First time buyer dreams.. can we do it?!

yllop1101

Hi,
I'm not sure if this has been suggested already (it seems people are spending more time on giving you a hard time), have you looked at shared ownership housing options?
With your low joint income I should think you will be eligible, you could look at buying a 50% share of a property, for example. The rent on the other half is lower than 'normal' market rent, however you will still be accountable for building maintenance and service charges. The organisation selling the shared ownership property will ensure that all of that is 'affordable' for you as a household.

I think shared ownership places get a lot of stick, however they do really help those who can't afford a whole property, get a foot on the property ladder, and you do still accrue equity on the share that is yours.

Crashy_Time

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/buy-to-let/one-in-four-buy-to-let-investors-sell-up-due-to-new-tax/


Just wait for the Brexit/Trump/Tax effects to take their toll, don`t knock your pan in to "buy" a below average living space off someone who paid too much for it. Move where you can rent cheaply and watch the show is my advice.

Munteoir

You asked for personal experiences, so here's mine. Mind you, it really doesn't differ much from what you have already been told/advised.

We were more or less the same age as you and your partner when we bought our house (3 bed terraced) last year. Our joint salary was higher but we are also in the more expensive part of the country (south east) so that evens out. Once we decided we want to get on the ladder, we moved further away from London to a cheaper location and rented the cheapest flat we could find. We made major cuts in our food and leisure time expenditure and I did some odd jobs in my spare time to earn a bit extra on the side. We also had to make a compromise on the location of the house, meaning my commute in particular got significantly longer (80 mins each way and a big chunk of it is walking. Not ideal but the way I see it, it helps me save money on the gym!)

In terms of your particular situation:
- a lot of your income seems to be spent on car-related things. Stupid question, but would you be able to get to work by public transport (even if it involves some walking/cycling)? Would it be cheaper? If so, you could then sell the car for the time being or only use it for emergencies and thus save on petrol at least.
- you insist on needing an extra room to use as a home office. While you are saving for the deposit, could you not do without it and, say, make space for it in your living room (ask your partner to go to the bedroom while you're working?)? Far from ideal of course but it would only be for a year or so and as you say yourself you have some quiet periods in your self-employment so this would not even have to be enforced the whole year round....

One more thing: you say it will be easier for you to move to a place where houses are cheaper but commute longer/more expensive once you buy a house, as you would no longer need to save for a deposit and this could offset higher commute expenditure. This would make sense if not for the fact that you say you want to start family pretty soon after. Having a child means a drop in income for a certain amount of time and an increase in expenditure for a long, long time. So the saving would have to continue for much much longer. My husband and I put aside a good chunk of our income for a year to cover the cost of preparing the nursery and make up the difference between my usual monthly salary and statutory maternity pay for the 6 months I was on mat leave. I am going back to work in Jan and while our joint income will be back to normal, childcare costs will eat a biiiig chunk of it.

AdrianC

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Move where you can rent cheaply and watch the show is my advice.

If you'd been listening to the house price crash doom-mongers, you'd be a decade or more into that wait by now...

westernpromise

username_user wrote: »

We can't reduce our household bills any further, we have cheap internet and will go cold rather than using the heating as its expensive storage heaters in the flat.

Food - around £220
Car insurance/breakdown - £39
Phones and phone insurance - £65
Petrol - £125
Car tax - £19
Travel - £135 (my partner has to buy a monthly coach pass to commute to work)

That leaves around £245. That doesn't account for extra things that come up, Christmas and birthdays, unavoidable events, things on the car, e.g. last month i had to buy 2 new tyres. So on a good month we could probably save £200. Which doesn't get us very far very fast!

I still don't understand this. You have £1900 take home which is £1100 after rent, but the above only comes to £600. The obvious questions here are

• Where's the other £500 a month going?
• Why can't you rent somewhere cheaper to assist saving?
• What contribution is your other half making?

westernpromise

fessen wrote: »

Petrol - £125 - £125 on petrol? And your partner already has a coach pass? That must mean you are doing ALOT of miles.

I make that about 8,000 miles a year.

snowqueen555

I think you just need to be more frugal, if it means moving into a house-share, or to a one bed flat, you have to do that, or find a better paid job. You also seem a little wishy washy with your budget, which suggests to me you need to be more organised with your finances.

I have a sub 18k salary, so I live in a house share. I am able to save modest amounts though, at least 33% a month.

Crashy_Time

AdrianC wrote: »

If you'd been listening to the house price crash doom-mongers, you'd be a decade or more into that wait by now...

The OP is trying to buy now though, not a decade ago.

AdrianC

Crashy_Time wrote: »

The OP is trying to buy now though, not a decade ago.

Have you ever heard the quotation, usually attributed to Einstein, Mark Twain or Benjamin Franklin, that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result...?

glasgowdan

OP - I would listen to people here with experience... a couple above simply know nothing about the housing market.

I'd place great importance on comfort and lifestyle, and area is one of the biggest factors in this. Try and get something bearable in the area you want to live in, at as low a cost as possible, and view the next few years as time to save and prepare to move on. That's what I'd be planning. Giving a landlord £800 a month is useless. Compare this to the interest element of the mortgage (around £200 of a £500 bill), and a typical overall cost of £250/m to run a house (NOT bills... this is what might be needed to go towards maintenance/upgrades/lifecycle costs) you'd still be £350 a month better off (given that the other £300 of mortgage is being invested).

Serial property renters/daily mail readers are really not the best people to listen to!