Pregnant again - how do I afford a house for my family?

Mini_3

I am hoping someone can offer some advice as I feel really down at the moment.

I am pregnant with my second child, due in Feb. DH, DD and I live in London in a cramped 2 bedroom house shared with a student couple. This means the 3 of us have to share 1 bedroom and share the rest of the house with the student couple. Obviously this is due to the ridiculous price of housing in London and the fact that we are not super rich.

The students have been ok to live with but with a second child on the way we desperately want a family home which is private and more spacious.

DH is a SAHD because it works out cheaper that way instead of paying for a nursery. He has agreed to do a swap and when this baby arrives I will resign after my maternity leave and he will get a job. (I don't have to pay the maternity pay back) Since it will be an all change in jobs we want to take the opportunity to finally move out of overpriced and grubby London.

My dilemma is:

1) where can we rent a house for approx £400-£500 a month? It has to also be a decent family area with 2 small children. We don't have a car so it also has to have reliable busses and trains.

2) how much is council tax and bills approx in a month as our landlord has always paid this?

We are originally from South Africa so don't have a very good idea of these things. That said we are not entitled to benefits of any kind so that isn't a help to us. I am starting to feel like we will never have a home of our own for our family and it is making me feel like a failure.

Please any suggestions I would be so grateful.

matthewking26

Hi, here in York a 2 bedroom rental property for 400-500 per month would be most likely to be a flat rather than a house. My sister lives in Hull and that's a very cheap place to live but a long way from London. Not much use I know but I can give you a rough guide to things until someone with more knowledge comes along.

Council tax ranges from band A through to E or F (not sure what the top band is, A is the cheapest)

I live in a band B property, which is a two bedroom terrace. The council tax here is £970 per year which works out at £95 per month for ten months with a two month payment gap each year. The tax tends to go up by about 4% or 5% each year.

Some areas are slighly cheaper, and some are more expensive so that's only a rough guide.

Gas and electric for the two of us living here is about £150 per quarter (every three months), so that works out at £25 electric, £25 gas per month

The landline rental through BT is £40 per quarter, so about £12.50 per month.

You might need to consider house contents insurance, which ranges from £5-£25 per month (that's what we were quoted anyway)

Don't feel like a failure for not being able to afford a house. I don't think I'll ever be able to unless prices drop dramatically!

My partner is pregnant with our first and it's frustrating having to rent but we don't have a choice.
Hope that helps a little!

danielle24

I live out in Buckinghamshire and Aylesbury might be worth a look at. I looked in Primelocation and there's a few one bed places in your price range. It's a big enough town for jobs - what sort of work will your DH be looking for?

Also - if you are in London try registering with TNS or retaileyes and do some mystery shopping - it's not terrific money but I have a little spare cash now and it fits in around work.

caeler

Don't feel like a failure, London as got to be the most expensive place to live.

I relocated from London to Somerset and I love it! We just couldn't afford to live there, far too expensive.

Rent ranges from £400+ in areas like Taunton, Bridgwater, etc, Council Tax in my area which is band B is £1064.00 I'm in a 2 bed terrace but I live in a village which is more expensive than a major town. My friend has a 2 bed flat he's band A; cheaper still. Like anywhere there are cheaper and more expensive areas.

I've never found getting work a problem, plenty of agencies to register with, Hays are quite a good one because they deal with lots of different industry's. A good job website is totaljobs.com.

I wouldn't recommend relocating without a job to go to.

LilMissEmmylou

i lived in high wycombe but rent was far too much to stay there for a 2 bed IMO. Im moving to Liverpool/birkenhead at the moment where i can get a nice 2 bed 2 reception room house around (and even under) the £400 mark. They seem to have lots of train stations as every house ive looked at always has one within a half mile or so of it.

congratulations of PG number 2

lil_me

Might be able to find something on http://www.fish4.co.uk/iad/lettings In London I think the choices would be pretty low when it comes to renting for that price, up here you could get a 2 or 3 bed for that in a reasonable area. For example http://www.fish4.co.uk/iad/lettings/advert?adId=16313433&sid=s277AF7C84717787&pos=5&src=search&tot=5 Council tax depends on area.

pinkshoes

A city like Lincoln has very reasonable priced rents (plenty of rented housing as it's got a university!), and wages aren't too bad. Just outside the city centre you can rent a 3 bed house for under £500/month, and there's regular buses, and local trains are also quite cheap.

In fact, anyway further north is fine, and MUCH cheaper than London and the South East of England!!

ukbandit

birmingham has some potential too with good infrastrcture to allow you to move round via trains/buses and plenty of work available as the second biggest city.

have a look on rightmove.co.uk and do a rental search. if your willing to move cities you have a great opportunity to find somewhere really interesting and good for the kids

bham examples near me are;

house
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-8924898.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent

flat
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-8720919.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent

good luck.

floyd

LilMissEmmylou wrote: »

i lived in high wycombe but rent was far too much to stay there for a 2 bed IMO. Im moving to Liverpool/birkenhead at the moment where i can get a nice 2 bed 2 reception room house around (and even under) the £400 mark. They seem to have lots of train stations as every house ive looked at always has one within a half mile or so of it.

congratulations of PG number 2

There are plenty of really nice rental properties in the Liverpool/Birkenhead region. For £550 you can get a 2 bed apartment off Menlove Avenue in Woolton Village (very nice area) so there is plenty of scope for other properties. There are a few 3 bed terraced houses in the same price bracket in Aigburth near St Michaels station, these articles were in the Guardian and Independent a few weeks ago

http://money.independent.co.uk/property/homes/article2456837.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2129886,00.html

Badger_Lady

Wales, every time.

I was recently looking for a rented 2/3 bed house in Newport, safe area close to train station... depending on size of house, they varied from £300-£550 pcm.

You can also buy a two-bed terrace for £100,000, or a flat for £80,000! And Newport's a very up-and-coming area so house prices will boom here (even if they don't in the rest of the UK).

Council tax is pretty low comparatively and as a Welsh citizen you get free NHS prescriptions. There are regular trains that go directly to London Paddington in under 2 hours, if you still have friends / family you'd like to visit.

Alikay

£450 -£500 p/m would get you a nice 2/3 bed semi in an OK area of Derby and council tax(band would be just under £1000 per year. We have lots of employment in the light engineering field (Toyota, Rolls Royce, various rail industries) lots of new retail positions with our new Westfield shopping centre opening soon, plus other big employers like DHL, Egg and Capital 1 & Boots ( both nottingham) etc.

Its a nice lively cosmopolitan city, but not too big and with the lovely Peak District just a few miles up the road, and an excellent network of rail and road connections to the rest of the country. Sorry to sound like an advert for the town -I AM biased of course!