What chance does a twenty something year old have in the South? Anyone else in a similar boat?

wolvoman

OP: Set yourself some aggressive financial targets.
1. Savings of at least £1,200 a month now and increasing by at least £75 for every extra £100 you earn. At current salary this would get you £60k+ in only 4 years on top of any savings you have already.
2. Salary increases of at least 15% each year for the next 5 years. Doesn't have to happen every year, but average out. At late 20s you are in the window for salary boosting.
3. Put some (%age depends on your risk appetite) savings into higher yielding investments. Try to get at least a few basis points above the cash 'best-buys' on this website.

All these should see you having a deposit of £100-£150k in the next 4-5 years. On top of a mortgage for around £250k, you then can afford that £400k house you desire.

buglawton

Cakeguts wrote: »

...
The choice is yours. Either you try to live in an area that is too expensive for you or you choose to move to another part of the country where you would earn a bit less but not that much less that you couldn't afford to buy.

For example if you got a job in Manchester you could buy a house like this https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74593520.html and commute to Manchester from the local station. It isn't a fantastic fashionable area but it is affordable for you. You would only need to earn enough to pay a circa £30k mortgage so anything over £15k a year would do that. With your savings and a different job you could afford to live in this area. So it isn't true that house prices are too high. What you mean is that house prices are too high for you in the area you have chosen to live in but you could afford a different area.

Has Manchester job market changed much since the 90s? I used to live a commute from Manchester and the employer-employee relationships seemed to be like lord-serf, even in IT. The job market was there but always thin on the ground. So i moved to hyper-expensive Thames Valley. Not a penny richer probably, but get treated with respect and a lot more career options. Not everything comes down to cash.

Sapphire

tommysaver wrote: »

I'm bored of you now.

Please: 'I'm bored with you now.' (not 'of you').

The incorrect version is a bit like 'He was sat in his chair', as opposed to (correctly) 'He was sitting in his chair'.

happyandcontented

AFF8879 wrote: »

I graduated from an ex-poly and now earn an (almost ) six-figure salary in finance in London. One of my classmates earns significantly more than I do in private equity. And many others have decent jobs at blue chip companies. This isn’t the 1990s anymore.

No, although all my children and I went to Russell Group universities my OH achieved his degree, MSc and Doctorate via a mixture of Russell Group and ex Poly's as his career demands dictated. He hasn't done too badly either!!;)

kabayiri

buglawton wrote: »

Has Manchester job market changed much since the 90s? I used to live a commute from Manchester and the employer-employee relationships seemed to be like lord-serf, even in IT. The job market was there but always thin on the ground. So i moved to hyper-expensive Thames Valley. Not a penny richer probably, but get treated with respect and a lot more career options. Not everything comes down to cash.

Our long term answer lies buried a little within your post.

The job market is more fragile in Manchester, but you could easily substitute the city with Leeds; Liverpool; Coventry; etc etc.

We do have the resources in this country, it's just completely unbalanced.

There isn't a hope in h*ll of upgrading the SE to bring house prices down in the foreseeable.

When you pump money into transit systems, like the Manchester tram network, then you make it attractive for organizations like the BBC to relocate chunks of their operation.

I'm not anti SE/London by any means, but pragmatism would suggest we need to be a bit more creative as a country.

pinknsparkly

tommysaver wrote: »

To cut a long story short.

I've recently done some quick maths, and well, I'm extremely depressed by it. I'm no millennial moaner, but I simply need to express the issue to someone and see what anyone else is planning on doing?

You can buy a rather plain, nothing special to look at, terraced house with no garage and tiny garden for approx £350k here.

You can also get a small semi absolute POS in a disgusting area which hardly even resembles a home for £300k

Flats again are minimum £260 - £300k

Are you in your 20's and live in the South? What have you done / are you doing?

Rant and thoughts over! Cheers all. Sometimes it's good to brain dump..

:beer:

Hi Tommy,

I'll start by saying that I read the first and last page of this thread and skipped all the pages in between so apologies if this is repetitive.

It's your life, and your choice. If you prefer to remain living with your parents, and they are happy for you to do so, for the rest of your life (plus, potentially a partner and children as you have alluded to wanting) then go for it. If, on the other hand, you want to get on the property ladder then you are also in a fantastic position to do so. However, you are going to have to MASSIVELY moderate your property expectations!

I live in the SE in a very expensive town. Although now in my early 30s, my husband and I started househunting in my late 20s. We live in what you would definitely call "a small semi absolute POS in a disgusting area" (though I imagine you would consider ours to be even worse than that as it's mid-terrace). We made the decision that we wanted the stability of owning our own property and not being reliant on rental properties (unlike you, living with our parents was not an option) and we compromised. We'd have loved a big garden, being able to park outside our house, to live in a "nice" area but decided to cut our cloth to fit our means. And actually, a house is just a house - once you shut the front door the "area" matters much less. I love our little place, because it's ours. We managed this despite the fact that up until ust under a year ago, only one of us was ever employed at a time (and for several months neither of us were when I was a PhD student and he was job hunting). And frankly, unless you've actually lived in every street in an area, you have no right or ability to call it a disgusting area - our house is in what you would call a disgusting area, and I lived in similar areas when I was at university and never had a problem in any of them.

A quick search on PrimeLocation for properties in Bucks shows that for less than £100,000 you could get a park home, a 2 bed flat or one of three studio apartments (and with your £50k deposit, [which is amazing by the way, congrats on managing to save that!] would need a mortgage of less than £50k). Alternatively, there are 73 shared ownership properties for sale in Bucks at less than £100k.

If you are serious about wanting to buy then I would advise widening your search area to include less desirable areas with longer commutes, removing any property requirements that are not absolutely essential (eg. essential = needs a roof and doors, non-essential = needs garage, or even parking at all) and look into the various mortgage options available to you (such as your parents using equity in their property to further boost your deposit, your parents acting as guarantors or getting a "Rent A Room" mortgage to buy a property with a room you can let out.

I don't intend this to be mean or nasty but you come across as rather young, entitled and snobbish in your original post. If you only wish to consider living in "nice" areas, and your parents are happy to have to living with them forever, then stay put. However, if you want to own property and remain near family then you need to either look at much cheaper and less "nice" areas, increase your income dramatically or investigate the non-conventional mortgage offerings (or probably, a combination of the above!)

tommysaver

wolvoman wrote: »

OP: Set yourself some aggressive financial targets.
1. Savings of at least £1,200 a month now and increasing by at least £75 for every extra £100 you earn. At current salary this would get you £60k+ in only 4 years on top of any savings you have already.
2. Salary increases of at least 15% each year for the next 5 years. Doesn't have to happen every year, but average out. At late 20s you are in the window for salary boosting.
3. Put some (%age depends on your risk appetite) savings into higher yielding investments. Try to get at least a few basis points above the cash 'best-buys' on this website.

All these should see you having a deposit of £100-£150k in the next 4-5 years. On top of a mortgage for around £250k, you then can afford that £400k house you desire.

Very interesting outlook! Thanks.

As much as I love it, I think a 15% rise every year is unrealistic for me at this stage, but hey - I'll certainly try and prove myself wrong. Haha. I think more like 5% each year is do-able. Not enough though!

By point number 3, do you have any examples of this? I am not advert to some % of risk, but I somewhat get worried when I see 'your money is not protected' warnings. Then again, if I start small and work it up slowly this mitigates that alot. (P2P?)

Many thanks! :beer:

tommysaver

pinknsparkly wrote: »

Hi Tommy,

I'll start by saying that I read the first and last page of this thread and skipped all the pages in between so apologies if this is repetitive.

It's your life, and your choice. If you prefer to remain living with your parents, and they are happy for you to do so, for the rest of your life (plus, potentially a partner and children as you have alluded to wanting) then go for it. If, on the other hand, you want to get on the property ladder then you are also in a fantastic position to do so. However, you are going to have to MASSIVELY moderate your property expectations!

Hi Pink,

Thanks so much for the in depth response.

I think this is spot on - and that's where I'm going wrong. I don't want to moderate my property expectations. (:rotfl:) You're right. I know it, the internet knows it, but for now, I'll attempt to carry on saving despite wanting to go 'mental' for a year as I'm in a good situation at home and can watch Brexit unfold in relative safety. I have even toyed with the idea of moving abroad, not necessarily long term though, but that's a bit of an extreme pipe-dream to be honest.

pinknsparkly wrote: »

I live in the SE in a very expensive town. Although now in my early 30s, my husband and I started househunting in my late 20s. We live in what you would definitely call "a small semi absolute POS in a disgusting area" (though I imagine you would consider ours to be even worse than that as it's mid-terrace). We made the decision that we wanted the stability of owning our own property and not being reliant on rental properties (unlike you, living with our parents was not an option) and we compromised. We'd have loved a big garden, being able to park outside our house, to live in a "nice" area but decided to cut our cloth to fit our means. And actually, a house is just a house - once you shut the front door the "area" matters much less. I love our little place, because it's ours. We managed this despite the fact that up until ust under a year ago, only one of us was ever employed at a time (and for several months neither of us were when I was a PhD student and he was job hunting). And frankly, unless you've actually lived in every street in an area, you have no right or ability to call it a disgusting area - our house is in what you would call a disgusting area, and I lived in similar areas when I was at university and never had a problem in any of them.

Full credit to you. I don't mean it to come across entitled or nastily at all, just ranted a bit.. I understand your thought process and know people that live in terraced locations with lovely homes. I think your better in owning it instead of paying rent and someone else's mortgage anyway!

In my head when I wrote that comment a particular property I had seen on Rightmove was on my mind. It was on a fairly well known street local to my main town (for the wrong reasons, lol) whereby a violent stabbing/murder occurred last year and it was over £300k for the most sorry for itself looking slum that needed a complete re-decoration (It literally resembled slums!)

(P.S. I'm in no way advert to some hard work and DIY is more than fine with me. But again, all adds to the cost which is already insanely expensive for a horrible house in a bad area..)

It's just not what you really dream of growing up, is it! :rotfl:

pinknsparkly wrote: »

A quick search on PrimeLocation for properties in Bucks shows that for less than £100,000 you could get a park home, a 2 bed flat or one of three studio apartments (and with your £50k deposit, [which is amazing by the way, congrats on managing to save that!] would need a mortgage of less than £50k). Alternatively, there are 73 shared ownership properties for sale in Bucks at less than £100k.

Thanks for this insight, if I was serious and on the brink of having to move out, I would of course consider it. But given the uncertain times I'll hold out a bit longer. I'm really not keen on shared ownership properties either for a few reasons!!

pinknsparkly wrote: »

If you are serious about wanting to buy then I would advise widening your search area to include less desirable areas with longer commutes, removing any property requirements that are not absolutely essential (eg. essential = needs a roof and doors, non-essential = needs garage, or even parking at all) and look into the various mortgage options available to you (such as your parents using equity in their property to further boost your deposit, your parents acting as guarantors or getting a "Rent A Room" mortgage to buy a property with a room you can let out.

Again, perfectly fair comment! Your not wrong, but having spent 2 years with a fairly bad commute (110 miles total a day) and then a further 3 years with a 1 hour 40 minute commute each way, right now I'm in a slightly better place and trying to enjoying the small amount of extra time I can scoop in (If I'm not doing overtime..)

Very interesting point about the mortgage options. I'll look into this separately, thanks!

pinknsparkly wrote: »

I don't intend this to be mean or nasty but you come across as rather young, entitled and snobbish in your original post. If you only wish to consider living in "nice" areas, and your parents are happy to have to living with them forever, then stay put. However, if you want to own property and remain near family then you need to either look at much cheaper and less "nice" areas, increase your income dramatically or investigate the non-conventional mortgage offerings (or probably, a combination of the above!)

In honesty I think you've hit the nail on the head, I was just feeling slightly begrudged by it all and went full rant mode.. :beer:

Thanks.

buglawton

kabayiri wrote: »

Our long term answer lies buried a little within your post.

The job market is more fragile in Manchester, but you could easily substitute the city with Leeds; Liverpool; Coventry; etc etc.

We do have the resources in this country, it's just completely unbalanced.

There isn't a hope in h*ll of upgrading the SE to bring house prices down in the foreseeable.

When you pump money into transit systems, like the Manchester tram network, then you make it attractive for organizations like the BBC to relocate chunks of their operation.

I'm not anti SE/London by any means, but pragmatism would suggest we need to be a bit more creative as a country.

Agree and maybe the 52% Brexit vote had a lot to do with the failure of Westminster to ever sort out Britain's imbalances.

HPC_Ghuol_Hunter

7 pages later the OP finally admits what has been pointed out to him, not least by myself alone, repeatedly from the beginning; he’s not prepared to sacrifice anything beyond his parents freedom so he can enjoy a subsidised lifestyle nor compromise on his type of housing entitlement. A question for another thread would be is his selfish attitude a one-off or is he simply a reflection of all his peers? Sad times indeed.