(no subject)

[nmg]

I live in Southampton. I am a postdoc researcher in academia. I earn somewhere in the region of £25K. I do not own a house. The thought of buying a house at today's inflated prices fills me with terror, quite frankly.

As a consequence, the ramblings of idiots like this are apt to provoke apoplexy in me. How on earth can he be earning £45K, live in shared accommodation, and yet have only £5K in savings? There's plenty there for mortgage payments and a pension - what on earth does he spend the money on? How can he have failed to put together a deposit on a salary like that?

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

How can he have failed to put together a deposit on a salary like that?

Frankly, pretty easily to be honest.

It depends on many factors, including what your basic level of debt is and the other costs associated with buying a place. It's not just the mortgage or deposit. You've got Stamp Duty, legal fees, survey and a shed load of other things. Assuming a £150K property - which will be a 1 bed in a partof London you might not want to live in, then you're looking at £11K+ to get a 95% mortgage and move in. Sure he might be able to put aside £1K a month but I know I couldn't, not with my rent and supporting a partner in a second degree.

Sad as it sounds your outgoings do expand to swallow your income. When I was earning £12K I thought £25K was a fortune. At signficantly more than that you find yourself working harder and going out for more meals and so forth.

Sure you probably could economise more, but you might be working in a way that makes it unpalatable.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm only marginally older than that guy; the combination of my salary and LNR's comes to somewhere not so far from his; and yet I have savings left over from not only paying the deposit on a house but also spending the immediately following year unexpectedly unemployed. (And we're paying into pension plans, too.) I really don't have any sympathy for him - the thing that makes it difficult for him to buy a house is not stamp duty but his own failure to save up.

If he was supporting someone through university, or something like that, then my opinion would be quite different, but he doesn't mention any such thing.