Saving to buy a house - is this the answer???

Rosemary7391

When you say it costs the same as you pay currently in rent, do you mean that you'd be paying 99% of market rent to this company (if you buy 1%)? If so, I expect you're immediately out of pocket for building insurance and a boiler service. Then you'll have to pay for any repairs, redecorating, general maintenance. Owning costs! Even when you get good at DIY (and especially if you're bad at it :eek: )



To give you some idea - I'm not happy unless I have £3k in easy access savings, in case the boiler decides to break in December and needs replacing ASAP. And I pay our building management about £50 a month (I'm in a flat). Some of that covers things you'd do yourself like cleaning the close and gardening, but a fair chunk is to cover small snagging things. I have to pay separately if something bigger needs doing. Our new fence recently cost about £100 each (£800 total).



I second the recommendation to take this to the Debt Free Wannabee board - even if you're not in debt, they're really good at helping folk cut costs to save for stuff. They'll ask for a SOA, which is just a statement of incomings and outgoings (they have a template over there).

jonnygee2

Help to buy is the same !!!8211; it!!!8217;s more achievable than a 10% deposit but we!!!8217;d still need something like £12k!

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The monthly cost is pretty much the same as our rent is now so I don!!!8217;t think we!!!8217;ll be out of pocket

If you cannot save £12,000 now - a relatively small amount - with your current outgoings then are you going to be able to save the remaining £250,0000 to buy the house?

Sounds like you will pay a load of legal costs to own 1% of a house, then risk being trapped with it. It could be difficult to sell if you ever want to move and it might be complex getting a mortgage on it to buy it out, too.

Appreciate how hard it is to save for a deposit these days, but I don't think this is the answer unfortunately. I'd look at 'traditional' shared ownership schemes. They have their pitfalls, but they are effective ways to start owning and the rent is below market value, making saving to buy the rest of it more possible.

pretty soon we!!!8217;re going to want to paint little one!!!8217;s bedroom.

Have you asked the landlord if you can paint the room?