How old do you think you ll be when you ll be able to afford a mortgage?

I guess whether you meet someone to buy with has a major impact on when people are able to buy a home. Everybody should move up north

I went to college and uni in the home counties and I couldn't believe how many people had never been up north before.

It's so much cheaper though, two of my cousins have just bought their first homes (admittedly with a partner) and they're only on 20-23k. Whilst I could find a 28k job in London and spend a fortune on a room in a house share, I'm much better off living on a lower wage rent free in Manchester

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When you work hard for your money it must suck to live somewhere where it only gets you a room in a house.

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It's not really bothered me tbh because I am still fairly young and had no interest in staying in my uni city, so I didn't need to put down roots.

What I do find ridiculous though is that I was paying more than my mum was for her mortgage on a 5 bedroom detached house in the "posh" area of her city. Our generation is completely ****ed over housing wise.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Regularly it's mentioned in the news of young people being gradually priced out of buying their own home, so tsr when do you think you ll be able to get your first home?
I m (in a slightly unfortunate set of circumstances as my fath huhher and his parents died before I hit 19) able to afford my half of a deposit of a 2/3 bed house up north and my fiancé is good with money and we re fortunate to have pretty low rent and bills so hopefully can afford one when we re 24 and 28.

A lot of my friends have managed to buy houses/ flats in London in their early-mid twenties and they seem to be completely unaffected by the supposed issues of young people being locked out of the housing market. I actually think if you are bright, hard-working and sensible you can buy a flat or even a house (although in the outskirts) of London without any problems whatsoever. There should be advice on how to do it though, but there just isn't.

There is a simple reason and this is that a lot of my friends are quite socially conservative (with a small c), they got into long term relationships early at university and stayed in them, many married in early twenties etc. So basically the one thing in common almost all of them have (who don't have insanely rich parents who just give them the money for a house/ most of a house) is that they are in long-term relationships where both partners have fairly 'professional' jobs which pay well even at entry level e.g. management consulting, law, medicine, accountancy, investment banking. This essentially means that in London if you live with your parents a couple can easily save up for a deposit within 1 year, and if you don't you can easily save up for a deposit in 2 years.

Note though that even friends with back office banking jobs, or who are in big 4 audit or junior doctors in medicine have managed to buy places, and their salaries are not particularly high, so it isn't just all high flying front off bankers I'm talking about. Indeed I actually think working as a strategy consultant for the most prestigious firms or working in front office investment banking actually for most people makes them poorer because they don't have enough time (mostly) for relationships etc and they would be better off being in back office/ accountants/ big 4 audit etc and doing far less hours but having the time for relationships and then buying a house together when they are young. Most of the couples I know who have done this are far wealthier (so divide total combined wealth of couple by 2) than friends I have who are single front office investment bankers/ strategic management consultants. Even if you do these jobs and have a relationship somehow you almost never have enough time to properly research/ look for houses to buy.

Granted this usually mean buying a small house in zone 4,5 or 6 or a tiny flat in zones 1-3, but I know so many people who have done it in London without any problems.

I get frustrated with a lot of newspaper articles about this because I think young people were brought up believing the world would be all fluffy and there would be loads of amazing interesting jobs created by technology, when the opposite has happened but instead of compromising, settling down in relationships early and buying a flat/house many young people (even some of the brightest young people) just refuse to compromise and spend £2000 a month renting a flat in one of the inner zones of London and then complain about not being able to afford to buy a house/ flat themselves, when they could just live with their parents/ in one of the outer zones for 1/2 years and save up like crazy and then buy a house/ flat with their partner or even alone in some cases.

I bought a flat alone and basically didn't go out expensively at all for 2 years to save up the money (but I did go out and I did see friends a lot), I just saved and saved every penny and I had spreadsheets and everything showing literally everything I spent down to the last penny. I became vegetarian for a while to save more money etc. Life was still pretty good so I don't feel I compromised my happiness at all and now I'm a lot more settled and financially secure than most young people I know, but I made major sacrifices to do it.

I have empathy for people who literally have nothing left after rent and bills but when people who can sacrifice something to be able to afford to buy a house or whatever worthwhile purchase but spend it on going out instead I do really struggle to have any. Life certainly isn't fluffy it might be seen as a little cruel but learning that the world owes you nothing is something I think is important I teach my hopeful future children.

I also forgot to say well done for working so hard and sacrificing so hard to hopefully buy somewhere soon! Trust me it will be completely worth it.

Yeah it is probably the most important lesson to teach your kids, and it is more important than them being really intelligent etc, you just have to compromise on your dreams if you want to do really well in life in terms of owning a house etc. Some people don't have to but they are almost always either incredibly rich or very lucky. Too many in their twenties people grew up listening to Tony Blair promoting the idea that you could be anything you want to be.

I sacrificed my social life, my clothes (a lot of my non-work clothes are still a bit old because I haven't had the money to replace them fully yet), holidays, presents etc to get a flat but it was 100% worth it as I'm not living with a lot of insecurity.

Having said that I don't think previous generations compromised on their dreams because I don't think most people really had complex dreams: they just wanted a lot of the time to grow up, have a reliable job and a family so that is all they aspired to and many of them were a lot happier for it.

I have empathy for people who literally have nothing left after rent and bills but when people who can sacrifice something to be able to afford to buy a house or whatever worthwhile purchase but spend it on going out instead I do really struggle to have any. Life certainly isn't fluffy it might be seen as a little cruel but learning that the world owes you nothing is something I think is important I teach my hopeful future children.

Its just people doing what their families have always done

- underclass attitude to money: go without
- working class attitude to money: spend and enjoy
middle class: save and maintain
upper class: lavish and luxuriate

There are glass ceilings to overcome before you can move up to any higher class level and rightly or wrongly most people look at their circumstances and cards they were dealt and choose to follow the staus quo

Pretty much! If I'm only going to be living up here for another 3 years, there's very little point in purchasing a property for that amount of time, and I might as well get myself a job and get settled in an area before I consider that.

Buying a property for the short term (ie; 3-5 years) can still be very profitable, regardless of moving costs and conveyancing fees.

Sure I didn't make any money in the first year after buying my house. Most, if not all, of the money paid into my mortgage was offset by what I'd spent in conveyancing, mortgage fees, mortgage interest and renovating the property.

However, after living in the house for a year, for every year I stay in the property I make around £7,000 after interest is deducted (and that is ignoring property appreciation).

Sure it can be a pain selling a property but it is not that difficult providing you view the house as an investment first and foremost (ie; picking a property based on value for money, location, ease of selling or renting NOT by the biggest, newest, nicest most expensive property you can buy).

Equally you do have the option of renting the property while you relocate. Rent prices at the moment are very high - most people could comfortably cover their mortgage.

I have never looked back. If I had continued renting I would have spent around £16,000 on rent over the last 2 years, £16,000 paying off someone else's mortgage. Instead I have made over £7,000.

It's more the deposit plus if buy an empty house then need to furnish it (renting you sometimes have option of furnished house) so you need appliances like fridge, washer, cooker then furniture on top.

Also if buy an old house (I bought a new build which still has not been without it's issues, not to mention is a shoebox) then you need money to also do it up as there will probably be something needing done and repairs like electrics, plumbing etc. before you can get to the superfluous things like decorating.