home town so expensive

lovejason37

Hi,
I am looking for some ideas, basically I had some credit card debts so moved back in the folks house for a year. Now I am debt free and desperate to get my own place again. I really would like my own flat, own kitchen and bathroom. I have lodged/shared before and I just prefer to be by myself.

I have enough saved for a deposit, the problem is the rental prices in my town are so high. I earn £340 a week and here in Reading I would have to spend 2 weeks wages on rent alone to find anything acceptable.

There are plenty of flats around £500-600 but they are all studios and tiny/not in nice streets. The kind of place I'd like is £700-800 a month, for a 1 bedroom flat in a nice block or a nice converted house. Trouble is I could be spending over half my wages on the rent which is just absurd.

I don't know what I can do, any ideas anyone?

R_P_W

reduce your expectations for the flat/house?
rent in a different area?
Earn more money?
Share with someone?

They are all the options I can think of - you seem to have mentioned all these though and discounted them - so not sure what else you want people to suggest?

BitterAndTwisted

Increase your income or reduce your expectations. Magic-wands are in very short supply.

Ronnie_Grimes

join a dating site and find someone with a house in the area you want?

SuzieSue

I would like to live in London, but can't because house prices and rents are too high. When I was choosing where to live I had to look in areas which I could afford which meant a longer commute. Most people on average wages are in the situation you are in many areas of the country - it is nothing unusual. If you can't live where you want to live, you have to look at other areas.

pmlindyloo

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-38411015.html

Not sure if you qualify - depends whether salary you quoted is net or gross.

Sounds OK to me.

Compromise, compromise, compromise is the name of the game.

Make a list of your needs in priority order and then make your decision.

PasturesNew

However much you've got, what you want always costs a bit more... even if you had the extra, or rents were slashed by 25%, you'd still want something a bit nicer/bigger/etc

lovejason37

i started to look at some properties to buy instead of rent and saw a nice one bedroom flat with 25% shared ownership.

if i could get a mortgage on the asking price of 37500 maybe this is an option?

i can't see any conditions regarding key worker jobs or anything, are these kind of shared ownership offers open to everyone?

SuzieSue

lovejason37 wrote: »

i started to look at some properties to buy instead of rent and saw a nice one bedroom flat with 25% shared ownership.

if i could get a mortgage on the asking price of 37500 maybe this is an option?

i can't see any conditions regarding key worker jobs or anything, are these kind of shared ownership offers open to everyone?

There are lots of threads on here about the dangers of shared ownership so I would suggest you look at those first.

lovejason37

Thanks, probably a bad idea, in response to the suggestions:

-rent different area, there isn't a lot available out of town, i'd like town as it's near everything and only mile or so from work
-share with someone, i'd do that to reduce costs, but don't know of anyone in a position to do this. not sure i'd wanna rent with a stranger
-reduce expectations, possible, i'm just looking at lower price options, there are some possibilities, although i don't want to share bathroom/kitchen facilities, although i'm happy with a one room studio
-increase income, again possible, but only through overtime which isn't guaranteed.
maybe i should set a budget based on income, which would be £560 @ 40%

i've tried adding links to show properties i'm looking at but as i'm a new user it won't let me.

if anyones got time & interest search in RG1 postcode for properties studio/1bed between £400-700 i'd be interested what others would suggest is acceptable for a single man in his 30s. so many properties look like student digs.

Lizling

Option 5: pay more than half your income on rent, if you can live on what's left. Plenty of people have to.