Could you afford to buy your own house today?

AMILLIONDOLLARS

No I couldn't, we bought in 1999, since then it has more than doubled in value, even with the downturn! So no chance if I had to buy it now. Anyway at the time, I was of the opinion that they were going to have to carry me out in a box as I had no wish to go through the painful experience of buying ever again!!


AMD

WestonDave

No I couldn't, or at least not on 3 times income multiple but its a bit of a daft question as it excludes the possibility of people doing more than the bare minimum towards home ownership. I bought my first home in 1998 with a 15% deposit. By the time we sold it in 2006 we had effectively paid off the mortgage on it and it had increased in value by 2.7 times its original price. so we bought our current house with a 58% deposit. For most of the time in the old house we were both earning decent salaries, and living sensibly so that we cleared down as much of the mortgage as we could. That means now that we can afford to maintain the new house on just my salary so that my wife can be a SAHM to our two children.

That to a degree is why the "average house at average salary" equation is a bit misleading. In general people should be able to advance through the property ladder (if that is what they want - I'm not planning on moving again unless we decide to downsize in retirement in 30 years time!) more quickly when they are young and without family responsibilities which will enable them to have a bigger deposit to put down on later purchases of a bigger family home. The averages are therefore skewed to mean that over a lifetime someone on average incomes should be able to afford more than their income naturally suggests in terms of house prices.

tyllwyd

I couldn't because we bought our first home in the mid-90s so things have moved on a lot since then ... But if you are asking could we buy under similar conditions now as we did as first time buyers then, I'd have to say no - we had a 95% mortgage (endowment - ouch) with the other 5% borrowed from bank of mum & dad which we paid back over 3 years on top of our other outgoings. Our mortgage (I think) was at about 6.75%. But the real killer was that when the mortgage adviser filled in our budget sheet, she asked about petrol costs, but we only realised later that she hadn't asked about other travel costs - and my train ticket was costing about £300 a month. So if we went to a mortgage broker now and applied for a mortgage the same mortgage on the same salaries and outgoings I doubt we'd be accepted.

RenovationMan

I but (sic) my own house about 3 months ago. Whether I can afford to renovate it, is another matter! :eek:

Could I afford to buy my first house again if all things were equal and it cost £180k instead of the £40k I paid? Nope!

You've got to feel sorry for those people trying to get onto the ladder right now.

foreversummer

No of course I could not afford to buy the house I'm living in today if I was a first time buyer.

We've moved up the property laddder from one bed flat in 1984, two bed terrace in 1986, 3 bed semi in 1990 now 4 bed detached in 2006. Bloody hard hard work, but worth every penny.

Those that want to buy their dream home easily - get real.

Foreversummer

pingu2209

No I couldn't as my house is worth £500k so I would need £125k deposit and a mortgage of £375k.

BUT - my house isn't a first time buyers house, it is a good sized family home.

A first time buyers property where I live, say a 1 bed flat, is £180k. So a £45k deposit and £135k mortgage is manageable on a single person's average salary in my area.

Aless

I could as only brought 4 years ago...and I was a FTB and I brought a 4 bed family house (with my OH).

My parents' first house about 40 years ago was also a 4 bed family house.

My in laws first (and only) house many years ago was also a 4 bed family house (and not a single one of us had any loans/gifts from family etc to help).

So this idea of moving up the ladder never really worked and the main reason why it does not work now is because of the huge debt graduates have i.e. £20 - 30k if not more when they are 21/22. Taking into account starting salaries, rental prices and paying back the student loans it is really hard to save for a deposit and is likely to take them years to buy i.e. 30+ not 21 like people used to do, never mind the vastly increased house prices.