[forebirdo]

This is pissing me off!!! [cursing]

Ive been with my girlfriend for quite some time, but we both still live at home with her parents. We decided before Christmas that in the new year we would look to get a place of our own...

Weve been looking to buy a house in our area (Shropshire) and got a few guide prices... Were looking around the £100,000 mark for our first house, and priced up a mortgage... OH MY GOD!!! For a £100k mortgage (with 10k deposit), were looking to pay back over £80k in interest alone! OUTRAGEOUS!!!

This really pisses me off, as a 16 year old girl can get pregnant, have a baby and then claim a free council house.... free of charge!!! Us on the other hand, were both 22, not looking to have kids for a few years, and have to get in a shed load of debt for this.

Its just not right!!! We aint having a kid for the sake of getting a house, we dont believe leaching money from the state.... Its completely unfair.


Is there any other help for a first time buyer... can we get some support, grants, funding or help towards a home?? For earning a living, and planing to have a family later in life, we get shafted [help]

/Rant over....

[nryFBa9i]

I wish houses were £100k where I lived. Im lucky to find a flat that costs less than £150k. Houses are at least £350k; will take me a few years to get a deposit for that! But i feel your pain, no matter how much I work, the only feasible solution is to live at home or pay outrageous rent somewhere else...

[forebirdo]

Must i point out, for £100k the house isnt amazing, but its a start.... Not to mention mortgage repayments, looking at £600 a month, its horrific, how do people live!

My car alone costs £350 a month [thumbdown]

[NewYorkDoctorD]

Jeesesh what is your interest rate for both?

[Adfcvkdg]

welcome to the real world.

in truth, borrowing £100,000 over 25 years and paying back ~£180,000 is not that bad of a deal.

if you were to lend somebody £100k for 25 years, how much do you think would be fair?



should work out around £600 a month, which between 2 is nothing. factor in your bills and rates, probably looking at £450-475 a month each on your home... if you don't think you can afford that, don't even consider making the move. some recent figures claim as many as 1m people in the UK are paying their mortgage on their CREDIT CARDS, so you need to be secure before considering this.

buying your first house, especially if you haven't lived on your own [i.e. away from a parental figure - you have no idea how much responsibility they carry for you] is difficult, stressful, and most of all EXPENSIVE.



anyways, good luck, and consider your self very lucky. around here, £100,000 buys you a 1 room studio. 2 bed apartment or house, talking minimum £180,000, and thats for a shitter.

oh and lose the car. of you're buying a house, it's priorities time.

[Tainlyferfara]

I can't see myself moving out anytime soon, least till I start getting paid a LOT more
£100k doesn't get you hardly anything here either...

[forebirdo]

oh and lose the car. of you're buying a house, it's priorities time.

Yea, weve taken that on board... and its looking that way to be loosing the car... I think im going to have to sell/send back the car and get a cheaper model...

Thats some crazy figures with the credit cards, i dont think thats going to happen.


I have lived away form home while at university, so i know how to manage money, save on food etc etc

Thanks for advice

[Adfcvkdg]

i read back what i wrote - it's so negative!

hope it didn't come across that way!


sounds good that you're already thinking about your car. i had initial qualms about dropping down to a 106 diesel (went from ~20mpg to ~40 - huge saving, not to mention i went from 3,000 mile servicing to 1 service i did myself in 3 years!), while friends were still caning around in their nice expensive new cars ... but after a a year, having made ~£15,000 on my flat, i pretty soon realised it was a worthwhile 'sacrifice', and also taught me the value of things all over again. having a good income and living at your parents is not real life - it's the easiest, most relaxed time you'll ever have.

sounds great that you've got that bit of life experience with your uni living, can only really be helpful towards what you're setting out upon

again, good luck to you

[orillaVar]

Whilst it is a lot of money, it's quite a bit less if you take into account inflation which will, in time, make the payments less in real terms and there is also the point that as your income increases the payments will be a smaller proportion of your outgoings.
A lot of people make a big thing about the house also going up in value over time but, IMO, that is a poor way of thinking about it as it'll only be realised when the property is sold and then the place you'll be moving to will also have been going up in value - net gain is probably sod all and may even be a small loss.

Best thing may be to really knuckle down in the savings now whilst looking for a good property in a good area OR an undervalued property in a reasonable area that you can renovate, but beware, it can be a lot of work and it's not always guaranteed to give you a huge profit. Regardless of what you do, putting the money in now can mean big savings overall.

[JonatonM]

you guys dont have foreclosure houses there ? here you can get a house for like 60-90k when its under foreclosure... granted it will probably be in bad condition, but then you can fix it up over time.

[Michaelnewerb]

I'll sell you a house for about £70,000, completely remodeled interior!

[Anydayhybeall]

do it like this guy and alot of other people did http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_ne...984517,00.html

[twinaircant]

Emmigrate. lol.

UK has become expensive and ridiculous to own a house. Most people are moving to Spain. For the equivalent price, you can get like a huge villa with a pool!

Our previous house was on the market for £42k at the time when we got it (2004) It's now at over £130k (o.O)

[orillaVar]

That is still cheap - house prices* down here are absolutely rediculous! 150k pounds would only get you a reasonable three bedroom house. To add insult to injury, the average wage down here is about 18k pounds but many are failing to get by on a lot less than 10K - "fortunately", there are some allowances if you've kids, etc, but not a lot.


This country is one of the few that DOESN'T have a capital gains tax on houses - so higher earning people are buying them up at no deposit/100% finance, putting in tenants who don't quite cover their expenses so they have to pay a few thousand a year additional to cover the interest payments (they don't pay principal) etc. The theory being that as house prices are rising at around 10 - 15% per year, or more, they can sell at a much higher price and pocket all the profit - no capital gains, remember.

The result is THEY drive up the house prices (and those desperately trying to buy their first homes before they get even higher) but, fortunately, the developers are at least as greedy and there is developing an oversupply of flats and houses whilst there is a shortage of people willing to buy from them or the speculators. In the last six months, or so, house prices have even dropped a few percent in some places.

[Nikitka]

lol your 22 and i guess your girlfriend is about the same age, right ?
Geesh dude don´t be that stupid.
Go for an apartment first, give it some time.
The last thing you´ll be wanting is to be paying for a house that she might be living in if you guys break up.
I´ve seen it happen plenty of times,..

in the mean time, you can start saving up money with your girl,
makes the whole thing cheaper in the end.

[unioneserry]

i am lucky as in where i live you can find houses which are fairly resonable in price, like a 3 bed house for about £130k or so which is fairly reasonable

i know what you mean though as the cost of it is very high, the fact there are 2 of you only and the area you live in is not going to help as well

i would agree with golem though, renting is a good idea as living with someone is very different to just going out with them. i was with one of my ex's for 2 years and was going to move in with her the following year but things went wrong, may not be the case for you but i would rent together first as its less of a commitment in the long term not that i am saying you are going to break up

saying that my last gf bought a brand new 3 bed semi by herself and i have no idea how she managed it, i know being a teacher helps but still very difficult but i beleive she had a very good deposit for it

biggest problem is getting your foot on the property ladder, once you are on it will be a lot easier in future

[cingularring]

http://www.thisisg2.co.uk
Me and my girlfriend just recently bought one of these, im not sure of new locations that might be springing up... might be worth taking a look if theres a similar development happening anytime soon in your area.

[Poll Pitt]

That's why I live in the middle of nowhere. $50k in BFE got us a decent house.

Nothing you can do except deal with the interest. And ignore Golem's idea of an apartment. :P Better to throw money away on interest for a house than to give money to a landlord for something you'll never own. Houses can be a bit of work, and unlike an apartment you have to pay for your own repairs.. but its totally worth it. I would hope that with your combined income you could afford a one bedroom house. I assume you only need one bedroom, rigth?

Oh, and make sure its something you could afford if things go sour. Don't go for a fancy house, get something simple and affordable. If its in a nice neighborhood it'll at least hold its value and be resellable.

[Rounteetepe]

Here in Cambridge house prices are very high.
However I work about 6-7 miles outside of the town centre, so that immediately helps with prices.
It's then just a matter of setting priorities.
We could have bought a 2 bedroom house that was about a 10-15 minute drive from work.
However as we moved further away from the town so prices dropped - you could get more house for your money.
So we decided on what the maximum journey time for me to get to work could be - I decided I didn't want to be more than a 45 minute drive.
We then factored in places with good public transport for the wife (who doesn't drive) etc.
So eventually we found a 3 bedroom semi and are just starting our 5th year of repaying.

If you cannot afford to buy where you are now then look at going further away from major towns.
For the sake of a 30 minute drive every day you could find a massive saving on property.

Oh and I think I would agree with a post a little bit above.
You've not lived together yet - do you really want to go into a mortgage without making sure everything will be OK?
Me and the wife rented for a couple of years (before we got married) before we went into the whole mortgage thing.

[portoskins]

The prices in the UK are a real problem. Here in Holland myself and my wife bought a 2 bed (3 if you count the converted attic) terraced house for 179k euro. For the same price in the UK, in my home county of West Sussex, you would not even be able to buy a crappy 1-bed flat for that money.