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

J0hnb0y said:
I work offshore so really I could live anywhere.
Click to expand...

All the more reason to get out of London. You're not on footballers salary, but you are on above average working men's pay, so find a nice place where both you and the missus would be happy - one with potential for her cafe to start up and better schooling for your future to have kids.

Why forced to pay more than required and when you have kids, it's either send them to private school or risk sending him/her to a city comprehensive. (Nothing against them but at the rate Mr Gove is going, it'll end up worst rather than better.)

If you want to plan ahead, look beyond just what you money can buy now. Look beyond just an extra room for your expanding family.
 
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 said:
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.
Click to expand...

How old are you if you don't mind me asking? (BTW - you don't need to justify your current earnings to anyone, I find the UK is generally anti-success, unless your a mindless celebrity or footballer, then you deserve to get paid £100k just to get out of bed and should be worshiped by the masses accordingly :rolleyes:...)
 
I agree, it's ****.

What's the government doing about house prices in London? Encouraging new homes? Building more socialised housing? Nope, they're giving buyers loans to inflate the property prices even further. :(
 
J0hnb0y said:
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.
Click to expand...

No one doubts your work ethic, we all work hard to have nice things. I think people are suggesting your expectations are perhaps slightly unrealistic. £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?
 
Last edited:
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?
Click to expand...

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...
 
London prices are exactly why my girlfriend and I have completely sworn off living there. We have friends who are renting and just about getting by but we've sacrificed seeing them all the time to have a manageable standard of living and a nice apartment. We're fortunate that our jobs dont require us to be in London and that was actually part of the reason for choosing this career path in the first place.
 
25% deposit at 1.33x main breadwinner's annual salary seems fair to me, we paid similar for our first house (although the ratio of deposit:takehome was probably lower than yours when tax is taken into consideration).

Like others what I'm struggling to get to grips with is why you have your heart set on London given that you mostly work offshore - is it down to your partner's cafe business? From what you've said it isn't particularly profitable so maybe you could buy a much cheaper property elsewhere and invest the saved funds in setting her up with a business in that area. The only reason I'd live in London would be if I worked there.
 
Why not look at places on the outskirts and commute in? I bought a house with my girlfriend in Welling, Kent. 3-bed semi with 100ft garden and 4 car driveway (once we get it done) for £230k.

If you need to be in London It's less than 5 mins walk to the station and train in Zone 4 (Oyster) direct in to Charing Cross, Victoria and Cannon Street takes 35 max. A lot of people I work with live more centrally in London and only save 20 mins a day commuting and live in much smaller places. Moving further out doesn't mean living in the sticks or losing your life to the commute!
 
Move out of the smog.

It sounds like there are no real reasons to stay. God knows it isn't the place itself!

£300k could get you a beautiful home in a nice area. There's no reason to live in London.
 
Some people like the smog. I know I do. :)

But, yeah, you have to compromise on something. I ended up buying a tiny flat as my first home. It's not perfect but I love being 5 minutes walk from multiple tube lines/a cinema/great restaurants/shops.
 
Can't you keep renting, then buy a nice house outside London for the weekend? See it as more of an investment, in case kids come along then you could leave London. I assume the kids will knock the coffee shop on the head?

On a side note, does you oil company have asset management people? I work for a utility atm and would like to move into oil and gas in the near future.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
J0hnb0y said:
I have no idea how people born and raised in London that don't receive 100k bonuses can ever get on the property ladder.
Click to expand...

In general, they can't.

House prices, like most things, are largely controlled by supply and demand. In London especially, the demand for housing is very high and this keeps the prices high.

Getting on the housing ladder anywhere isn't easy though and for most people the hardest part is saving a suitable deposit. I was lucky that my family was able to help out on that side of things, because even with a very good wage, most 'decent' places were outside of my reach. Without their help I'd just have had to set my goals slightly more realistically and either bought a smaller place, or moved somewhere less desirable.
 
FYI train into Kings X takes around half and hour from North Herts (Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth area) and you'll get a nice house for £300K.
 
if i was you i would move away from the smog, like everyone has suggested....

even if you were to take a pay cut, but in my experience london does not really pay much more or not in my industry at least.

even if you took a £15k pay cut, a 2/3 bed semi would cost about half to 2/3rds a weeks wages on the monthly payment :) away from london (prices are about £150k). Its not to bad in the country we have internet now and you can just about get a mobile signal if you climb a tree.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom