Is The Property Market Unfair to First Time Buyers?

brisan wrote: »

You think its wrong for a parent to give their child a bed
You think its wrong for a parent to help a child with a gift AFTER they have saved their deposit
you think it is wrong to help a child move to a better area with better schools for their children
if so that says more about you than it does about me

Nobody said it was wrong. But it disadvantages those who don't have these options. People who are often already disadvantaged from having abusive parents, or parents who died young, are now even further disadvantaged again.

You were talking as if it were a meritocracy, as if people just needed to pull their socks up and 'make sacrifices' to own a home rather than have the good fortune to be born to well off parents who had the means to support them into adulthood and give them cash for deposits.

Could your children have bought when they did if you hadn't helped them at all? If not, you have absolutely no right to tell people they just need to work harder.

brisan wrote: »

Yes

Explain that. How would your daughter have been able to buy when she did if she hadn't been able to save by living with you?

I assume most people work 9-5/6. Excluding Covid times whats to stop people getting a job in a bar, restaurant etc for a year or two. Would bring in another 500 pm after tax and excluding tips.

We're very fortunate to have a deposit. Before I met my gf I saved for a deposit on my own which took me 2 years(this month being the end) for a place of 350k. My partner at one stage worked 3 jobs (before I met her) to get her deposit ready with her base job then around 32k. Now she earns a decent bit more in her current job but had to make huge sacrifices, she didn't have even a weekend away for 3 years! I work on average 60 hours a week but thankfully my package is good but career has cost me a lot personally to get here. Together we should have enough 15% deposit on a 500k place an a 3 month emergency fund which will be brought up to 6 month asap! On the side she is still considering an extra job for 2/3 monthst o get our emergency fund up quicker! I invest which brings in enough to pay for a free trip away each year.

We both paid for uni by working (I did grinds and a cleaner at weekend, she worked in a hotel). Student loans is honestly an awful idea and any student that I went to college with excluding medicine had time for an external job. Actually, thats not a full truth, my friends son is doing medicine and has a weekend job to pay for his own stuff (but yes he lives at home). My ex had a 2.2 in Media studies from a dog **** University and left with 20k in student loans and ended up ina job that was possible from A-levels only. Not a dig at her but I am still perplexed how her family let her do that.

Tbh though, life is not fair. I don't believe everyone is entitled to own their own home. For example, look on the continent where they rent for life, some people will never be able to afford their own home.

@lainey_d I am struggling to believe what you are saying about saving is 100% exact. I'm not saying you are lying but maybe a bit off. The UK tax rate is lower than Ireland. Why are you not doing a LISA provided by the govt there. You put in 4000 a year and they give you 1000 add on each year. This repeats itself over 4 years. So you put in 16000 and receive 20000. Then if you put in an S&P tracker in the LISA any gains are tax exempt. Over a 4 year period your probability of making a positive return is in the high 80th percentil. Return likely around 10% either side, so in 4 years you will have put in 16000 and MAY walk out with somewhere between 18k-22k (once it is used to draw down a house. Any other savings can go into another ISA. Its all free money The! The general rule if you are struggling to get a house deposit together is to stop your pension for 2 years and throw that money at the deposit. A 2 year period won't make a huge difference in your net worth if you own a property upon retirement.

I'm nearly sure UK companies now have to give a min of 4% towards pension anyway (open to correction on that).

My brother and his gf are doing this and expect to have to save for 3.5 more years out of 5 on a 300k place in Watford which has a 15min speed train to Euston. Plenty in the outskirts also e.g Reading. I think they earn about 75-80k between but this will likely rise a decent bit by then due to passing professional exams.

PHG wrote: »

I assume most people work 9-5/6. Excluding Covid times whats to stop people getting a job in a bar, restaurant etc for a year or two. Would bring in another 500 pm after tax and excluding tips.

You're pretty good at the old ableism, aren't you? I have a chronic illness and struggle to even work full time. A lot of people with my condition aren't working at all. And having a chronic illness or disability isn't as rare as you probably think. How many people in other generations had to work an extra job on top of a full time job just to buy a house?

We're very fortunate to have a deposit. Before I met my gf I saved for a deposit on my own which took me 2 years(this month being the end) for a place of 350k. My partner at one stage worked 3 jobs (before I met her) to get her deposit ready with her base job then around 32k. Now she earns a decent bit more in her current job but had to make huge sacrifices, she didn't have even a weekend away for 3 years! I work on average 60 hours a week but thankfully my package is good but career has cost me a lot personally to get here. Together we should have enough 15% deposit on a 500k place an a 3 month emergency fund which will be brought up to 6 month asap! On the side she is still considering an extra job for 2/3 monthst o get our emergency fund up quicker! I invest which brings in enough to pay for a free trip away each year.

Oh no, not even a weekend away! I pretty much had no holidays or weekends away between about 2007 and 2012 because I couldn't afford them. Not because I was saving for a deposit, but because I literally had no money left over after paying for essentials.

We both paid for uni by working (I did grinds and a cleaner at weekend, she worked in a hotel). Student loans is honestly an awful idea and any student that I went to college with excluding medicine had time for an external job. Actually, thats not a full truth, my friends son is doing medicine and has a weekend job to pay for his own stuff (but yes he lives at home). My ex had a 2.2 in Media studies from a dog **** University and left with 20k in student loans and ended up ina job that was possible from A-levels only. Not a dig at her but I am still perplexed how her family let her do that.

I worked all the way through college. Didn't stop me needing loans. How many hours were you working that you could fund rent, bills, food, transport and everything else while doing a full-time course?

Tbh though, life is not fair. I don't believe everyone is entitled to own their own home. For example, look on the continent where they rent for life, some people will never be able to afford their own home.

Sure, but would you not say that average earners with full time jobs should be able to buy something by the time they're, say, 35? Yet many cannot.

@lainey_d I am struggling to believe what you are saying about saving is 100% exact. I'm not saying you are lying but maybe a bit off. The UK tax rate is lower than Ireland. Why are you not doing a LISA provided by the govt there. You put in 4000 a year and they give you 1000 add on each year. This repeats itself over 4 years. So you put in 16000 and receive 20000. Then if you put in an S&P tracker in the LISA any gains are tax exempt. Over a 4 year period your probability of making a positive return is in the high 80th percentil. Return likely around 10% either side, so in 4 years you will have put in 16000 and MAY walk out with somewhere between 18k-22k (once it is used to draw down a house. Any other savings can go into another ISA. Its all free money The! The general rule if you are struggling to get a house deposit together is to stop your pension for 2 years and throw that money at the deposit. A 2 year period won't make a huge difference in your net worth if you own a property upon retirement.

I am doing that, but as you say yourself, investing is risky and I could end up with 2K extra, or at best 6K, IF everything went well (which it probably won't...we're about to go into a major recession). It's still a bit of a drop in the ocean in terms of the amount I actually need to save.

jill_valentine wrote: »

Welcome to the land of Zero Hour contracts -

They're designed to split shifts so you don't have to pay anybody for breaktime (ie when they're not working). They also don't want any individual worker to accrue enough hours for too many entitlements etc.

What this means is that bars have a huge staff, but with shifts that are scattered all over the schedule in dribs and drabs rather than running in a chunk. Every bar in the city is run this way, and most restaurants, because most are run by either PressUp or one of their competitors and that is their business model. I used to have to plan zero hour schedules and my flatmate is a barman - every second is accounted for, handovers are either done on your own time or don't happen, and it is taken for granted that you're going to work extra hours for free to cover off the end of your shifts on the regular.

A part time job in today's market does not mean a job you can do along with another one, it means a job you're available for at all times, whatever times suit your boss. In bars and restaurants that means you need to be as available at 9:00am for prep for as you are at 7pm for a hen party. And sometimes both, the dreaded swing shift which is usually on a Friday, where you essentially work two shifts, in the morning and evening, prepping stuff for the whole weekend in the morning, then going home for just long enough that it's technically a separate shift so they don't have to pay you for your break, and then coming back for the evening shift. That gap in between? Is somebody else's entire shift.

So what's this got to do with a 9-5? Well, the first thing a catering or pub job will ask you for is your "Availabilities". You will hear this term all the time, and you'll usually get a little grid to fill out. If you don't have Availabilities they won't hire you. If your Availabilities change and you no longer suit them all the time, you "won't be scheduled" next week. A Zero Hours job I used to work had me work a one hour shift more than once. It wasn't worth the travel cost, but I had to do it or... I might not be scheduled.

I'm all for nixers - Covid killed both of the ones I sometimes did, alas - but bars/restaurants in Dublin are the last place to go about it, it's an industry gone the way of McDonalds.

Absolutely.

I was lucky enough to be able to teach TEFL classes every night after college, which were fixed hours that fit in well with my lectures, but only because I'd already got a degree, the CELTA qualification and a few years' experience. It wasn't an option open to the average student or full time worker. And it only just about covered my rent. I still had to take loans out to cover the other costs.

I simply do not believe anyone can get a good degree in a worthwhile subject while working enough hours at typical student jobs to cover all of their living costs.

Donald Trump wrote: »

Here is a calculator. Assume a 30 years mortgage.


2.3% rate (2 year fixed with KBC) gives a monthly repayment of 1560 per month on a 300k mortgage


IF there were 15% interest rates then the repayment on a mortgage of 125k would be 1580 per month.


Granted, that is extreme nowadays but it wouldn't have been exactly crazy in the 1980's.




The reason that the house price might now be 300k is that that is what the buyer is willing to pay for it. That same buyer, inflation adjusted, might have been only able/willing to pay 125k for it back in the day. But everyone else was subject to the same environment and all were able to pay only that amount. So the price was 125k. But that 125k back in the day might have been as affordable as 300k now. They had higher taxes back then too. Especially on higher income levels.

Replace 125k with 30-40k and that would make sense. 125k in the 80s would buy an entire street!

Idbatterim wrote: »

there are a lot of posts, saying what you did to get where you are now, well done, I am currently doing it! BUT, BUT why does it need to be so hard, why are many given for free for what you burst your balls for? and if people dont see the financial correlation between one gang given everything for free and then the others struggling to pay for what the others get for free, I really do wonder!

Well do you think it should be easy or just easier? Isn't it short term? Like the saving and planning and buying is really short term pain in the grand scheme of things.
As for people getting things for free, its the country we live in and I doubt any of us can do anything about that

JimmyVik wrote: »

lainey_d_123 you are what a teacher I had in secondary would call "a walking excuse factory"


Every time someone challenges your last excuse, you have another one lined up to come right after it in your next post. You must have about 50 of them built up in the posts you have made to this thread already.



Honestly with that attitude im surprised you even bother getting out of bed in the morning.

What a pathetic response.

A perfect illustration of how ableism is applauded in society.

Despite having a chronic illness and being on the autistic spectrum, I put myself through college twice, did professional qualifications at my own expense and spent time learning additional skills to make myself more employable, including learning three languages to a very high level. I graduated into the 2008 crisis and spent years doing menial work for sh1t money while trying to find something better. My initial career choice wasn't an option when I graduated, so I went into something else, that didn't work out either, and I retrained in tech at 33. The course was brutal on my mental and physical health but I pushed through it and eventually got a decent job in it. I work very hard, and work very long hours.

I've never been on the dole a day in my life and am paying out close to a grand in tax and national insurance with each paycheck here in the UK, while having to fund my own therapy and physio sessions because the NHS isn't fit for purpose.

But none of that matters, eh? Because I as a 35-year-old woman with poor health can't work 3 jobs and survive on 4 hours sleep a night and Red Bull for several years, just to get a deposit on a one-bed flat, I must just 'not be trying hard enough'.