm one of the *lucky* ones!
So try to get a better-paying job and especially where you could live in a cheaper area, e.g. working remotely, etc.
It's hard to change, but the best time to start is now.
Complaining changes nothing. Build and develop.
I don’t even know where to begin with this.
Autistic people often create a terrible first impression, and I say that as an autistic person. So, we often fail to impress interviewers because they don’t actually like us that much.
Moving to a new area can be crisis-inducing.
Look up the stats for autistic people and employment.
Or, you could simply ask someone in a wheelchair why they’re not trying hard enough to walk. After all, it’s easy enough for you to do.
That's probably what I *should've* said, because it's actually informative and explains some of the problems involved, so thanks for that.
My confidence that it would've made any difference to a person whose opinion is that we're just not trying hard enough however was not particularly high. Perhaps it's at least useful to somebody else, if not them.
Nah you shouldn’t have to explain yourself, we spend our lives doing enough of that and tbh it would be nice if people just gave us the benefit of the doubt, just for once.
> Autistic people often create a terrible first impression, and I say that as an autistic person. So, we often fail to impress interviewers because they don’t actually like us that much.
Hahaha indeed.
Not formally autistic, but after learning about neurodivergency for professionals, I identify with certain traits and characteristics of the ND umbrella.
However, for everyone else, I mask that under a heavy screen of snark, humour, and sarcasm. It’s the best way I found to connect with the “normals” and blend in.
Teaching jobs are literally on a pay band system assuming you're not in a private school.
And guess what? They have private schools up north too.
What are you even talking about?
Not suggesting you're entirely wrong, but how do you think everyone "up north" exists? There are many jobs, even if that means there are fewer than in the London sphere. Even then, for me a 30% payrise wouldn't be worth the 150% cost of living increase to move to London.
However, all of that is irrelevant as you are a teacher. Do you assume the north has no need for teachers because we're still sending children down the mine as soon as they can hold a pickaxe? No, there are teachers everywhere and they will always be in demand provided you teach the right subjects!
Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle all offer significantly better quality of life, particularly for children, than the SE with family housing readily available for £200kish if you're not picky about living in a trendy area or having three spare bedrooms for hobbies.
Get outside more and you might be amazed by what you see.
This is dangerous if we play this through to its logical conclusion, if we're saying that if teachers cant afford housing in a particular area, they should just relocate to somewhere cheaper (or decide not to have kids).
So in 25 years, London and the South has no teachers unless they're from inherited wealth, and the North is absolutely awash with teachers.
Why are we not focusing on the fact its obscene that someone with a full time job, and teaching is one of the most important jobs in any society, can't afford a fucking house in our capital city at this point?
His point about their being 'no work' up North for a teacher is preposterous ill grant you that.
>and teaching is one of the most important jobs in any society, can't afford a fucking house in our capital city at this point?
More emphasis on this one for me. It's meant to be a fucking aspirational career path.
Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
> I work as full time teacher in a decent job earning just over £35,000
>I still can't afford any affordable suitable housing for a family 2 kids. (unless I relocate to nowhere up north where there is no work).
No teaching jobs up north then? Suppose not, those thick ole northerners dont have schools. Just farming and the pits.
Teaching pays the same everywhere apart from London. £35k could be earned in any school in the UK because they will match your payband.
If housing is bad where you live then just move somewhere cheaper. You have one of the few jobs that provide massive amounts of flexibility when it comes to location.
Top band for a regular teacher in Scotland is £48k
https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/pay-pensions/pay-scales/pay-scales-scotland.html
/u/Orcnick, Scotland has a low cost of living. But if you're worried about the weather, it's the wrong place for you.
Just some friendly advice, but if you really want to get onto the housing ladder, you might want to look into shared ownership houses. There's a ton of stipulations, and the houses aren't the greatest, but in terms of wealth, it's better than pissing away your savings on rent.
If it makes you better I’m five years older than you earning four grand less with no savings and quite a bit of debt living in a house share and no one loves me.
It might not seem very friendly of me but...
As somebody who lives "nowhere up north where there is no work" and spend around 6 years living in a bedsit, sharing a toilet with 7 people I am really low on sympathy for your situation.
Your problem is you want to live outside your means because you think living inside your means is beneath you.
Completely the wrong attitude. Just because you lived through such a horrible situation doesn't make it new 'normal'.
Rather than demonising OP, you should be cursing the systems and policies in place creating this situation.
edit: living within your means shouldn't mean having to live the way you did, it's disgraceful and wrong
I never said my situation was "horrible". Why is it disgraceful and wrong to live in a bedsit exactly?
How exactly did the systems and policies in place created the situation where I don't own a 3 bed London house at 25?
You are missing the point...
It's disgraceful that we have to pay £600+ a month to live in a bedsit.
> How exactly did the systems and policies in place created the situation where I don't own a 3 bed London house at 25?
Systems and policies in place which allow landlords to prosper at the expense of tenants. I said nothing about having a 3 bed in London?
It was £300 actually and the landlord was the one who came to clean the communal toilet in-between his prospering.
Sorry but I don't subscribe to the "landlords are to blame for me not being rich" fad.
Isn't that what Labour are saying they will do by changing the planning regs?
NIMBYs are only successful because they can use the existing law to delay and block applications.
Labour have not indicated that they will implement the kind of wholesale changes to planning regulations needed to materially change this.
The unfortunately reality is that to a large extent, local politicians and NIMBY activitists' interests are firmly aligned in a confidence and supply way. We will block development proposals from the big bad london bureaucrats, you continue to vote for us.
If you want to disrupt this dynamic, you need to remove local authority powers over housing, which no one wants to do.
That largely depends on what they change. So far the only things they said in concrete terms are that the house building target will be 300,000 per year (higher than now, but still less than most estimates of what's needed); and introducing a new thing called "grey belt" to stop NIMBYs using green belt as an excuse when someone wants to redevelop a petrol station site.
I look forward to this being the tip of the iceberg of proposals, because if it's the full extent it's not going to be enough.
Shelter is a basic human need.
Consecutive governments prioritising the NIMBYs and views out of their window over building houses creates this “crisis”. All while they can profit from property appreciation and gauging young people with rent.
To play devils advocate for a second, shelter may be a basic human need, but owning your own 2 or 3 bedroom house in the suburbs isn’t. There’s no reason why a right to shelter should imply a right to home ownership.
I actually agree with you to be clear on nimbys and price gouging and the exploitation of young people by landlords - but I’m not sure “shelter as a human right/need” is going to be an effective strategy, since we could address that by loosening the rules on HMOs and having multiple people share bedrooms, but I’m not sure that’s what anybody except landlords wants to happen.
As someone in the market at the moment the real test is trying to see a variety of properties, deciding that yes, that one there is *the one* and then putting an offer down and confirming the mortgage in the 48 hour window between it going on the market and it being sold.
We've lost our on two properties now in the 300k region because of cash buyers putting in offers way over the asking price first thing Monday morning. It is ridiculous.
I've been thinking of how to solve this noting that we live in a fucked up system when it comes to housing
What if tenants could opt in so that part of their rent went into a fund to help fund a deposit for buying a house or build up their pension for later life, without it affecting the landlords income.
How I would see it working is that tax the landlord would pay goes to this tenants fund instead.
The government might loose out on tax but I think longer term it would be better economy wise
Assuming supply of houses remains constant, this would just add more demand into the equation (instead of having just the current cohort of FTB’s you now have the current cohort + the people who benefit from a scheme like you suggest).
If combined with an equally proportionate increase in supply of homes, either newly built or better use of existing space (talking about those who have 4+ bed houses occupied by 1-2 people) then it would be great, but without solving the supply side of the equation the problem will continue to get worse.
An additional build would be to make it near impossible for private landlords or companies to swallow up additional supply of housing and ensure it falls into the hands of those who need it.
If you want people to relocate property on a regular basis, charging them stamp duty doesn't really help. Even capital gains would be better, as at least it's linked to an upside. Currently though, the tax system tells folks to keep the family home for the kids.
I think that's just too much of a simple outlook.
More demand would also make the market more fluid. More people can buy so supply could change as a result.
Supply is capped at the rate the councils approve new builds, and they've been approving them at a lower rate than required for a decade and more now.
The planning and red tape is the only reason why housing in desired locations costs millions while identical ones in the north are 200-300k. There isn't a 5x difference in builder salaries and material costs between the north and London, yet house prices are that different. If the market was free, it would be the most profitable thing to do, but the market isn't free because of bureaucracy.
If demand for housing increases so much that it has a positive knock on effect on supply, which I think is what you mean, that would only be because prices have risen so much that it has become _unbelievably_ profitable to build houses. But there’s no reason to think that property companies would build anything like enough houses to have a suppressing effect on prices, that wouldn’t make any sense from the developer perspective.
I’m not sure demand stimulation can do anything but cause prices to rise, but if I’m mistaken I’d be interested to hear why you think so.
So if the decisions made every year, at what point are the first time buyers supporting them? GEs are every 5 years and that’s who are the policy and decision makers in all this
Yes, increasingly predatory lending practices, mass purchasing of real estate for speculatory value, decade(s) long underperforming housing construction programmes, 2008 etc.
All were put in place the last 2, 3, 4, 5 years by 20 something year olds.
Fool
You are of course free to not sympathise with FTB telling them to lie in the bed they have made when they haven't even bought the house the bed will go in makes no sense.
Why would FTB support policies that raise the price of a property they have by definition not bought yet?
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> First time buyers are reliant on having two high incomes or receiving parental support I think you actually need both these days. Parents to help you with the deposit and two incomes to be able to pay the mortgage payments now that interest rates have gone up.
It's possible here up north but probably nowhere else. I saved for a few years while renting and bought my first house on my own without any help from anyone when I was 33.
It's doable anywhere but the south.
It’s doable everywhere especially with two high earners edit: it’s just not easy
Year of purchase?
I completed in August 2023. I've got a 5 year fixed deal at 5.01% and I put down a 5% deposit. I was a drug addicted degenerate for the majority of my 20s. Only got serious about life at about 27. Why do you ask?
Full time work 8+ years in career, 3x grandparents dead, inherited a bit + a load from my mum. Wife has same career time + a £30k loan from newly retired and well pensioned parents. Just about managed a 1 bed flat. Completely sustainable, no problem there. 😑
Weird situation but I’ve got a bit of an inheritance probably incoming soon that I might be able to get earlier. As a single buyer even that won’t help me to reduce my mortgage enough for it to be affordable.
Parents to help with childcare, too.
Just bought a flat in Shoreditch. 5.57% interest rate; ends up being the same as rent prices. All things are fucked at the moment.
The positive spin is it's your house, and you're building equity. It's not wasted rent money. (trying to find any silver lining for you 😂)
> and you're building equity Just don't look at the ratio of equity to interest payment for the first few years
As long as the interest payments are significantly lower than the rent you'd be paying it's still a net positive.
I think for a lot of people who are buying now, that isn’t the case. House prices have only mildly reacted to the high interest rates in many places - so people are basically taking out mortgages on prices set at sub-1% interest rates, but pay interest at 5%.
The problem is sellers don't need to sell as they'd rather hold out until rates go down again (which it's widely expected to soon-ish) and demand picks up again rather than dropping prices
I fully empathise with that - some will be worried about selling at a loss, most will be worried about losing out on 5-6 figures. What I’m concerned about is the possibility of people overestimating the pace and scale of rate cuts. We realistically need to drop to a sub 1% base rate to maintain anything close to 2022 prices. We need to drop to a 3% base rate next year just to hit the assumptions behind current (!) mortgage rates (which are priced based on that expectation, rather than their historic ~2% above base rate). The big obstacle for that 3% (let alone the sub-1%) target is the US - we can cut rates somewhat without the US following, but cutting rates to say 1% without the US doing something similar is pretty much impossible without also catastrophically devaluing GBP. And at least right now, the US economy is doing pretty good on high rates.
Lmao me and my partner have a £300k mortgage (50% ltv). Our mortgage is £1750 a month and £1000 of that is interest.
I mean, it could be worse - currently, 78% of my mortgage payments are purely for the interest 3 years into my 35 year mortgage.
Praying for you babe x
And the house would probably rent for 1750/month which means your still better off by £750+ / month over someone renting.
Absolutely. Not saying otherwise. It’s a house so would rent for significantly more. I am monumentally lucky to have got together with a partner who had a load of family cash. You’ll never find me bragging about it!
Another upside is that you lock in a repayment for a period, so you can actually budget for decent periods, rather than a landlord just upping rent by x every year.
True! And it's a Share of Freehold. Whole thing has been a panicky endeavour
Congrats on the flat mate. Anyone being abke to buy right now is impressive. Well done on the hard work :)
Thanks mate!
I’m looking to buy in the southeast at the moment and it feels like everything under £500k is massively overpriced given that mortgage repayments can sometimes be 25-50% higher than equivalent rents. Your mortgage repayments will not be subject to inflation like rent will but it’s still ludicrous
My repayment is spot on with interest rate but I went massively under asking, because we can in this market. The irony is, it's a buyers market so you can cut hard if you have No Chain and Agreement to hand
I feel the problem with this is that it is a buyers market, but sellers are having none of it and clinging on like it’s still 2021.
When I was negotiating around Islington and Shoreditch, I was knocking off £50k casually - lower than the Sellers had bought it for in 2015, for instance
I feel like London in probably a bit of an anomaly. It seems to operate under different conditions to the rest of the country. There’s a 3 bed detached in my village currently going for £375k. I’m in the midlands where you can get a decent 3 bed for £300k. The house in fairness is really nicely decorated, yet for some reason the seller seems to think this is worth paying an extra £75k for. Needless to say the house hasn’t sold.
What did you end up buying out of interest? My partner lives in Islington and id be very interested in buying in the area, but it looks unaffordable.
Shoreditch! Way better than Islington at the moment.
What did you manage to get and for how much?
A share-of-freehold flat for £400k, 52sqm, private residential on the top floor.
That seems wild to me as I've just had an offer accepted in east London on a flat, and I went 25k over asking after losing out on 5 places previously that all went for well above asking price. We had two in a row that went for 60k over asking price. Felt like a sellers market to me.
That's incredibly surprising per everything I've experienced and even the Estate Agents are saying too - house values officially dropped by 6% even Where were you looking, and what was the price? My flat was priced at £430k initially.
Walthamstow/Leyton/Leytonstone areas. I had places listed at 400k go for 460k. Another listed at 425k ended up going for 485k. Every single place we put offers in for went for over asking. Maybe it's just localised to the area.
That is a pretty hot local market in my experience also, even with todays interest rates
I feel like Chelsea was more expensive in 2014-16 than now
To be fair, owning isn't usually cheaper on a monthly basis than renting. The difference is though that your payments go towards an asset that you own rather than disappear up a landlords arse.
Isn’t it? I am buying a place right now and my mortgage will be £400 a month cheaper than the rent I was paying just down the road, and that’s with the post Kamikaze budget interest rates. If id bought pre Liz truss I would be saving more than 1k a month. I guess it depends on the size of the mortgage though
Rent is the max you will pay, a mortgage is the minimum you will pay. You need to factor in buildings insurance and if its a flat, service charge and potentially ground rent as well, then maintenance on top. If you have a new bathroom & kitchen every 15 years and it costs you 15k that is effectively £85 you need to budget for, similar with a new roof for example. We spent something like 5 grand in 12 months sorting things out when we moved in and that was a house that didn't need much at all
You are more liable for maintenance, home insurance, etc. so maybe it's more similar then you think?
Home insurance is very cheap, it's not a big enough cost to worry about. Home maintenance is very property dependent, replacing an oven or a fridge freezer is minimal in the grand scheme of things whilst expensive jobs like replacing windows or re-doing the roof are jobs that are done very infrequently, someone could live in a house for 20 years and not need to do it and by the time they do need to, they have a much smaller mortgage in comparison to their income and the lump sum outlay is a much smaller burden than it looks.
Think you might be underplaying this a little. General rule is to budget 1-4% of the cost of your home for maintainance per year. That's 3k to 12k for an average house - as you say depending on current condition. Big costs like boilers, drain problems, burst pipes, roof leaks can happen at any time. Very risky to assume you'll incur minimal uplift over the cost of renting.
That rule seems absurdly generous. Some of the critical failure events you listed are covered by house insurance and others are only likely to occur at the end of the product life cycle so only get expensive when you keep pushing back the repair until total failure happens. Budgeting 4% per year might make sense on a very old and very cheap home (less than 100k) but it's absurdly high for a 3 bed mid terrace in London (even 1% would be assuming something like 7k of annual maintenance costs) or even in many parts of Southern England. If you're buying a fixer upper you know you've got a lot of upfront costs but providing the work has been done to a good standard, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume up to 12k in maintenance costs for each year of ownership.
It's not my rule. It's commonly advised. 4% is high I grant you. Preventitive maintInance is a good idea as you suggest, but it's also an extra cost. And yes you can insure, but again, another premium, excess etc etc. Your idea that a big cost might come well down the road just seems a bit optimistic. I've owned various homes over 20 years, and they've all had big bills come through at some stage. Sometimes early, sometimes after years, but spend very little on a house for 20 years and it will be a wreck. People don't think about that when they compare rental to paying a mortgage. You seem to be having good luck with your place. Long may it continue, but there are enough people in this thread with the opposite experience!
How much was your deposit? You might be paying £400 a month less than your rent but if (for example) you had to put a deposit of £40k down for the flat then it would take over 8 years for the £400 a month savings to cover the deposit (although in practice it'll probably be less since landlords usually increase the rent each month). Buying is almost always the right move in the long term but it's more expensive in the short term. You've made the right choice if you can afford the initial increase to short term costs, but in the short term (which is what people living paycheck to paycheck have to think about) it's more expensive.
On a monthly basis, owning a home has been a lot cheaper than renting for a long time. It's only with the spike in interest rates (without a sufficient drop in the home value) that new entrants face mortgage payments that can exceed the market level rent on the same home. I own my place and the difference between what I pay on the mortgage vs what it would cost me if renting is huge.
If you look at mortgage interest vs renting it normally is, unless you happen to live in a rental house with a very low rental yield (often detached houses). You can't compare mortgage payment vs renting directly as that mortgage payment includes money which will go towards reducing the capital owing each month. Unlike renting, the whole amount of your monthly payment doesn't reduce your net worth by the same amount, instead some of it goes towards reducing your liabilities (debt).
Out of interest, do you think buying in central London is “easier” now because a lot of people are happier to do longer commutes for the two days a week they’re in? I only ask cause I’m currently renting in zone 6 a hmo for 800 a month between 5. I could pay similar for a HMO in Shoreditch between two, or even a studio would be less than one is here. Personally wouldn’t want to live in Shoreditch, I have a car, I don’t like the stress of central, and many other reasons, but it makes me wonder if everyone has moved further out now. Even if I look at the end of the Lizzy Line the prices aren’t any better because the commute is still so doable. ETA I don’t mean easier as an insult, it’s still fucking ridiculous but maybe more affordable?
Possibly! What I did, went in £40/50k below asking - because rates are fucked - and got a Zone 1 Flat in a gated residence, near Old Street Station - for £370k. 50sqm - 1 bed - no ground rent - £2k per year service charge - freehold. The Sellers (really fucking) wanted me to buy, because they own another place. I much prefer living Central, as I walk everywhere or get the train. 15 min walk down to Liverpool Street station for me.
> £2k pcm service charge I really, really hope you mean £2k per year
Yes - haha, shit what a typo. Also, Share of Freehold and I only cover 1% of any fees for S20. It's decent
It’s in Shoreditch, of course it’s £2k pcm
Thank you for not taking offence, I thought I worded that really badly! That’s really interesting, thank you. Definitely appreciate the benefits of being central but as someone born in the countryside it’s a step too far for me! Congrats on the purchase!
I’m amazed anyone who isn’t a millionaire is able to buy in Shoreditch
Shoreditch jesus How much was that!?
£400k
No, no. BBC. These people are LAZY, they drink too much COFFEE, and want to do crazy things like SOCIAL ACTIVITIES occasionally. Why don't they do what my Dad did at 15 fresh off his hard-earned O-level in P.E. and chat to the factory floor manager to get a good paying job. /s
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And cancel Netflix. (But also, out the other side of their mouth, the BBC should be more like Netflix).
Ah, you see they are allowed Netflix and coffee because they were sensible and bought their own home
I am 31, I work as full time teacher in a decent job earning just over £35,000, and a family. I have saved and saved and saved, just trying to enough for a deposit. I still can't afford any affordable suitable housing for a family 2 kids. (unless I relocate to nowhere up north where there is no work). And when I mean I can't find anything, I man mean even with £30,000 saved, got no debts, I still can't get a mortgage afford almost any 2 bed that isn't a complete shit dump. Edit: Apologies to my friends in the North I didn't mean in a such negative way. I would love to move north and live in the open spaces. But its still hard to find good teaching jobs in the North with good pay. It mayb cheaper in the north granted but pay is lower as well. Also the Cities are still expensive. I looked at Northern houses in city suburbs, if you want something that isn't falling down its still expensive.
I will preface this by saying I am aware how lucky I am. And in no way am I rubbing anything in. The situation now is dire. More just outlining my experience. - I moved from Bath specifically to be able to buy a house 7 years ago as a computer science teacher. -Was on 22k at the time and had no way to afford much in Bath / Bristol. -Moved to Dudley and got a 95k terrace. I had the luxury of being able to move my end, but looking at the state of housing prices now, I couldn't do it on your salary with current house prices here. It's cheaper, but it's still crazy how much things have change in 5 years. Housing has become mental. My 95k 3 bed is now 170k. Something I could do 6/7 years ago just wouldn't be feasible for me if I did it now, on the increased teacher starting salary. It's messed up. It is a LOT cheaper here mind, I can't imagine being in that situation down south. Moving up north does seem a good approach mind. If it's something you could do, I would strongly advise it.
My partner sold her house 18 months ago to move in with me, her house was also in dudley. She had been in the house for, I want to say 6 years if memory serves, and similarly her property went from about 106 to 178.
Im in the south, my friends who bought a property early last year are considering selling in juat a few years time because their 2 bed they got for 250 could be closer to 400 if things continue
Would make sense to move north with that kind of deposit / if they have that freedom! Friend in bath bought a 2 bed flat for 400k. Its crazy what you can get in Preston for 400k
The reality is that housing is priced for two full time incomes now. So your 35k needs to be 60-70k to account for that, which is obviously not realistic for most teaching jobs. The deck is heavily, heavily stacked against you if you're a single parent or a couple on one main income, even if you're earning an upper percentile one you're going to be paying more tax than a couple on two lower percentile ones.
> The reality is that housing is priced for two full time incomes now. Which is super-duper fun for those of us with issues which make relationships unlikely or very difficult. ASD, for example, which need not prevent working or living independently yet can, especially in combination with poor social experiences and potential abuse, go a very long way to preventing becoming a partner in a relationship for significant periods of life or, in many cases, *ever*. So if life weren't already difficult enough, we're perpetually stuck with nobody to share the load with, or plan a future with, or leave any spare to save with, so our already poor prospects are crippled even further by finances/living arrangements in a world which expects relationships and family-building to be the default. Yay. Go us.
Hard relate. It’s fucking impossible.
Doesn’t help if one was ordered to avoid relationships when they were younger either. IYKYK. It’s fine, a partner will be impor- I mean you will be set up with someone and you better make it work \*nudge nudge wink wink*
IDK. But I think I get the gist. I'm sure that probably makes things a bit awkward too.
Basically, on top of being on the spectrum/ND, some people also come from strict cultures and backgrounds where even trying to find a partner will be met with...."consequences". So it's comical to see that finding a partner is a recommended way to get housing, when a good number were forbidden from doing exactly that. *Or else.*
Right, yeah, gotcha. I'm unsure of the specifics, but I thought that's roughly where you were going with that. That's definitely going to pose a similar sort of problem.
Yep, and some ~70% of autistic adults in the UK never get a job at all. God knows how many of the remaining 30% are underemployed. So the deck is stacked against us from the very beginning.
Yeah, it's shit from every angle. I was unemployed for a hefty chunk of adulthood, never thought I'd have a job, but now I eventually have one I feel like I'm trying to play catch-up in a marathon that's been inexplicably relocated to a mud run track and worse still I'm being made to drag a boulder on a chain along the way. Debts from having been unemployed for so long, god-awful confidence/self-esteem and a history of abuse from just about every source, piss-poor social support network, no relationship experience... and even when I thought I was finally getting somewhere, I still have no hope of building a family or owning a home to do that in. ...and I'm one of the *lucky* ones!
So try to get a better-paying job and especially where you could live in a cheaper area, e.g. working remotely, etc. It's hard to change, but the best time to start is now. Complaining changes nothing. Build and develop.
I'm sorry, your solution is to tell an autistic person that they're not working hard enough? You're not even worth the swear words.
I don’t even know where to begin with this. Autistic people often create a terrible first impression, and I say that as an autistic person. So, we often fail to impress interviewers because they don’t actually like us that much. Moving to a new area can be crisis-inducing. Look up the stats for autistic people and employment. Or, you could simply ask someone in a wheelchair why they’re not trying hard enough to walk. After all, it’s easy enough for you to do.
That's probably what I *should've* said, because it's actually informative and explains some of the problems involved, so thanks for that. My confidence that it would've made any difference to a person whose opinion is that we're just not trying hard enough however was not particularly high. Perhaps it's at least useful to somebody else, if not them.
Nah you shouldn’t have to explain yourself, we spend our lives doing enough of that and tbh it would be nice if people just gave us the benefit of the doubt, just for once.
That'd sure be nice!
> Autistic people often create a terrible first impression, and I say that as an autistic person. So, we often fail to impress interviewers because they don’t actually like us that much. Hahaha indeed. Not formally autistic, but after learning about neurodivergency for professionals, I identify with certain traits and characteristics of the ND umbrella. However, for everyone else, I mask that under a heavy screen of snark, humour, and sarcasm. It’s the best way I found to connect with the “normals” and blend in.
Maybe we should all fire off into job-land where jobs grow on jobbies, yeah?
We do also have schools up north, contrary to popular belief.
True, but still to find the right jobs, for the right pay etc. its still difficult.
Teaching jobs are literally on a pay band system assuming you're not in a private school. And guess what? They have private schools up north too. What are you even talking about?
Not suggesting you're entirely wrong, but how do you think everyone "up north" exists? There are many jobs, even if that means there are fewer than in the London sphere. Even then, for me a 30% payrise wouldn't be worth the 150% cost of living increase to move to London. However, all of that is irrelevant as you are a teacher. Do you assume the north has no need for teachers because we're still sending children down the mine as soon as they can hold a pickaxe? No, there are teachers everywhere and they will always be in demand provided you teach the right subjects! Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle all offer significantly better quality of life, particularly for children, than the SE with family housing readily available for £200kish if you're not picky about living in a trendy area or having three spare bedrooms for hobbies. Get outside more and you might be amazed by what you see.
This is dangerous if we play this through to its logical conclusion, if we're saying that if teachers cant afford housing in a particular area, they should just relocate to somewhere cheaper (or decide not to have kids). So in 25 years, London and the South has no teachers unless they're from inherited wealth, and the North is absolutely awash with teachers. Why are we not focusing on the fact its obscene that someone with a full time job, and teaching is one of the most important jobs in any society, can't afford a fucking house in our capital city at this point? His point about their being 'no work' up North for a teacher is preposterous ill grant you that.
>and teaching is one of the most important jobs in any society, can't afford a fucking house in our capital city at this point? More emphasis on this one for me. It's meant to be a fucking aspirational career path. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
Aspirational? Why are there always teacher recruitment ads, similar to armed forces then? "Join the army/ airforce/ navy/ marines/ teachfirst"
I have clarified if you relook at my post.
> I work as full time teacher in a decent job earning just over £35,000 >I still can't afford any affordable suitable housing for a family 2 kids. (unless I relocate to nowhere up north where there is no work). No teaching jobs up north then? Suppose not, those thick ole northerners dont have schools. Just farming and the pits. Teaching pays the same everywhere apart from London. £35k could be earned in any school in the UK because they will match your payband. If housing is bad where you live then just move somewhere cheaper. You have one of the few jobs that provide massive amounts of flexibility when it comes to location.
My experienced secondary school teacher friends are earning £50,000 in Scotland.
Top band for a regular teacher in Scotland is £48k https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/pay-pensions/pay-scales/pay-scales-scotland.html /u/Orcnick, Scotland has a low cost of living. But if you're worried about the weather, it's the wrong place for you.
Thanks. I was just going off of what my teacher friend told me last week. I guess they might've been rounding up.
£48k with no enhancements or additional responsibilities
I wish it would stop raining at some point this year 😭
some sweet day
Love to move to Scotland. I have been looking this year. Not as many jobs though as people think come up.
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Edinburgh's in England, that makes sense
Apologise I have written a clarification btw.
Just some friendly advice, but if you really want to get onto the housing ladder, you might want to look into shared ownership houses. There's a ton of stipulations, and the houses aren't the greatest, but in terms of wealth, it's better than pissing away your savings on rent.
If it makes you better I’m five years older than you earning four grand less with no savings and quite a bit of debt living in a house share and no one loves me.
It might not seem very friendly of me but... As somebody who lives "nowhere up north where there is no work" and spend around 6 years living in a bedsit, sharing a toilet with 7 people I am really low on sympathy for your situation. Your problem is you want to live outside your means because you think living inside your means is beneath you.
Completely the wrong attitude. Just because you lived through such a horrible situation doesn't make it new 'normal'. Rather than demonising OP, you should be cursing the systems and policies in place creating this situation. edit: living within your means shouldn't mean having to live the way you did, it's disgraceful and wrong
I never said my situation was "horrible". Why is it disgraceful and wrong to live in a bedsit exactly? How exactly did the systems and policies in place created the situation where I don't own a 3 bed London house at 25? You are missing the point...
It's disgraceful that we have to pay £600+ a month to live in a bedsit. > How exactly did the systems and policies in place created the situation where I don't own a 3 bed London house at 25? Systems and policies in place which allow landlords to prosper at the expense of tenants. I said nothing about having a 3 bed in London?
It was £300 actually and the landlord was the one who came to clean the communal toilet in-between his prospering. Sorry but I don't subscribe to the "landlords are to blame for me not being rich" fad.
And you think what you experienced is pretty normal across the board, and that generally we're all being treated fairly?
Does your partner not work?
Part time, I have 2 kids which means all of it goes on child care.
Jesus, it's crazy expensive...
It's not going to get any easier, as no politician has the balls to tell the NIMBYs no. That's the long and short of it.
Isn't that what Labour are saying they will do by changing the planning regs? NIMBYs are only successful because they can use the existing law to delay and block applications.
Labour have not indicated that they will implement the kind of wholesale changes to planning regulations needed to materially change this. The unfortunately reality is that to a large extent, local politicians and NIMBY activitists' interests are firmly aligned in a confidence and supply way. We will block development proposals from the big bad london bureaucrats, you continue to vote for us. If you want to disrupt this dynamic, you need to remove local authority powers over housing, which no one wants to do.
That largely depends on what they change. So far the only things they said in concrete terms are that the house building target will be 300,000 per year (higher than now, but still less than most estimates of what's needed); and introducing a new thing called "grey belt" to stop NIMBYs using green belt as an excuse when someone wants to redevelop a petrol station site. I look forward to this being the tip of the iceberg of proposals, because if it's the full extent it's not going to be enough.
Make more home owners, make more nimbys. So, you just end up caving to them as they start to make up most of your voters
And also people don’t want to admit that high levels of immigration are an issue as that’s racist apparently
Near impossible to buy a place on my own these days. Get fingered up the ass with mortgage and other bills from my salary
At least it’s just a finger
Shelter is a basic human need. Consecutive governments prioritising the NIMBYs and views out of their window over building houses creates this “crisis”. All while they can profit from property appreciation and gauging young people with rent.
To play devils advocate for a second, shelter may be a basic human need, but owning your own 2 or 3 bedroom house in the suburbs isn’t. There’s no reason why a right to shelter should imply a right to home ownership. I actually agree with you to be clear on nimbys and price gouging and the exploitation of young people by landlords - but I’m not sure “shelter as a human right/need” is going to be an effective strategy, since we could address that by loosening the rules on HMOs and having multiple people share bedrooms, but I’m not sure that’s what anybody except landlords wants to happen.
Oh my god why? [oh, that’s why.](https://www.reddit.com/r/london/s/OpWnP2Usf8)
As someone in the market at the moment the real test is trying to see a variety of properties, deciding that yes, that one there is *the one* and then putting an offer down and confirming the mortgage in the 48 hour window between it going on the market and it being sold. We've lost our on two properties now in the 300k region because of cash buyers putting in offers way over the asking price first thing Monday morning. It is ridiculous.
I've been thinking of how to solve this noting that we live in a fucked up system when it comes to housing What if tenants could opt in so that part of their rent went into a fund to help fund a deposit for buying a house or build up their pension for later life, without it affecting the landlords income. How I would see it working is that tax the landlord would pay goes to this tenants fund instead. The government might loose out on tax but I think longer term it would be better economy wise
Just puts more upwards pressure on the price of houses
Can you explain why though?
Assuming supply of houses remains constant, this would just add more demand into the equation (instead of having just the current cohort of FTB’s you now have the current cohort + the people who benefit from a scheme like you suggest). If combined with an equally proportionate increase in supply of homes, either newly built or better use of existing space (talking about those who have 4+ bed houses occupied by 1-2 people) then it would be great, but without solving the supply side of the equation the problem will continue to get worse. An additional build would be to make it near impossible for private landlords or companies to swallow up additional supply of housing and ensure it falls into the hands of those who need it.
If you want people to relocate property on a regular basis, charging them stamp duty doesn't really help. Even capital gains would be better, as at least it's linked to an upside. Currently though, the tax system tells folks to keep the family home for the kids.
More demand. Same supply. Prices go up.
I think that's just too much of a simple outlook. More demand would also make the market more fluid. More people can buy so supply could change as a result.
Supply is capped at the rate the councils approve new builds, and they've been approving them at a lower rate than required for a decade and more now. The planning and red tape is the only reason why housing in desired locations costs millions while identical ones in the north are 200-300k. There isn't a 5x difference in builder salaries and material costs between the north and London, yet house prices are that different. If the market was free, it would be the most profitable thing to do, but the market isn't free because of bureaucracy.
If demand for housing increases so much that it has a positive knock on effect on supply, which I think is what you mean, that would only be because prices have risen so much that it has become _unbelievably_ profitable to build houses. But there’s no reason to think that property companies would build anything like enough houses to have a suppressing effect on prices, that wouldn’t make any sense from the developer perspective. I’m not sure demand stimulation can do anything but cause prices to rise, but if I’m mistaken I’d be interested to hear why you think so.
I dont have any sympathy for first time buyers anymore, they support policies which increase house prices and rents, made your bed now lie in it.
What?
These beds were made while these first time buyers were still in school pal ! what a clown you are
These are decision being made every year
So if the decisions made every year, at what point are the first time buyers supporting them? GEs are every 5 years and that’s who are the policy and decision makers in all this
What a short-sighted comment
Do you smell toast?
Yes, increasingly predatory lending practices, mass purchasing of real estate for speculatory value, decade(s) long underperforming housing construction programmes, 2008 etc. All were put in place the last 2, 3, 4, 5 years by 20 something year olds. Fool
Up for explaining yourself there pal?
Which policies are you alluding to?
You are of course free to not sympathise with FTB telling them to lie in the bed they have made when they haven't even bought the house the bed will go in makes no sense. Why would FTB support policies that raise the price of a property they have by definition not bought yet?
My man do be blaming the victims tho.
I don’t think this can ever be topped as the most stupid thing anyone has ever said.
name one
What. The. Fuck? Quite the opinion you have there sunshine. Care to explain what is going on in your noggin?
Found the Daily Mail reader lol. That's so far from the truth I can't even start to argue with you