Genuine question - how does anyone afford to buy a house?!

MandM90

puddy wrote: »

£350? my OH works in london and we live outside of london in east kent, his petrol is £600 a month, no small amount

I think £350 is about right for some season rail tickets. My train fare is about £400 a month, and that's only mine...until recently OH was going into London every day too. We live just out of London to save on rent yet avoid living in a dodgy area (and are soon moving to the West Midlands actually!!) but even so I think some posters are being overly optimistic on how little costs of living are; even without going out, treats and running cars (near impossible here if you work in the area for many jobs).

jjlandlord

puddy wrote: »

yes, its also interesting what assumptions people make about what jobs are where. down here, its incredibly hard to find jobs at all, hence OH still having to travel 80 miles into work each way, and even if he could find the same job down here, its at least 40% less in income. to some extent that is offset by the less petrol he would pay but not enough to make it equal to what he is on now

It also depends on how much he values the large amount of time spent commuting... IMHO time is one's most valuable asset.

ukcarper

You will bring in between £2700 and £2900 a month depending on who earns what. Your mortgage at 8.5% would be about £1100 a month so after paying that you would have between £1600 and £1800 a month, which is about the same as someone on average salary has in total.

Running_Horse

19lottie82 wrote: »

Why are you pulling up multiple old threads to give word for word advice? There are a couple on other pages with the exact same answers, word for word that have been randomly resurrected after months?

As the OP has not posted anything on this site for 4 months, we are probably talking to ourselves and resurrecting very stale arguments for our own amusement.

AdmiralX

s_w wrote: »

Hi there -

My wife and I are both in decently-paid jobs, have a decent amount of savings, and are prepared to move to a cheaper part of the country - and yet buying a house still seems way, way out of our reach. How on earth does anyone afford this?

Between us, my wife and I currently earn around £60K a year in London, and we pay £955 a month to rent our flat. With our first child due in February and our jobs enabling us to work from home, we've decided to move to the Midlands, due to cheaper house prices (because we'd really like to buy somewhere) and cheap childcare options (since we have a lot of family in the area who are willing to help out). Due to leaving London and my wife going part-time, our annual incomings will drop to around £44K. Our savings pot for a deposit is around £23K, so we've been looking at putting a 15% deposit on a house costing around £150K. With the present low interest rates, that all seems fine and dandy - yet we've been advised to base our calculations instead on the average interest rate from over the last 25 years, to try and predict how our 25-year mortgage would fluctuate. It seems the average mortgage interest rate over the last 25 years was around 8.5%, which would make our monthly repayments even more expensive than what we're now paying for our flat in London (which, of course, we're paying for with two full-time London salaries, and with no children to support). The nature of our jobs is such that promotions/career progressions aren't a realistic prospect, so we can't rely on any significant increases in our incomings. Are we being overly cautious, basing our calculations on this higher rate of interest? If not, how on earth does anyone afford this?!

Any advice welcomed - thanks for reading!

We had bought a victorian London flat with a big garden when we had the babe and we still live in it. It was 60% of a house price and mortgage was affordable. We chose an area next to a a better one one and prices rose; you can consider this. That is what some families do to afford accommodation. It is viable solution; a modern 2 bed Birmigham flat - I dont know where you plan to set up home - with good dimensions costs from £50K.

movilogo

Everyday hundreds of people are buying houses. Clearly they can all afford buying.

Many people earn a lot and many also take a mortgage which is lower than maximum they could afford.

When someone says "how can anyone afford a house" he is thinking "since I am struggling to afford a house, everyone else should be in same position. " but in reality everyone's position is different.

Running_Horse

19lottie82 wrote: »

Why are you pulling up multiple old threads to give word for word advice? There are a couple on other pages with the exact same answers, word for word that have been randomly resurrected after months?

I would be interested in David's reply to this question.

gggareth

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

People do what they have always done: give up luxuries or don't acquire them in order to save the maximum they can. No car, no holidays, no meals out. For years and years if necessary.

Some people can't deal with that sort of deferred gratificiation and some can.

I agree with this buying your first house is the most difficult.Buying you first home is ,was, & should allways be a struggle. It makes you appreciate what you have and what you have worked for.

GG