Single Mother trying to get on the property and needing advise

H1987

Hello,
Can anyone please give me some advice on how to get on the property market as a single income household?
My father passed away and we have to sell his house, I WISH i could buy it but I dont see any options in doing so as my 2 brothers do not seem keen and there is a £148k mortgage on it. Once its sold we will hopefully get just over £50k and once my debts are paid off I will have £40k leftover.

Can anyone please advise on some options I can look into? I live in Coventry and the area that I would love to live in has places going for at least £250 so a £40k deposit with just my income (£28k annually plus £3k from child support) just doesnt come close to the mark.

gwynlas

If you cannot afford where you would like to buy then you could consider other areas.. You need to put yoour figures to a whole of market mortgage broker but I would think that would only qualify fora mortgage  of £150K. On Rightmove there are a number of 3 bed properties that might be suitable at £200k so you need to do some research you will have a 20% deposit which is quite good these days. You will of course need to pay legal fees. Do not even consider buying new furniture etc for new home until you have established that you can afford all your outgoings, people sell on nearly new stuff all the time

elsien

If you can’t afford what you want, then your options are to buy somewhere smaller or buy in a cheaper area. Or possibly both.
So what are you willing to compromise on because you will have to compromise in order to buy. 

Emmia

There's no magic wand unfortunately, you need to look at areas / properties within the scope of the budget you have, rather than the budget you'd like to have. 

Is there any scope to increase your earnings? Property purchase is an expensive business and increasing your income, even a little will help you be more resilient to those unexpected costs that crop up, that as the home owner, you are responsible for.

amnblog

Look for shared ownership in Coventry

https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/37970/affordable-housing-spd

SensibleSarah

There are definitely two sides to schemes like shared ownership. Not something I would consider personally but I do know some people who have had positive experiences with it and it was their only viable route into home ownership.

I was fortunate in that I live in a 'cheap' part of the country (I didn't grow up here, so no local family etc) - but buying on my own while renting, with very limited savings - was still not easy! I was on £26k at the time and was able to buy a cheap 2-bed fixer-upper for £90k in a mediocre area - which was the max I could afford with my deposit as 10% was minimum requirement at the time. There are still 2/3 bed properties in my area for under £100k now but they require a fair bit of work. 

Of course I couldn't afford to do the major work needed at the time (still can't tbh), but it's liveable in the meantime, just spending bits here and there to fix and maintain essentials while I continue to save for the bigger stuff. If OP can compromise on area and on buying a nice finished home, there are opportunities in some parts of the country. No way I could have afforded to buy in the area my family live though.