Will I ever be able to buy a house?

pml_83

I find myself in such a predicament as I am CLUELESS when it comes to finances/mortgages/the value of money.

I'm 29 years old, I'm on 18k a year (works out at £1, 200 per month), I have roughly £40, 000 in savings, I drive a mini one and spend about £40 on fuel a month, I have no debts or loans to pay off... am I in a good place/situation to be buying a home?

I will in West Yorkshire, dream of moving to London but I don't think that's realistic right now...

Please don't laugh at me or be too cruel in your responses. I have no one to really talk to about these things and I'm worried about my future.

Does someone want to reassure me?.. please?..

Mickygg

See a mortgage adviser. On your salary forget buying in London.

lessonlearned

pml - You most certainly are not cluesless about money. I would say you are doing a pretty good job so far.

£40K in savings and no debts - well done you. :T:T

Second the advice to see a good broker and get some ideas.

tabbyfish

Put your figures in here to give your self a basic idea of what you may be able to borrow and what the repayments are, add your £40k and see what is out there.
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/mortgages/calculator/
I doubt you will get much in London even with £40k deposit. Maybe a small place on the outskirts.
But further up north you could get a nice place easy.
Good luck

morganedge

How did you manage to save so much on that sort of wage out of interest?
Why do you want to move to London? It's crazy expensive.

Thrugelmir

How much are looking to spend on a property?

poet123

I suspect he/she lives at home. It is possible to save if you are disciplined and don't have too many outgoings. Still, OP you should be congratulated on that level of savings.

[Deleted User]

So, if you're thinking of London, you'll need to estimate for the cost of a flat being *at least* 200k - and that won't be a great flat in a great area either.

Now, assuming your 40k deposit, that means you'll need a 160k mortgage. If you're on your own, you'd probably need a £40k salary to get this - or meet someone and split it.

So.. you may need to move to London, flatshare until you reach that sort of salary. Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to save much money while you're doing that

poet123 wrote: »

I suspect he/she lives at home. It is possible to save if you are disciplined and don't have too many outgoings. Still, OP you should be congratulated on that level of savings.

Assuming saving £500 a month (easy if you live with your parents) you could save up £40k in about 6 or 7 years.

moneyistooshorttomention

That is a large amount of savings to have. Congratulations on that.

When you said that you are in Yorkshire my first reaction was "You might stand a chance then in that part of the country". You wouldn't have a hope in heck of one in London on that sort of income - even with that level of savings.

But Yorkshire on the other hand...a rather different kettle of fish.

1. What type of property are you looking at getting? A one bedroom flat? A two bedroom terrace house?

2. What does this type of property cost in your area? Can you give us the pricerange that is applicable through from worst house/worst area to best house/best area?

The advice frequently given is to buy the "worst house in best area". Well obviously the best house in best area is the best bet of all - but I tend to agree with this advice.

I knew when I bought my FTB property that I couldn't afford both "best house" and "best area". I would have to choose. So I chose the "best area" I could afford (ie the 2nd best area for terrace houses here). I felt that I couldn't change the location, but I could change the house.

Moving on years ahead to present time:
- houses in the worst area still cost a lot less than the rest of this location
- people in a noticeably worse area (not too bad of itself - but at huge risk of flooding and their insurance premiums have shot up this year as a result of that) are charging as much for their houses as we do for ours <puzzled smilie> and that means its not worth any of us in my area spending any more money on our houses unless/until such time as those in that flood risk area go down a lot in price to reflect that fact (otherwise we would have thrown our house renovation money away giving buyers a much better location for nothing iyswim).

Do bear in mind that you may have a similar thing happening in your area (ie flood risk houses trying to charge as much as safer locations) and don't be fooled by thinking "If they are charging the same for them as those in a definitely safe area - then they can't really be at risk of flooding/have skyhigh insurance premiums". Oh..yes they can. So don't think "Two houses at the same price and one is fashionable/modern and the other is a bit dated...I'll get the fashionable one". Check out where the fashionable one is - because they may have done so much work on it because they are in a risky and/or generally bad area and need to find a way somehow to offload the house.

So - overall...I think your local house prices may well be low enough for you to be able to manage it and good luck to you.

GDVS

Should be doable in West Yorkshire, there's a fair few properties around the 100k mark which are quite acceptable and running your salary through the Halifax affordability calculator shows that's possible. You have to wade through a lot of junk, but there are some definite gems around.

I don't know exactly where in West Yorkshire you're looking but a lot of the properties at that price (and they go right down to the 70k mark) are in areas you wouldn't really want to live in. When I was looking this was my guidelines.

Bradford: Just no. Some of the villages around the North (Cottingley, Bingley, Baildon) are pretty decent though and I've seen property in your budget up there.
West of Bradford: If you work in Leeds you'll have to deal with traffic Hell on a daily basis. Both Halifax Road and the M62/606 just snarl up at rush hour. Sowerby Bridge is nice but badly located for anywhere other than Halifax, Hebden Bridge you can't afford. Clayton, Denholme, Queensbury, that sort of area is not bad.
Leeds: Look North and West, avoid the South and East. There are some decent parts of South and East Leeds but you'd need real local knowledge to pick them.
North Yorkshire border area (Otley, Burley in Wharfedale, Harewood etc) is simply too expensive.
Birstall, Tingley, Ardsley, are all doable in that price range as well with some very nice properties around.

Personally I went for Tingley as the best compromise.
Access to the M62 (but no need to use it to get to work).
Low crime rate (at least for West Yorkshire).
Lots of private ownership and people with jobs (I'm a snob, sue me).
Fast broadband (more of an issue in some places than you'd think, parts of Birstall are still very much on the hard shoulder of the information super-highway.
Green stuff

de_g.

pml_83 wrote: »

I find myself in such a predicament as I am CLUELESS when it comes to finances/mortgages/the value of money.

I'm 29 years old, I'm on 18k a year (works out at £1, 200 per month), I have roughly £40, 000 in savings, I drive a mini one and spend about £40 on fuel a month, I have no debts or loans to pay off... am I in a good place/situation to be buying a home?

I will in West Yorkshire, dream of moving to London but I don't think that's realistic right now...

Please don't laugh at me or be too cruel in your responses. I have no one to really talk to about these things and I'm worried about my future.

Does someone want to reassure me?.. please?..

If you're single, there are plenty of quite reasonable areas places where you can buy a house for less than £100k. Even assuming you hold on to £10k for fees/decoration/contingency etc you should be able to buy a two-bedroom house in good condition and ready to move into for less than that.

Whether that property will appreciate in value quickly enough for you to sell it and buy something bigger/in a nice area is a different matter.