20yr old 'owning' £250k house

wymondham

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/34804311/im-20-and-i-own-a-250000-four-bed-house

taking advantage of every scheme and old fashioned saving.... are they onto a winner and well done them, or could they have bitten off more than they can chew???

dinkylink

Not a huge fan of help to buy and this story doesn't change my mind. Why should we fund such a scheme for people like this who clearly don't need any help to buy a home?!


All that this has achieved is allow them to buy a family home instead of a starter home like most people have to.


And he's an estate agent.....you couldn't make it up.

lippy1923

They make it sound like such a hard thing to do when it's not. Unless I am reading it wrong, saving £500 per month, while living at home with parents is !!!!!! easy.

Not sure how much she earned but if it's similar to his £27k then they should have saved loads more than that.

Edit- Just noticed he was on an apprentice wage for 1 year!

kabayiri

It's only half the story, and feels a bit disingenuous ; like it's a promotional piece.

Don't get me wrong. I do wish them luck, and think it would form the basis of an interesting case study, but it needs more transparency.

We'd need to see how their budget worked out; how did they deal with furniture ; rates ; insurance costs ; ad-hoc costs. We just can't tell if they have over-extended themselves yet.

[Deleted User]

£27k salary, living at home and only saved £500 a month? Not to mention; earning £27k at 22, in the North is pretty decent going

Certainly sounds like this is a 'government funded news article'

If I was a low earner, I'd be questioning why the government is helping people who are financially better off, be able to invest in owning a property - rather than helping the poor more.

More should be done to stop the property bubble, rather than help funding it.

Graham_Devon

It's clearly an advertorial piece.

I would have two questions.

1. How did the apprentice save £500 a month on an apprentice wage? The apprentice wage is £2.73 an hour. To save £500 a month she would have to work 42 hours a week (the law states 40 hours for an apprentice is the max). and never spend a single penny of her earnings.

2. How are they paying the mortgage now? 250k minus the 12.5k deposit and the 50k HTB loan leaves a mortgage of £187,500. 7x his wages, but we have no idea what she now earns, but I can't imagine an apprentice has turned into an average earner overnight? Would seem they have got access to an extremely high LTV loan - which isn't supposed to be allowed on HTB loans?

The mortgage alone, at 4% will cost £900 a month. Their costs will increase once the HTB loan requires paying back.

The story makes it all sound so easy. But the very fact an apprentice says she saved £500 a month on an apprentice wages makes me wonder what's being missed here. She would need to work 42 hours a week when the maximum working time is 40 hours a week.....and never spend a single penny of her income. Which means she wasn't only living with her parents, but being fed, clothed and ferried around at their expense too.

[Deleted User]

Also.. it makes this big assumption that everyone can live with mummy and daddy, rent free, earning a grown up income.

Not to mention, the house price is laughable to anyone in the south east

King_Nothing

Graham_Devon wrote: »

1. How did the apprentice save £500 a month on an apprentice wage? The apprentice wage is £2.73 an hour. To save £500 a month she would have to work 42 hours a week (the law states 40 hours for an apprentice is the max). and never spend a single penny of her earnings.

At it's lowest, my apprentice wage was £4.16, and at it's highest was £7.16.

tim_n

When I was looking for a mortgage, the maximum I could borrow was 4x my wage or 2.5x our joint wage. £250,000 is a lot to raise and seems an abnormally high LTV. As someone who managed to buy a 3 bed detatched house at £220k in the south earning far more than 27k at the time with my wifes earnings also taken into account, I don't see the logic. Best of luck to them, seems utterly insane they're able to do that though. They're going to be eating beans on toast for a while or have a large debt burden to stress their relationship.

edinburgher

King_Nothing wrote: »

At it's lowest, my apprentice wage was £4.16, and at it's highest was £7.16.

My employer employs apprentices. The money isn't great, but it's not below adult minimum wage. In addition many public sector organisations will pay a living wage or thereabouts to their apprentices, so not too far fetched that he could save £500/m if living with parents.

kabayiri

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Also.. it makes this big assumption that everyone can live with mummy and daddy, rent free, earning a grown up income.

Not to mention, the house price is laughable to anyone in the south east

Even in Cheshire, where they live, there are plenty of places where £250K won't buy you a new build 4 bed detached.

You'd need double that around here.

The article needs more balance, to put the example into context, and illustrate what it would mean in places like the South East.