For those aged 26-36 (Your housing situation)

scubaangel

I'm not sure any of those really apply to me.

Until a couple of weeks ago I was renting and trying to save the money to pay off debt and save towards buying, I'm currently moving in to my partners place. It's mortgaged, at the moment our agreement is that I save the equivalent to his mortgage monthly, and pay half the bills. We'll revisit that in a few months, but we want to save as much as we can towards buying ourselves somewhere bigger in a year or two at the same time as getting me debt free. If I have to pay out more than the current planned savings and bills it'll take longer to get debt free or I'll have less saved towards our joint attempt to buy the time comes.



I love my partner and our home area, but I miss the house and rental prices back home in the north west. Neither of us have jobs where the pay is hugely impacted by the location (he's a motorcycle mechanic for a premium marque, I work in hospitality, a similar role would mean a small paycut for me but his pay is set by the brand).

Anitification

I went onto oil rigs at 18 and bought my 3 bed semi in London at 22, the plan wasn't to move again as I'd have owned it outright by the age of 47... and I was hoping it'd be worth millions by then as zone 8 becomes the new zone 1!

Anyway, one break up and I'm now downsizing to a 2 bed flat and considering going back out onto the rigs to coop up my losses!

Poppy_92

The options weren't totally relevant to our situation but chose the closest one.

We bought a 3 bedroom terrace in Hampshire last year, no help to buy ISA bonus as it was over the threshold and deposit money was all saved by us. We do plan to move and to upsize in a few years when we have children etc. We are 26 and 27 currently.

Illbedamned

33, been renting for 15 years...just waiting on funds then should be able to buy next year. Sooooooo so sick on renting, will be nice to have my own place finally!

cc58

35 here although wouldnt call myself a millennial
Bought my first property in 2014 at 30 S/O with my partner, we tried to buy a place without a scheme but we were looking at the end of the last "boom" and over the 12 months we were looking for what we could afford (£250k) went from a 2 bed flat in zone 2 to a 1 bed flat in zone 4 by the end of those 12 months. We ended up going S/O and its the best thing thats happened to us.
I'd saved for a few years living in a pretty rough part of London as I wanted my own place so while my my mates all lived in nice places in Clapham and Fulham, well fast forward a few years, I have a 3 bed detached place and they're all still renting.

I would say S/O worked really well for us but only because we were able to staircase to 100% relatively quickly (3 years from first purchase)

JackeeBoy

30 years old and purchased 4 years ago when I was 26. Two bedroom, mid terraced house living with my wife, toddler and newborn. No schemes or help from parents, just saving since I was 19 years old.

As we are in the cheapest part of London, only opportunity to scale up is to take out a bigger mortgage or move further out. As my recent jobs haven't been stable and I've been suffering from physical and emotional fatigue, we are both reluctant to extend the mortgage.

Once childcare fees are out of the way, we may explore extending into the roof. Main issue we have with the house is the parking. There is plenty off street but we would love our own driveway.

Moneyminded

I'm in my early 30's and own my own house. Saved for years, no help from a scheme or family. I'm lucky to have a good job and I live up North so compared to some areas of the country it is affordable where I live.

I don't see the need to move at the moment. I have a 2-bed which suits me, and occasional guests just fine.

Jonathan_Kelvin

When I was 36 I’d just gone through a divorce, lost my job, and had my investments (which were all held for me by my employer, in their own stock) drop to zero.

I was in a rented flat, and although far from destitute, my life’s worth was £300k, sitting in cash, which was not a great place to be at that stage, following quite a good few years in a good career.

Ten years on my new wife and I have more than one very nice family home paid off, I’m back in a good job, and life is very comfortable again, which is to say that your situation at 36 doesn’t determine where you are ten or twenty years later.

The very important fact that let me recover so well was that in my earlier years I’d gained the qualifications and skills that let me get back into a good career.

amandacat

Bought my first at the age of 30, it was just after a massive peak in prices where prices came down slightly but mortgage rates were high. Could afford a flat or a shared ownership scheme house at the time based on the deposit I needed at the time as you needed 15% due to the credit crunch. Went for shared ownership as I wanted a house and the flats all had crazy monthly service charges. Bought the remainder of my house 5 years later at age 35 via an extension to my mortgage.

fiisch

33. Just tied ourself down with a huge mortgage (>£400k), plus another 20% (circa £120k) to find within the next five years.

But, we're in our forever home - new build 5 bed in rural Buckinghamshire with access to good schools and still commutable to London. First bought a 2 bed flat aged 26 - no deposit, but my parents remortgaged and we paid both their mortgage and our own, which still worked out cheaper than renting. We have since paid off their mortgage, so the small amount of equity in our new home (£50k-odd) is our own.

Without my parent's remortgage, I think we'd be on the property ladder, but in a substantially smaller home, as first buying in 2012 was ideal timing in hindsight (made nearly 40% profit on first flat in 3 years).

We took a bit of a gamble taking on such a large mortgage, but I'm hoping history repeats itself and house price rises/inflation erodes the cost of our mortgage. I appreciate future is uncertain with Brexit (and the next political crisis, whatever that may be, and the next....), but it was a calculated gamble...