first time buyer question - how do you get a house?

toasterman

This may seem like a vague kind of question, but I'm fascinated by the whole idea of buying a house.
I'm not in debt, and I'm saving at the moment, but the sheer scale of buying anything seems impossible.

While I know that everyone finds the first step difficult, to put it in some perspective, a friend of mine was 30 when they bought a house. At the age of 30, they were earning the same amount I'm earning now (which isn't a terrible salary at all). Since they bought their house, the values in their area have nearly tripled.

I'm 25, single, and not doing too badly for money, but there's absolutely nothing for miles bigger than a garage, I could get a mortgage high enough to buy....without seriously committing mortgage fraud and lying heavily about my income, which I'm definitely not prepared to do.

A friend of mine bought half a 1 bedroom flat on a shared ownership scheme last year, and had to sell his car (small, reliable..wasn't a Porsche or anything) to afford the deposit. He's also been employed and shall we say.. "thrifty" and saving for the last 10 years.
At the rate he's going, in 25 years, he will own half of a 1-bedroom flat. Just the idea of that I find so depressing I don't think I'd ever consider it.

I'm very envious as I watch shows like Property Ladder or Grand Designs at these people who all somehow have £300,000-odd from somewhere to spend on houses. If that's 3x someone's salary, they're on a hell of a lot more than me.
I saw one recently where a couple of part-time dog-walkers (hippies) bought a house for over £200,000 with seemingly no deposit at all..is there some new way of calculating what people can pay back? Or are banks doing 200-year mortgages these days?

[Deleted User]

I agree with you, at this point in time, FTB's are in the worst position, it is virtually impossible to buy a property bigger than a shed for less than 200k, Im in the same position as you though a couple of years younger.

Have you ever noticed how the people in the property shows are all late 30's or 40's, theyve made their money through the property boom which is now (although debatable) about to collapse and im looking forward to it.

Ill not say much more, but keep saving and soon prices will soon become alot more affordable for the likes of us.

Running_Horse

first time buyer question - how do you get a house?

In your case, keep saving a deposit, and wait/hope for prices to fall.

And think long term about how you can improve your income.

toasterman

I have got to seriously evaluate my future salary.
Long term, I think I'm going to struggle to get much over about 20k, without completely starting again, retraining and doing something different to what I do. Looking in the local paper this week, the vast majority of jobs are around the 20k mark, or just under...so it's clearly not just me.

And looking at what some people are on - people in retail, factory workers, carers, etc.. I'm not exactly hard done by or 'struggling to make ends meet'.
But 20k doesn't get you a mortgage for a property of any sort. Not in the south west anyway....maybe in Wales or up north somewhere.

I certainly don't have anyone I know well enough or trust enough, to get a mortgage with them...in fact most people I know around my age seem to be really terrible with money - living off credit cards, desperately trying to make it to pay day, etc. I myself did get into debt a few years back (on a considerably lower salary), but its all cleared now and I've got a lot more sensible with my finances. I don't pay interest and I live within my means.


I did have an idea yesterday - maybe I could buy somewhere abroad. You can get a house in Thailand for £30k. A nice looking place Italy for £65k. I've not looked into it heavily so I've no idea how you get a mortgage for property abroad, but it looks like an interesting option. A mortgage on 30k seems easily manageable, even if it were empty and I was renting here.

Presumably there is pitfalls to that I haven't read up on yet.

poppy10_2

Why would you want to buy a house abroad if you are planning to keep living here?

Pobby

Toasterman.What a brilliant opening post.There ya go everyone,just shows what a stupid state of affairs exist in the housing market.Yep OP,you may well wonder why it is so difficult to get on the housing market.I am twice your age plus and on my 4th house and frankly I have no idea how a youngster is expected to do it.

toasterman

poppy10 wrote: »

Why would you want to buy a house abroad if you are planning to keep living here?

Rent it out, pay off the mortgage, then when I'm old (or rich enough to afford it) and fed up of living in the cold, damp, miserable weather of England, retire abroad in the sunshine.

And if you had your own home abroad somewhere, you could get a cheap flight and nip off for a weekend anywhen you fancied, so long as you weren't renting it to someone at the time.

van_persie

toasterman wrote: »

Rent it out, pay off the mortgage, then when I'm old (or rich enough to afford it) and fed up of living in the cold, damp, miserable weather of England, retire abroad in the sunshine.

And if you had your own home abroad somewhere, you could get a cheap flight and nip off for a weekend anywhen you fancied, so long as you weren't renting it to someone at the time.

A very idealistic, naive way of looking at the most expensive decision you're ever likely to make.
Your original post also shows startling naivety; do you not see what's going on at the moment? Do you really think buying a property NOW is a sensible thing to do?
The only advice I'll offer is that you do some research into the state of the market and our economy in general. If, after that, you're still envious of people who've blown 300 grand on a house in a property !!!!!! TV show, then go ahead and buy...

[Deleted User]

Toasterman, i too have considered buying abroad however if you are renting it out you need some way of keeping it in good condition and if something goes wrong, it could put you in a tricky spot.

MadSebW

How would you cope with a property abroad and paying rent in the UK if you had nobody to be a tenant for some time?
I think that would be a really silly thing to do.

Have you not considered shared ownership yourself? My husband and I are both under 25 with 2 children and only his income and our tax credits. That income all together makes no more than 20k and we are now buying a house for 62k on a 44% share. Whilst we may not own the full property, we have every chance to in the future and we have made our investment and stepped onto the property ladder. One day, we can sell and hopefully make a nice deposit for somewhere bigger.

[Deleted User]

van_persie wrote: »

A very idealistic, naive way of looking at the most expensive decision you're ever likely to make.
Your original post also shows startling naivety; do you not see what's going on at the moment? Do you really think buying a property NOW is a sensible thing to do?
The only advice I'll offer is that you do some research into the state of the market and our economy in general. If, after that, you're still envious of people who've blown 300 grand on a house in a property !!!!!! TV show, then go ahead and buy...

Thats a pretty harsh comment VP, i dont think in his original post it suggested he thought buying a house now was sensible, i dont think anyone using this forum would consider buying now given the fact the state of the property market and the economy is slowing up.

Shared ownerships can come with alot of Conditions, ive seen many that allow you to only own a certain % (say 75% ), You might also find youre 100% responsible for anything that goes wrong, plumbing etc.