Harder now for 1st time buyers?

bigfreddiel

littlegreenfrog wrote: »

No, I think what your generation doesn't understand is that we are not starting at the bottom when it comes to buying property. Just getting to the bottom so we can get started is the problem.

I don't know a single person who is renting and hasn't seen their rent go up exponentially in the last 7 years. Why? Because the cost of their landlord's borrowing has gone up? Pull the other one. Most of us are at the mercy of landlords trying to bleed us dry whilst desperately saving for a deposit from whatever is left at the end of the month and watching house prices race further and further away from us as we are priced out by investors and people who are helped out by their families.

We can't even get to the bottom rung of the ladder. That's the problem.

Of course you can, but only if you want to. For a start, get rid of your contract phone, ditch the gym membership, stop smoking, bin your new car, stop eating out, cut all those subs to magazines, get rid of sky tv, ditch Netflix, and so on. Cancel the skiing holiday and the summer holiday abroad.

Maximise your savings, minimise your tax.

The list goes on and on.

Identify an area you can afford and go for it. If you really want to get on the property ladder you CAN do it.

Cheers fj

ukcarper

littlegreenfrog wrote: »

Yeah I've looked there, think I would prefer Farnborough though because the commute's better.

There is a flat right by Ash Vale station it's £237k though

littlegreenfrog_2

bigfreddiel wrote: »

Of course you can, but only if you want to. For a start, get rid of your contract phone, ditch the gym membership, stop smoking, bin your new car, stop eating out, cut all those subs to magazines, get rid of sky tv, ditch Netflix, and so on. Cancel the skiing holiday and the summer holiday abroad.

Maximise your savings, minimise your tax.

The list goes on and on.

Identify an area you can afford and go for it. If you really want to get on the property ladder you CAN do it.

Cheers fj

Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious.

Clearly I am unable to work out any of that by myself, and you know all about my new car and cigarette habit. You've been a huge help, really.

littlegreenfrog_2

ukcarper wrote: »

There is a flat right by Ash Vale station it's £237k though

Thanks for the tip, that actually looks pretty good.

ukcarper

littlegreenfrog wrote: »

Thanks for the tip, that actually looks pretty good.

It's not the best spot but not to bad and good for commute, not sure how people can say it's not harder now as if prices were similar to when I bought in the 70s you would get a 3 bed terraced for that.

Running_Horse

From a personal perspective it's no easier or harder than the 80s when £50k would buy you a good flat, but I failed to do so because of low income. 40% of London is foreign born, so those who have not fled have plenty of competition. Some manage to buy, some don't. It was always thus.

always_sunny

littlegreenfrog wrote: »

No, that's not really where we're back to, is it?

I am not looking for a place in central London, or even greater London. But I do need to be able to commute there, so I am restricted to the south east, which happens to be the most expensive part of the country. I am not looking for "the perfect pad in the perfect location". I am looking for somewhere within a reasonable distance of where I work which is big enough for me to live in with a partner and one child. That doesn't sound like very much to ask for someone on my salary.

My friends who work in the city are looking for somewhere in London (because they both regularly have to work until after the last trains have gone) which is big enough to have a child in. That doesn't seem unreasonable given their combined income.

My friends who have given up all hope of buying a place before they start a family don't even live in London, but they live in another city where house prices and rents are also skyrocketing, and despite being well-educated people who have been working in graduate jobs for the last eight years, they are priced out.

This is not about people my age wanting the moon on a stick. This is about us wanting to have a reasonable standard of living and level of financial security in order to raise children, and finding that this is all but impossible for anyone who isn't gifted a large sum of money to start them off.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

I'm sorry, but it really winds me up when people suggest that this is about unrealistic expectations.

We don't know about your salary - Assuming it's 50k your borrowing power is £162,500 - £225,000 - not a lot of dosh to buy something in one of the most expensive cities in the world but lets assume you have 10% deposit.

SE is a large area, if this amount doesn't buy what you want West of London, look East, look South, look North. there is oxygen in those areas too. You seem keen on West and it seems it's beyond your price range.
Have you considered other areas? If not, why not? Would you rather rent in the West side or own on the East side?

Chatham, £185k, 2 bed terrace, commute to London (Victoria/Cannon) is 50 minutes.
Kew Gardens to Cannon St is 56 min so hardly a dramatic change in commute, beside costs.

For me what's difficult to understand is that you don't want to register that in the UK and especially in London the population is growing while the availability of properties is not. You are not asking for the moon on a stick but you are asking for something somewhere you cannot afford. There are plenty of areas commutable to London you could afford but you prefer not to.

While you are waiting to find your 'dream pad' you may be better off buying something you can afford now, it'll be more likely cheaper than your current rent and build equity in the interim.

always_sunny

Running_Horse wrote: »

From a personal perspective it's no easier or harder than the 80s when £50k would buy you a good flat, but I failed to do so because of low income. 40% of London is foreign born, so those who have not fled have plenty of competition. Some manage to buy, some don't. It was always thus.

You are spot on - when I was looking I was really surprised how many foreigners (me included) were at viewings! And for most of us we don't get too caught up on this location conundrum, we buy to be able to commute to work (East, West, South, North, who cares) because compared to the continent the rental market makes little sense and it's cheaper to buy if you get out of London a little bit!

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

always_sunny wrote: »

For me what's difficult to understand is that you don't want to register that in the UK and especially in London the population is growing while the availability of properties is not. You are not asking for the moon on a stick but you are asking for something somewhere you cannot afford. There are plenty of areas commutable to London you could afford but you prefer not to.

While you are waiting to find your 'dream pad' you may be better off buying something you can afford now, it'll be more likely cheaper than your current rent and build equity in the interim.

Surely this is exactly what he is saying. Things are more difficult than in the past, because houses are comparatively more expensive, because of this.

You seem to have made somebody up who is saying almost precisely the opposite of the OP and to be arguing against them.

littlegreenfrog_2

always_sunny wrote: »

We don't know about your salary - Assuming it's 50k your borrowing power is £162,500 - £225,000 - not a lot of dosh to buy something in one of the most expensive cities in the world but lets assume you have 10% deposit.

SE is a large area, if this amount doesn't buy what you want West of London, look East, look South, look North. there is oxygen in those areas too. You seem keen on West and it seems it's beyond your price range.
Have you considered other areas? If not, why not? Would you rather rent in the West side or own on the East side?

Chatham, £185k, 2 bed terrace, commute to London (Victoria/Cannon) is 50 minutes.
Kew Gardens to Cannon St is 56 min so hardly a dramatic change in commute, beside costs.

For me what's difficult to understand is that you don't want to register that in the UK and especially in London the population is growing while the availability of properties is not. You are not asking for the moon on a stick but you are asking for something somewhere you cannot afford. There are plenty of areas commutable to London you could afford but you prefer not to.

While you are waiting to find your 'dream pad' you may be better off buying something you can afford now, it'll be more likely cheaper than your current rent and build equity in the interim.

1. You don't know my personal circumstances. Don't presume to. We are not all as mobile as you would like to suggest and many of us are influenced by other factors such as the location of our families. And as you rightly point out, the south east is a big place, and London is a big place, and not all places within X miles of London are realistically commutable to my job, which is in a particular part of London.


2. You are continuing to miss the point of this thread. And in doing so, you are pretty much proving my point. The question asked by the OP is, "is it harder for first time buyers now than it used to be?" And the answer is clearly a resounding yes. Because my parents' generation were not in this position. And no one was telling my dad that if he couldn't afford to live in Surrey he should move to Essex and commute to his job in West London.