The "oh my god I need 100k deposit" thread

J0hnb0y · 18 May 2013 at 14:19

Don't you just love being forced to live in London... I've been looking a lot at houses lately and it seems I'm going to need something in the order of 100k just to get a 25% deposit together. This is for a 2/3 bedroom terraced house in North London.

The government scheme won't help me out because the only houses I can find are upwards of 300k and at this price they need a lot of work. This thread is more of a moan than anything!

I'm right in thinking 25% is more or less a minimum deposit? Which will leave me with a mortgage of about 250k and about £1200 per month repayment for 25 years. I think I do ok on 75k per year before tax, but this is ridiculous. It seems my options are to leave my girlfriend and move out of London, buy a 1 bedroom flat or carry on renting.

Apologies for the rant. On the odd chance I get a deposit together in the next year I'll make a post about how much everything is costing!

J0hnb0y · 18 May 2013 at 16:45

I wasn't intending to brag. I was having a moan about the fact that I earn a pretty decent wage in the grand scheme of things but need an enormous deposit to buy a pretty small house.

My girlfriend is struggling to even pay herself a wage at the moment. She owns a coffee shop but it isn't exactly turning a profit. It just about covers the rates...

Seemingly I can get a mortgage on 350k with a 50k deposit, though I end up paying the best part of 1800 pcm for the mortgage alone.

Thanks for throwing some options out there. The camper is looking more and more appealing!

J0hnb0y · 18 May 2013 at 19:35

Derek W said:
are you 'forced' to live in london? do you 'have' to have a 2/3 bedroom terrace?

You have to lower your expectations cos by and large you wont be able to get what you want in terms of location and size.

It's a bitter pill to swallow. What I want would require footballers wages to afford in London. What I thought would be affordable is on the edge. The annoying this is I work my ass off to try to afford the best I can, which at the moment is an old council house in need of renovating. Makes me wonder why I bother but that's another story. It's a very sad state of affairs made worse by the way things are in the housing market. People are hardly going to stop relying on the state when you need 4 years wages (on 30k like most of my friends) just to get a deposit together for a house that many people are given for nothing

J0hnb0y · 18 May 2013 at 22:11

I currently live in Tottenham (bit of a dump) and am looking in North London, Southgate / bounds green way. If I can find somewhere for 300k that doesn't have the north Circular for a front garden I'll be mostly happy. The one thing to be said for london is owning a property here can be seen as an investment

J0hnb0y · 19 May 2013 at 12:14

I don't need a 2/3 bedroom terrace just like I don't need your sarcasm written from your bedroom in your parents house.

The fact is I'm not complaining about not being able to afford a 6 bedroom mansion in Hampstead. Want I want is really very modest.

I work offshore so really I could live anywhere. The stereotypical thing would be to live in a palace in Thailand with a collection of mail order brides to go with my frappe. No thanks I'll just keep saving for a house for my girlfriend and I and pretend we won't ever need another bedroom... For a family and all that.

In a more educated note in liking the government plans for interest free loans though will await more details on just how interest free they really are...

J0hnb0y · 19 May 2013 at 14:18

I don't mean to get anyone's back up in this thread. I've suddenly decided to try to buy a house and it shocks me how expensive the whole thing is that's all. Appreciate the life lessons, it seems I am extremely naive or blissfully ignorant.

Anyhow, I'm going to lower my budget and see if I can buy a property for around 300 and then work a few extra months in the year to do it up. To put things into perspective I have been working 12 hour days (that's my shift) for the past 7 weeks and still have 3 weeks left. No going home, dodgy food etc etc. I sacrifice a lot to earn a decent wage.

J0hnb0y · 19 May 2013 at 14:55

Adam said:
No one doubts your work ethic, we all work hard to have nice things. I think people are suggesting our expectations are perhaps slightly more realistic. £300k buys you very little in London but significantly more if you look Rutherford afield. Seeing as you don't need to live in London then perhaps this is feasible?

I've come to realise very quickly that 300 will get you very little :-(

I'm going to put the house plans on hold and bury my head in the sand for a couple more years. Perhaps then my girlfriend (wife?) will be doing really well or she'll sell the lease and we can start again. It'll be very interesting to see what comes of these government loans in January, whether this will increase the cost of housing further or create a bit of a crisis like that seen in the USA. Perhaps that's the time to buy...

J0hnb0y · 20 May 2013 at 10:06

I am Mr renewable now. I work freelance on the wind farms which incidentally is a very much growing market

J0hnb0y · 20 May 2013 at 11:18

Scougar said:
Sounds like it more than just you involved in this.

1) Your girlfriends business is only just ticking over, making little.
2) You earn a pretty good wage that does not require you to be in London.

Frankly, why the heck are you guys still there? It would seem more sensible, for the GF to attempt to sell the business, and you guys move to rented accommodation elsewhere for a while, and the GF get another job.

Your wage would not be being wasted on excessive expenses from London, and you'll save a deposit much faster. The important part here is that once you quickly save the deposit you can always move back to London if you so wish.

In my mind, the question isn't what am I going to do, but what are WE going to do.

All very true but by the time I actually have something resembling a deposit she may see the bigger picture or she may be making a real success with her business.

I am utterly staggered at the prices involved in this. How the hell do people afford houses in London? Even 1 bedrooms are phenomenally expensive, the majority of which surely can't all be owned by companies etc. I have no idea how people born and raised in London that don't receive 100k bonuses can ever get on the property ladder.