The 'We're saving for a deposit' thread

mclaren32

Our total doesnt seem to be moving much at the moment but we have just paid for £1400 of furniture that we ordered ages ago and we have renewed enthusiasm now so its looking good.

The market where we want to live looks completely dead at the moment so I have pushed our target deposit up to £30k with a further £15k for fee's, contingency and stuff which will take us until the end of the year. There will be another 3k added in August due to a bonus coming through so that will be great.

Im not sure if we are going to do much in the 2 weeks we have booked off at the end of September for house hunting though

mclaren32

tara747 wrote: »

OH has saved a good bit less than me and we are trying to discuss the thorny issue of how that would work if/when we buy a house together! Any suggestions?

Myself and the OH are in exactly the same position unfortunately - what we are doing is splitting the fee's and things we are buying for the house 50/50 but I will be putting £27.5k down and OH £2.5k so it will be arranged that I own a greater % of the property. Its a bit sad having to worry about things like this but I wouldnt have it any other way.

My only concern is what would happen if the property is sold with negative equity, any thoughts anyone?

tara747

manic_cow wrote: »

I'd suggest you talk about it and agree on what you can both realistically save from now on. Me and my bf are in a similar position and have agreed that we'll both put in what we've got so far (even though it's not the same amount) and continue to save a minimum amount each per month, which may not necessarily be the same amount either as we don't earn the same amount of money. What's mine is yours and all that...

Dinah93 wrote: »

If you're serious enough about this person to be buying a house together, surely whats mine is yours and vice versa. All our money goes into one account, regardless of the fact that I earn about 35% more, if the worst were ever to happen, I'd just split it 50-50 - he's a good man and I know if something were to happen that wouldn't have changed.

mclaren32 wrote: »

Myself and the OH are in exactly the same position unfortunately - what we are doing is splitting the fee's and things we are buying for the house 50/50 but I will be putting £27.5k down and OH £2.5k so it will be arranged that I own a greater % of the property. Its a bit sad having to worry about things like this but I wouldnt have it any other way.

My only concern is what would happen if the property is sold with negative equity, any thoughts anyone?

Thanks for the posts guys. I know that I should think that if we're buying together it'll be 50:50 all the way. If we had wildly different incomes I would probably think that. But we earn about the same, it's just that OH decided to bum around travelling for ages in his early 20s (before we met) while little miss sensible me got a well paid job straight from uni and saved hard from then on.

I love travelling and sometimes I wish I'd done the same as he did, but at the time I was skint and scared that I'd never get a good job. So maybe I feel a little resentful at him having such a good time and only starting to save in the last year or so yet possibly benefiting from all my self-sacrifice over the years? Does that sound really bad?

I'm really interested in your views, I've read similar threads on this IIRC so it must be an issue for others.

mclaren, make sure you buy at as low a point in the market as possible to minimise the risk of negative equity!!

focus888

mclaren32 wrote: »

Our total doesnt seem to be moving much at the moment but we have just paid for £1400 of furniture that we ordered ages ago and we have renewed enthusiasm now so its looking good.

Im a lurker on this thread, love reading how well everyone is getting on with saving for a deposit. Ive been thinking recently that even after i get the deposit and also buy my first house im gonna need money for furniture and that. how much money would you need to save for furniture basics for a new house? thanks x

penguingirl

tara747 wrote: »

Thanks for the posts guys. I know that I should think that if we're buying together it'll be 50:50 all the way. If we had wildly different incomes I would probably think that. But we earn about the same, it's just that OH decided to bum around travelling for ages in his early 20s (before we met) while little miss sensible me got a well paid job straight from uni and saved hard from then on.

Have you considered an offset mortgage? My OH and me have similar deposits (well both have enough to cover 12.5% of house each so total 25%) and we are getting a FD offset mortgage- we asked and were told we can offset joint and single accounts so we will end up with a total of 3 current and 3 savings accounts- so we can contribute equally to the joint savings and use this for things like work on house, expenses, capital payments etc. but we will also know that we have our own little 'pot' that is still reducing our mortgage interest.

And for those of you who consider that if buying a house it should be 50:50, I admire that, but for me without the security of marriage it's too much of a gamble and has way too much potential to go wrong (which I've seen too many times)

pg

tara747

Good points penguingirl!

LJohnson_3

Hi All!! I have to say that this ofrum has been a source of inspiration and amusment over the summer holidays - its so nice to think there are other people out there as excited about saving for the biggest purchase we will ever make!!

Me and OH are currently renting and at 25 made the brave decision to move home with parents to boost our deposit - we are lucky as the south wales valleys are relatively cheap to buy in a £15k deposit will go a long way here!! ~(It's unbelieveable the deposits some people have )

We both have decent jobs, i'm a college lecturer and my OH is a careers advisor and are hoping to save 1100 minimum a month - we started saving two weeks ago and currnetly have around 800£ now we are both frantically coutning down to pay day!

Thanks for all the great tips - this is my bedtime reading and i love it

x

butterfly72

mbga9pgf wrote: »

Saved £3300, up to 78K this month... Target of 100K by next Feb hopefully (although interest not paid till next April )

Think we are going to carry on up till September and call it a day on hardcore saving... its starting to get a little tiring after 3 1/2 years!

I bet you don't give it up in September!! Once you've started saving its addictive as you watch the total creep higher and higher! Being a scrooge becomes a way of life you know! Plus you need some extra for fees and moving costs and an emergency fund. Well done on your saving BTW:T

russet

Haven't posted on this thread for a while but our deposit is growing steadily. We have between 38-40% now, the mortgage we want has a max 75% LTV. We are in a similar position to others in that my contribution to the deposit is considerably more than OH, I don't see this as a problem because we have agreed that if we split and sell up then we'd each get back the deposit we put in and the rest is divided 50:50. Even though we earn different amounts once we own a house together we will put our earnings together and overpay as much as possible. I wouldn't want to buy a house with someone unless I was serious enough about them and trusted them enough to combine finances.

Dinah93

penguingirl wrote: »

And for those of you who consider that if buying a house it should be 50:50, I admire that, but for me without the security of marriage it's too much of a gamble and has way too much potential to go wrong (which I've seen too many times)

pg

Completely see your point, but this is why I wouldn't buy without being married, because buying a house is a huge commitment and I would need to know that it was going somewhere.

mclaren32 wrote: »

Myself and the OH are in exactly the same position unfortunately - what we are doing is splitting the fee's and things we are buying for the house 50/50 but I will be putting £27.5k down and OH £2.5k so it will be arranged that I own a greater % of the property. Its a bit sad having to worry about things like this but I wouldnt have it any other way.

My only concern is what would happen if the property is sold with negative equity, any thoughts anyone?

As far as I'm aware any deposit would go first so realistically you would stand to loose more, then if your total deposit didn't cover the fall in value you would each need to come up with the proportion of the amount owing ie if you own 75% of the house, you would be responsible for 75% of the money owing to the bank. It's not a nice situation, I really feel for all the people on the houses board who are stuck living with their ex months or years later because they can't afford to cover the negitive equity.