How do people do it?!

wheresmydoshat

£600 is also the minimum we save each month. I don't think that's too bad to be honest?

if you ask me, going on what you say above i think you do really well. life is expensive.

retepetsir

Idiophreak wrote: »

According to Home.co.uk:

County Beds No. On market Avg Price
West Sussex Two bedrooms 2,445 £204,287
Oxford Two bedrooms 283 £224,725

...and you think you've got problems

Thanks for clearing that up .

However, the new build 2-bedroom places I've seen are all £240-260k, which is madness for their size. You couldn't swing a cat in the second bedroom.

I've been looking at some houses on rightmove and found some lovely 2 (and sometimes some 3) bedroom places for under £200k. I just don't think its worth an extra 40-60k on the mortgage for a new house which is smaller and not built to such a high standard. Maybe that's the wrong approach?

I will have a look at the new build schemes again, although I do need to be close (ish) to a train station!

Thanks

wheresmydoshat

A university friend has just purchased his first house with his partner after only 9 months of working, lucky for him their parents paid the deposit! I'm slightly jealous

sounds familiar. some close friends of mine:

friend a. at 25 given a house that was purchased for him when he was a child as an investment. a mortgage of about 30k left.

friend b. told he can have his 100k inheritance early to go towards a house.

and theres me hoping i might get some cash towards the fee's !!

Idiophreak

retepetsir wrote: »

However, the new build 2-bedroom places I've seen are all £240-260k, which is madness for their size. You couldn't swing a cat in the second bedroom.

I've been looking at some houses on rightmove and found some lovely 2 (and sometimes some 3) bedroom places for under £200k. I just don't think its worth an extra 40-60k on the mortgage for a new house which is smaller and not built to such a high standard. Maybe that's the wrong approach?

It's just a case of shopping around and using common sense, isn't it, really - you can tell if something's too expensive or not. We saw some new places that were clearly having a laugh with their prices. (although persimmon, barratts etc *will* move a good 10% from the asking price)

Also have to be prepared to compromise. I wanted a house, but they were just too expensive, so ended up getting a 2 bed flat for around 200k. Much better build than some of the "big name" places I looked at, better specification and larger than most 2 bed houses we looked at (around 900sq ft iirc).

gabyjane

Hi were not on anything like your income and are a similar age in the south and have bought a newbuild SO house, it is gorgeous and big for a new build! not perfect as no we dont own it all but who does of their house? know there are poss complications when selling but we dont intend to so not worrying about it, lets face it those in normal houses now are struggling too aren' they? at the end of the day we dont pay someone elses mortgage anymore and that far outweighs it!..we didnt need a huge deposit etc too so that helped.
Good luck to you both..

wheresmydoshat

we thought shared ownership was a good idea, until it became a game of "prove you can't afford a house. now prove you can afford your share". they initially decided we could afford a house without their help, having not even spoken with us (just from the forms we filled in).

pfpf

retepetesir.

ok, i see now. your OP stated £1200.00pm outgoings and £600.00 savings.

i thought/assumed "outgoings" meant all costs.

i wasnt having a go at anyone for spending their money, it was just that the title of this thread and OP was "how do people manage?"

i do know "life is for living, not just for saving for the future" as someone stated above, but that wasnt the context of which this thread was started, at least not how i read it.

retepetsir

Idiophreak wrote: »

It's just a case of shopping around and using common sense, isn't it, really - you can tell if something's too expensive or not. We saw some new places that were clearly having a laugh with their prices. (although persimmon, barratts etc *will* move a good 10% from the asking price)

Also have to be prepared to compromise. I wanted a house, but they were just too expensive, so ended up getting a 2 bed flat for around 200k. Much better build than some of the "big name" places I looked at, better specification and larger than most 2 bed houses we looked at (around 900sq ft iirc).

Did you live in a flat beforehand? We've been renting a flat for a while now, and will be doing so for the forseeable future. It's certainly an experience. We'd like to progress to a 2-bedroom house as then we can more easily progress with life, pets, kids and the rest.

The 3-bedroom places that Barratts had were only 850sq.ft and still small, so a flat that size is very nice indeed.

I've just had a look at the schemes and they are not particularly good. Which scheme did you end up choosing that gave the 10 year period before interest? The FTB scheme (first time buyers) will ask for 1% fees on the government portion after 3 years, 2% after 4 years and 3% after 5 years, which is quite a hefty sum from £100k+. The others are similar, charging fees as a % of the loan after 3 years.

gabyjane, thats good to know. Whereabouts is your new house? I might start looking again at new builds tonight. Do you think you got a good deal, and how much will it cost you once the 'interest free' period is up?

pfpf, I did originally mean 'how to people do it' in terms of saving up enough of a deposit to buy their own house, particularly in the current climate.

Strapped

Move to a cheaper area? You can get a 3bed house within walking distance of Three Bridges station for around £150k.

Idiophreak

retepetsir wrote: »

Did you live in a flat beforehand? We've been renting a flat for a while now, and will be doing so for the forseeable future. It's certainly an experience. We'd like to progress to a 2-bedroom house as then we can more easily progress with life, pets, kids and the rest.

The 3-bedroom places that Barratts had were only 850sq.ft and still small, so a flat that size is very nice indeed.

I've just had a look at the schemes and they are not particularly good. Which scheme did you end up choosing that gave the 10 year period before interest? The FTB scheme (first time buyers) will ask for 1% fees on the government portion after 3 years, 2% after 4 years and 3% after 5 years, which is quite a hefty sum from £100k+. The others are similar, charging fees as a % of the loan after 3 years.

Lived at home previously - this is our first place together.

I guess it's harsh to call it a flat, should be an "apartment", I guess...it's laid out more like a house and only has one neighbour - downstairs. It's on a very small development. Hoping it won't prove too much of an "experience" Was much better value in £/sq ft than most 2bed2bath places we saw - and has underfloor heating, which helps a lot too (no radiators to eat into wall space.

As far as schemes go, look at the ones offered by the builders themselves, not councils etc - things like this:
http://www.barratthomes.co.uk/Offers/Shared-Equity/
and so on...

Most builders offer something similar, although the websites are really unhelpful (and T+Cs vary, so make sure you get the terms of the deal 100% right in your head)

The basic terms of mine are:

Equity Loan of up to 25% of purchase price.
No interest or repayments for up to 10 years.
Can repay 5% chunks at any point for the "going rate" - have to pay for 2 independent valuations to work out what this might be. (ie 5% of 200k is 10k...but if house values halve, repaying the 5% would only cost £5k)

From memory barratts, bryant and persimmon all had schemes on much these terms, as did smaller builders. (it was a smaller one I went with in the end). Normally only available on certain plots on a development, though. (normally more availability on 2/3 bed places than more expensive ones..)

Anyway, as I said before, these schemes have a lot of stigma attached to them and they aren't for everyone, but worth looking into if you haven't already.