I read a startling article the other day about home ownership and was curious to find out if people think ownership of a home is as important as it was in the past and what are your views on how the housing market may change in the next few years?

According to numerous "professionals" we are looking at new generation of young people who would rather rent instead of buying. In a survey of 8,000 people aged between 20 and 45, only 5% of those described as "Generation Rent" (those with no realistic prospect of getting on the housing ladder) are making spending sacrifices to save towards their first home. The remaining 95% have no spare cash, no interest in saving or are trying but failing to save.

Is getting on the property ladder is important to you then why is this so?

What schemes have you tried/are you trying?

Are you open to new schemes? - if so you may be interested in facebook.com/GetOnThePropertyLadderNow

What are your thoughts?

I think home ownership would be a great long term investment but it doesn't seem like that will be an option for a longgg time lol.

P.S - Just liked the facebook page sounds great :-)

Why do you feel that way Mr South?

Hey Chatzby- are you conducting a research study into this or just interested?

Personally- I am aiming to be a home owner, but it certainly isn't going to happen in the next few years. Most people on here are researchers, and many of us are on a PhD stipend, or on short-term research contracts, which isn't enough to secure a mortgage. The only people I know doing a full-time PhD at around my age (< 30) who have a mortgage are those with partners with good jobs and a permanent contract (of course there must be others, but I'm talking from personal experience).

I'm just starting a post-doctoral position which initially comes with a one-year contract, although the team will be applying for funding to get it extended (but this is nowhere near guaranteed). My fiance is just applying for teacher training and so we will have only a single income for that year. Then at some point I will be taking a break to start a family (all being well). So whilst I would love to get on the property ladder, it isn't going to happen until we both have a steady income, and that may well take years. I realise that there are a lot of organisations now offering a mortgage with just a 5% deposit, which will help, but even though we could save that up relatively quickly, getting approved for a mortgage is out of reach for us at the moment.

Best, KB

I am 23 and basically single; I am a year into my PhD which doesn't have any funding attached. So I still have to live with my parents at the moment and can see this being the unhappy case until I finish my PhD unless a minor miracle happens. So being able to rent somewhere is my dream at the moment; then after my PhD if and when I get a job paying off any other existing debts will be the priority rather than having a mortgage. So I think I'll be renting until I'm about 35, realistically speaking, although if I get married or whatever buying somewhere might be a bit easier. To be honest I haven't thought an awful lot about it, renting somewhere seems ambitious enough at the moment. The other thing is that I live in London which is a comparatively expensive area and I wouldn't really want to move away from the city; most people who I know who live more centrally than me (including those in their 30s and early 40s), are still renting; it seems to be the more popular choice in London.

Hi Keenbean,

It's a little bit of both actually. I'm hoping to do an Dphil in economic history next year and this topic has always interested me, we rarely get to study such things however (so I guess this is more sideline research). I think that the psychological security that owning a home use to give people does not exist any more. The changing economic conditions mean that it is now the norm 'not to own a home' but more interesting to me is the norm is also 'not to [WANT TO] own a home' which is what the figures I posted seemed to show.

I was interested to initiate the discussion here as I think as post-grads we are in fact in a better position to make choices about where we live and where we want to live, in the sense that we have more time to decide, we have options to choose different things. An example of this is you saying you have the 'aim' to become a home owner, many friends of mine outside of study have no such aim.

You make some really salient points. The whole having partner and secure job issue is of course of utmost importance and I think people often underestimate how important the former is and overestimate how important the latter is especially in discussions renting/letting vs owning. But what is your opinion on the other options there are out there for people i.e the hybrid renting to buy schemes. Do you think these new schemes are more advantageous to certain groups of people i.e postgrads or do you think it will be possible in the future for everyone to benifit from these new ways of securing property? And are these questions even relevant anymore?

Again really interesting....having a partner and money both come into it as I said to Keenbean, but you've raised a point about area and being a Dphil student! That's just made me think....do you think there should be more opportunities for people in post-graduate study to have access to housing, be that renting (at a subsidised rate), or the move to purchasing/shared ownership through said university? Especially for people in your position...

Well coupled with fact that I am going to come out of uni with a huge debt over my head as well as the economic downturn I doubt that job opportunities are going to be jumping out at me, but I guess you have to remain optimistic in life as anything can happen. I would love to own my own home, some where secure that I can call my own.

me and my then bf bought a house in our undergrad 1st year. We then rented 3 rooms of it out to our friends,for reasonable rent, to may the mortgage and each year we got different people in. We continued to that until about 2 years ago where we kicked out the final set out housemates and took it on as our own home (we're now married). We both did PhDs so budgets are sometimes tight, and now we're looking to do it "all posh" so if we want to sell in the next few years we can. its worth noting that our mortgage for our 3 bed semi is much lower than rent would be on a 1 bed flat in the same town, so its really getting past the deposit which is the tricky issue.

Where I live, to buy the house I live in now would cost approaching £300,000, maybe £265,000 if we were really lucky. The rent is £850 per month. The INTEREST payments for the mortgage would be around the same if not slightly more, PLUS once you buy you have to pay for: Building's insurance, Boiler/Heating repairs, other household repairs and you are tied to living there until you can sell it, at which point you need the property value to have gone up by more than the two lots of agents fees of a few thousand pounds (when you bought it and when you sold it) plus inflation (very high at the moment!) to make money on it in a market where the price is not going up steadily and may actually decrease.

Why spend all that money and take such a big risk? We could buy a smaller house, but why live somewhere less nice? People say renters are "burning money" but if the interest only repayments are near enough the same as the rent would be then actually you are probably "burning" less money than someone with a mortgage, plus you can put all those savings you would've spent on the deposit into high interest savings accounts and make money off them.

We have an obsession in this country with buying - and sometimes it's a good choice, there are a few benefits - but loads of people feel an obligation to buy when it really makes no sense.

Location is key - we live in a city which is lovely, but when we bought, our house was £170k, our next door neighbours just sold their (smaller by 1 room) house for £240k so we're hoping we'll make money on it, but tbh we love the city so much we'll probably be there for at least another 5 years.

I'd love to own my own home, for two reasons - one is that renting feels insecure and getting things like repairs done is just a constant battle with an agency that never want to pay out for anything (took them 11 weeks to fix my broken heating last winter!), and the other is that my partner and I can't live together at the moment because he has a mortgage (negative equity) on a flat that's too small for 2 people. If we could get a mortgage together we could live together. But it's not currently possible on either of our incomes.

If renting was more like on the continent, where tenancies are more secure and tenants have more rights, I'd be perfectly happy to rent forever. But that's not how it is here in the UK, so yes, eventually I want to buy something, just because otherwise I'd be in a different financial position to the norm in our society, and that would make me nervous about e.g. provision for retirement.

Hi, I'm a joint home owner with my man. There are pros and cons...

PROS:
We now pay about £200 a month less than we would if we were renting a house the same as ours (and that is on a 10 year fixed rate - so secure for now).

The kids may have an inheritance.

We will be mortgage free in 10 years, so more money for us to spend on what we want :)

We can do what we want to the house (as long as we work with planning permission if needed, etc)

CONS:
We may have to sell the house to pay for our care when we're older.....

We have to repair and maintain the house ourselves.

Moving is REALLY expensive


I have to say that we first bought a house together 17 years ago, when I was 18, so we are in the lucky position of actually having some equity, which helps! I think both renting and buying can have benefits.

Caterpillar x

Congratulations, you seem in a good situation. I think one big reason though is that you bought 17 years ago. The market is completely different now, with prices sky rocketing and mortgages far harder to get for new home buyers. I think many people are simply financially better off renting nowadays than they would be buying. If you can become mortgage free then you suddenly have a LOT more money to spend! People my age and younger (26) have it a lot harder, what with the global financial situation. You must be glad you bought when you did (up)

Hi, yes, really glad we bought when we did, but being so young we had a lot of sceptical comments! I remember my stepmum saying that we were only playing at house!!!!!
Also even though houses were cheaper, wages were a lot lower, so it was no easy task getting a mortgage! It was easier than it currently is though, as deposits were minimal.
My sister is in the horrid position of saving and saving........, but even now she has a substantial deposit, she still cannot get a mortgage high enough to buy anything on her wage:-(