FTB expectations too high?

AnnaMonkey

JayScottGreenspan, I really do agree. I'm all up in the spreadsheets - I think I scared my motgage broker by turning up with them all, pre-empting all she needed and more :rotfl: mmmm spreadsheets.
I wish the rent free-ness would stay for longer. But it works quite nicely as rent would be (in my area) slightly more than a mortgage, all the other fees are pretty much the same. The thing is if we save for longer the property we end up going for will still be more expensive than this one so the mortgage will be more (if not the same).
Thank you for the advice!!

penguine

AnnaMonkey wrote: »

The thing is if we save for longer the property we end up going for will still be more expensive than this one so the mortgage will be more (if not the same).

Property prices are falling, and in a very severe recession are highly likely to fall much further. So this may not necessarily be true.

AnnaMonkey

Yes - but I'm not telling how low the flat we're bidding on is.....

fi_trix29

Not had a chance to read all 22 pages of this post, but I don't see what the OP's problem is - if people want to buy a nice house then what's wrong with that? I'm a first time buyer in the process of finding a house to buy and am looking for a 3 bed semi, and I don't see why I should be ashamed of that or be looked upon as being greedy simply because the OP doesn't like that I'm not buying some scabby studio flat.

russ21282

Me and a friend bought when we were 20, a 3 bed terrace, in a below average, lets say, area!

We then bought a place in an average area, again 3 beds, so going up the ladder slowly.

I'm now looking to buy with the girlfriend, but we are starting from square 1 as me and my mate want to keep this place as an investment.

Now i don't mind living somewhere below par to be on the safe side of caution (only getting a mortgage on one of our incomes) but then again due to the economic climate, i think we are going to be where we buy for some years. So i'd like a nicer area and space for a growing family without having to move again. i'm 26 and i've done my time in crap areas, but if we bought a 1 bed flat, in a couple of years if we wanted kids, we would be well and truly screwed. It's the big picture for me.

EDIT: just read the title again FTB, so i don't think applies to me! i'm playing by the ladder rules!

LydiaJ

fi_trix29 wrote: »

Not had a chance to read all 22 pages of this post, but I don't see what the OP's problem is - if people want to buy a nice house then what's wrong with that? I'm a first time buyer in the process of finding a house to buy and am looking for a 3 bed semi, and I don't see why I should be ashamed of that or be looked upon as being greedy simply because the OP doesn't like that I'm not buying some scabby studio flat.

I haven't time to read all 22 pages either, but it's really not true that buyers in the past all had much lower expectations of what sort of house they could buy. Lower expectations of furniture, decor etc etc, yes. Lower expectations of house size for their money, no.

My parents married in their late 20s, rented small flats for a few years, and bought when he was 32 and she was 29. He had done a few years of temporary graduate research contracts, and had just got his first permanent job as a lecturer at a university - the sort of job that is currently paying £30k max. She was at home full time with their first baby.

What would people in that situation be able to afford now?

I'm quite certain it wouldn't be a FIVE bedroom house (and that's five double bedrooms) in a nice area of a pleasant city in the SW of England, having saved up a 50% deposit, and only needing a mortgage of 1.5x his salary.

OK, so they sublet the upstairs until they had some more babies and wanted the space, but the reality of house buying in 1959 was that FTBs could very easily get unimaginably more than they can hope to get now.

brummybloke

fi_trix29 wrote: »

Not had a chance to read all 22 pages of this post, but I don't see what the OP's problem is - if people want to buy a nice house then what's wrong with that? I'm a first time buyer in the process of finding a house to buy and am looking for a 3 bed semi, and I don't see why I should be ashamed of that or be looked upon as being greedy simply because the OP doesn't like that I'm not buying some scabby studio flat.

not read the 22 pages? you havent even read the original thread judging by your response?

i dont have a problem, the problem is that of some first time buyers who seem to think they have some devine right to have a great house in a great area and expect to pay nothing for it and seem to forget that things normally take time and that if you cant afford it, you get what you can afford. if that is a 1 bedroomed flat then so be it.
but of course if you had read the original post, you would have already known that :rolleyes:

daveb975

brummybloke wrote: »

not read the 22 pages? you havent even read the original thread judging by your response?

i dont have a problem, the problem is that of some first time buyers who seem to think they have some devine right to have a great house in a great area and expect to pay nothing for it and seem to forget that things normally take time and that if you cant afford it, you get what you can afford. if that is a 1 bedroomed flat then so be it.
but of course if you had read the original post, you would have already known that :rolleyes:

The replies to the original post tend to suggest that most FTBs base their expectations on what was acheived by their parents generation.

The fact is that for people in their 20's and 30's buying before the mid-1970's, it WAS easier to get a good sized house than it is now. 3x a single average income would buy an average 3 bed house in an average part of SE England. This may have increased to require a dual income if moving to a very good area.

Even going back to 2000-2001, 3x average (£30k) income would have seen people struggle to get anything more than a 2 bed flat in an average part of the SE and definitely only a 1 bed flat in a good area. Obviously, things are very different now.

I think expecatations have been raised by the generation that are now aged 50-70. If expectations were based on previous generations, I think that thay would be a lot lower.