How does anyone get onto the property market??

BeardedWonder

I think a more apt question would be: "how does anyone get on to the property ladder.. in the south" Being able to borrow a £105k would get you a nice little house in large swathes of the north.

hcb42

well in answer to the prev post, for some people the earning opportunities are greater in the south, or at least the no of jobs. I realise that is not true for everyone, and certainly hard for those in low paid sectors.

How did we do it? Well we bought a 2 bed in a not so desirable area, and ran around in an old banger for years! By age 25 I had a four bed detached however, so the early years paid off in getting us on the ladder.

JingleJangle

I spent wisely and saved. And I also put off having children until my thirties so I could concentrate on my career (and earn lots of money in the process).

hcb42

I too put off trying for kids until I was 120% sure we could afford to bring them up and keep our roof over our heads on one wage etc.

BeardedWonder

Kids aren't something you can always plan though!

If home ownership means procreation has to be delayed till your thirties it's a sorry state of affairs.

dtsazza

hcb42 wrote: »

well in answer to the prev post, for some people the earning opportunities are greater in the south, or at least the no of jobs. I realise that is not true for everyone, and certainly hard for those in low paid sectors.

It's a good point - prices are higher in the South simply because there are more people that are prepared to pay those prices (mainly because of higher-paid jobs). London being the logical extension of that - it's about £250k for a nice-ish place for a couple, but then in certain sectors (finance/media/software/etc.), I expect the average salary is two or three times what you could earn in, say, Bradford.

DTDfanBoy

Buying a cheap car would probably be a good starting point

I've never understood why so many people buy such a quickly depreciating asset with finance :eek:

Spend five years driving around in a £1,000 A to B'er, and you'll probably find yourself halfway to your goal

JingleJangle

It was more career that delayed my family planning, but homeownership was a by-product of that - I wanted to be financially stable. It is a sorry state of affairs if you don't consider your finances before you have children.

hcb42

Yes I wanted financial stability too. Growing up as one of four, poor, on free school meals, nhs glasses and relative poverty compared to almost all classmates, it was not something I could have rushed into. Surely leaving children to 30s isnt that late?

Brodiebobs

We live ooop north, out first house was 2.5% our salary in 2004 and we had a three month old baby, now we 'only' earn about 24k between two of us (although i'm part time) and amoung our many friends up here were by far the most well paid, this includes university graduates and even some one who has a masters, but cant find work in their field so working in a call centre. We have friends in london who cant get on the property ladder who earn around £50k each, but the cost of living rent etc means they cant save a deposit.