Any first time buyers not getting help?

HappyMJ

smile88egc wrote: »

I feel your pain! A friend has just been given 20k from her parents, won't go too far since we are south-west but it feels hard to do it without help. I'm hoping my rents will help with fees etc but we are saving the deposit ourselves, and have been for about 3.5 years. We are still 12-15 months away but we're getting there! Trying to get to 20% but not prepared to give up an annual holiday so it's taking us a bit longer. We still have a lifestyle not too dissimilar to my student days 5 years after graduating so it's going to be bliss when we no longer have to save quite this hard! We are hoping to get a 25 year term, none of this 35 year silliness.

You can borrow 20% more on a 35 year mortgage which might make all the difference if the amount you can borrow on a 25 year mortgage isn't enough to buy the property.

You can still repay it in 25 years there's no need to rigidly stick to the repayment schedule.

smile88egc

That's true, but now isn't a good time for us to buy either since I get regularly about the region for my job without any say in it and usually only 3 months notice (junior doctor), so for now we need the flexibility of renting, and I intent to make overpayments whatever term we get. May well end up getting a 28 year term to start with, but I want to ensure we live within our means.

Fosterdog

We are buying without help, we have just lived very frugally for a number of years (one holiday in the 7 years we've been together, cook at home from scratch, nights out very few and far between). We have had some big things come up that have eaten into our savings like our last car needing replacing at a bad time but we have managed it and are now on the process of buying our first home.

We also had to be realistic about what we could afford, we had a choice of a more expensive house with a 5% deposit or the house we are buying for a lot less and a £10% deposit yo keep our mortgage costs down meaning we can get work done in the next couple of years and hopefully a holiday next year.

Although we are not using any help we are lucky that my parents offered to lend us enough to cover solicitors fees and moving costs if we bought somewhere more expensive. As we have gone for a cheaper house I have declined their very kind offer and also don't have to worry about finding money to pay them back.

marksoton

squeeks wrote: »

I don't want to be in a position where I have to work at 55+

Really? Good luck on that front.

dgtazzman

I had a little help from my parents on my first house. Not so much in the purchase of the house, but they helped me furnish it after I bought it. Lived with them for around 2 years and saved every penny I made to be able to buy the place.

Second place I had no help, this was together with my now ex-wife. We spent 4 years living in a rented place, trying to scrape together a deposit as the first house I sold with a loss, pretty much. Was damn hard as my ex liked spending on unnecessary things, so in the end I made her get a job, told her the money she made she could spend on herself, but my money was going into savings. Managed to get a 5% deposit and fees etc. saved after that and were able to buy a new build using Help To Buy.

House I am buying now, I had some parental help, and I didn't. I was originally going to use HTB again (new build again) and had saved all the money up myself. My mother died however and left me a small inheritance, which has enabled me to get a regular mortgage after I added my saving to it (in essence, the inheritance was around 7.5% of the purchase price, I've added 7.5% to that to get an 85% LTV mortgage and am paying all the fees etc. myself as well as furnishing the place out of my own pocket). Luckily now I'm divorced, I'm financially far better off, go figure, I don't spend on nonsense

wantonnoodle

We're in the process of looking for a house to buy at the moment. We have over the years saved very carefully, putting around £200 a month into a savings account, plus around £150 a month into a share scheme run by my employers which has some very good returns (they double your shareholding if you hold them for a set period).

As a consequence, while we have still had at least one holiday a year (in some years 2), we don't generally go out much, and this has allowed us to save enough for a 10% deposit on a property worth up to £250,000 (which is the max we want to go to, though our advisor has told us we could comfortably afford more). We have more (almost half again) in reserve to cover fees, maintenance etc.

The only help we may get is in the form of my uncle, who is a retired surveyor, who has offered to do any survey we need to save us those costs. Otherwise we are pretty much on our own.

always_sunny

I didn't get any help and saved up the deposit myself, built a 'credit history' and applied for a mortgage via a broker (nothing fancy, unusual).

At the cost of sounding harsh, unless someone is on minimum wage or below, it is not hard to save up for a deposit for an affordable first pad having realistic expectations.

I lived/live pretty frugally, mostly cooking at home and having packed lunches to work too. I hardly buy anything I don't use and so on. I don't drink and/or smoke, so even more cash for the kitty!