Painful Climb to £200k

FrankR

I am 24 years old.
I have around £130k saved.
I've looked at house prices and realistically I need £200k to buy anything decent.
There are literally loads of houses between 100k and 200k but they are just 'junk' - no offence.
I find that once you get past 200k, houses in the British property market become much nicer, larger and 'liveable'.
Ideally, I would spend £300-400k on a house - anything more and it becomes less value for money for me.
The sweet spot in the British property market is 300k I think.

Anything more than 300k, I will put into savings/pension.

Does this sound good? :money:

Alistair31

FrankR wrote: »

Does this sound good? :money:

Not really.

Prism

It depends where you live. 300k gets you a 5 bed stone built detached around here but not so much in the south east.

Also, get a mortgage like most other people

Overdash

Firstly congrats, you're 24 with 130k saved - an amazing feat. Unless you're against interest for any reason (e.g. due to faith) or you're unemployed, I highly recommend you go for a mortgage. Spend max 100k for the deposit of the house (comfortably allows you to afford a house of 300 - 400k depending on your salary and Help to Buy - HTB - eligibility). 10-15k on Stam duty land tax (SDLT) and/or Legal costs. Leaves you with 20-15k, which I'd recommend in investing in an ISA (preferably S&S).

I would be against buying a house outright given your situation (it would be a liability rather than investment)

tacpot12

I always recommend that if you can do so, you buy the only house you will ever need. Moving house costs money and carries risk, so buy once to save yourself the hassle of moving.

You have an idea of what you want, and have looked and found that nothing below £300K suits you. This is fair enough, it's your money and your choice. You could buy the perfect house tomorrow with a mortgage. Interest rates are low and you are earning well enough to afford a mortgage, even if interest rates rise. Your payments would be about £1000 a month initially. As your income increases, you can overpay the mortgage which will radically reduce both the term and the amount of interest you will repay.