What size deposit do people on here have?

Snooze

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Actually it was kinda to prove a point, and it did prove it in my favour.

I was having a discussion on another thread where someone said I was in cloudcookooland (or words to that effect) if I thought that FTBers could save up 25% deposits. I pointed out that plenty of MSErs on here had done just that, and I was mocked when I could 'only' produce 3 names off the top of my head.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=18791005&postcount=61

Well, I hope this thread goes some way to prove that at least some prospective buyers in the UK have their financial heads screwed on and that there are plenty more people who perhaps don't have 25% saved up just yet but are beavering away to get there. Good luck to em.

Hmm :cool: . It's hardly as black & white as that though, is it? I mean who would have thought that members of a site to do with money saving would be able to, well, save? :rolleyes:

I have a strong suspicion that if one were to poll a random selection of general public on the street, one would find that very few FTBers would actually be able to save up 25% deposits in a sensible amount of time.

Of course I have no evidence to back this up but I loosely base my opinion on the fact that yer average man and woman in the street don't really care about - nor understand - what's happening outside their own reality bubbles of credit card funded lifestyles. The party is only just ending for most folks and now they'll be having to spend the next 25 years paying off the debts they've racked up and so haven't got a hope in hell of doing any saving for mortgages/retirement etc. :cool:

Rob

dopester

Yoshua wrote: »

Where are all these deposits being held? [savings accounts]

The banks are not giving much interest. Plus the pound is devaluing and losing buying power. [Houses in England are priced in £ pounds]

It make me wonder if you will lose less money just buying a house and watching it depreciate. [£120,000 in the savings accounts at 0% interest = £120,000 after a year. A £160,000 house in the next 12 months = ? Next 36 months = ?

I don't follow your logic at all.

Walletwatch

One important question I wanted to ask was how many of those that have given their saved up deposit figures include their ISA amounts in it? Would you break up your ISA amounts for a housing deposit, or would you keep the ISA wrapper on and only use your non-ISA savings?

ad9898_3

Yoshua wrote: »

The banks are not giving much interest. Plus the pound is devaluing and losing buying power.

It's not losing buying power with houses though, an example would be the average house is over 30k down from peak, so in theory you have saved 30k without saving anything yourself, against an average house I might add.

I'm not sure about anything else, petrol is starting to creep up again I see. But as far as houses go, the pound in your pocket is worth more.

ad9898_3

Walletwatch wrote: »

One important question I wanted to ask was how many of those that have given their saved up deposit figures include their ISA amounts in it? Would you break up your ISA amounts for a housing deposit, or would you keep the ISA wrapper on and only use your non-ISA savings?

When the time is right to buy, absolutely, the interest (even tax free) is not going to offset the interest on a mortgage. So yes I would use my ISA allowance and then build up 4 months of 'living expenses' again.

My opinion is that it is critical if you have a mortgage to have between 3-6 months of outgoings saved, because I know from experience that life can change suddenly and unexpectedly.

^!£$&

I agree my savings are currently in my ISA which I'm maxing out each year, but when it comes to buying my house I have no probs with withdrawing the majority of ££ in my Isa!

MrDT

sjaypink wrote: »

just asked really as i guess traditionally, a question 'how much house deposit do you have?' would have been aimed at 20 somethings just starting out, i suppose.

now, people who are waiting to buy (on this board) seem to be a large % of str, or older ftb etc.

eg, of my friends whove recently bought, theyve only been able to do so with roughly 5% deposit, sometimes credit cards went towards deposits, or fees, surveys etc- not solely saving. or of course via rich mummy and daddy, or inheritence.

what im trying to say is, i think, is that theres really not a huge amount of people able to buy, even if they were willing....

Mid-twenties, no debt, certainly no rich mummy or daddy, and never received a penny in inheritence. We could have put down 40% of the asking price on an "ok" repo'd house we were quite interested in a couple months back.

We have 34% of the asking price of an "almost perfect" (3 bed, semi, drive, garage, garden front and rear, new kitchen) house saved up. Shame the location wasn't quite right else we could have been tempted to buy sooner rather than later.

I think we'll wait a while longer. Once places like the "almost perfect" house start cropping up at the right price in the right locations we'll go for it. Until then just keep on saving.

I expect we'll end up buying with about 40% down, and a mortgage multiplier of between 1x and 2x joint income. Much nearer to 1x to be honest. It's clear that we're not the 'average couple' in that we save a good chunk of our income and live well within our means. We also live in a relatively cheap area, and earn higher than average local salaries but not excessively so.

A friend that bought relatively recently did so using 100% mortgage and had fully loaded credit cards in tow too. He earns more than I do. Guess it has a lot to do with attitude, not what you earn or how rich your parents are etc

Things could change drastically should the recession hit our jobs. I'm not foolish enough to think that this economic meltdown can't affect us. I'd like to have large enough savings/deposit such that we could pay the mortgage and get by even if we were only earning minimum wage for a year or two.

Dithering_Dad

Snooze wrote: »

Hmm :cool: . It's hardly as black & white as that though, is it? I mean who would have thought that members of a site to do with money saving would be able to, well, save? :rolleyes:

I have a strong suspicion that if one were to poll a random selection of general public on the street, one would find that very few FTBers would actually be able to save up 25% deposits in a sensible amount of time.

Of course I have no evidence to back this up but I loosely base my opinion on the fact that yer average man and woman in the street don't really care about - nor understand - what's happening outside their own reality bubbles of credit card funded lifestyles. The party is only just ending for most folks and now they'll be having to spend the next 25 years paying off the debts they've racked up and so haven't got a hope in hell of doing any saving for mortgages/retirement etc. :cool:

Rob

It's hardly as black and white as you paint it either. At least I did try and do a bit of 'market research', you're just pulling figures out of thin air. I also don't subscribe to the belief that only people who logon to Money Saving web sites are financially savvy.

I also don't subscribe to the belief, often expressed in this particular board, that the whole of the UK is up to their eyeballs in debt and only the smart people on here who resisted buying a house are financially sound. I know it does help in many of the discussions, especially ones where 70% drops are mooted to imagine that every home owner in the uk is weighed down under a crushing burden of debt and are desperate to sell their houses at any price.

One third of home owners own their houses outright; lock, stock, the f-ing lot (as they say in one of my favourite movies). I would say that another third are like me, huge amounts of equity, lots of saving and a nice pension pot put by for when they retire. Of the remaining third, some people will be struggling but will get through it, some people will be struggling and won't get through it.

As far as the future of house purchasing os concerned, any prospective FTBer who doesn't have a decent deposit (not saying 25%, but at least 10%) simply won't be given a mortgage and so simply won't be buying a house. They will be forced to save, whether they want to or not.

pandamonia

Im hoping me and my GF have about 25k saved by year end. we need about 26k for 20%

LilacPixie

Very little, around 9% what doubles as our emergency savings pot. I am putting everything possible into overpaying current mortgage.