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I'm going to buy a House! (file.coffee)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by sag@lemm.ee to c/comicstrips@lemmy.world

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[–] Aggravationstation@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago (30 children)

I'm English so can't comment on the situation in the US, but reading the comments in this thread it seems quite similar to the one here.

I bought a house in 2010, just before I turned 23 and I'm very much the exception to the rule. I live in an area with some of the lowest house prices in the country. I didn't go to University and got my first full time job when I was 19. It didn't pay well but I lived at home and I was a stoner. I didn't go out much, just to friend's houses to get high. My town is walkable enough that I didn't need to drive (I get that not driving isn't really possible in the US, or even in some parts of the UK).

This meant I saved up a lot of my money without really trying. The house I bought cost £41,000. I sold it in 2022 for £39,000 which should give you some idea of the state of it.

My Dad bought a house in 1986 for £12,000. I can see that house from the one I live in now, which cost me £79,000 in 2022.

[–] mFcGlNBcfr@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Those house prices sounds absolutely insane to me.

I'm also in the UK, but I'm in the South East, so house prices are very high. Still managed to find a "cheap" house recently due to the location being a bit rough.

For comparison, my house that I'm buying is £345k (it's 2 bedrooms with a separate garage and 2 bathrooms). I saved up a £125k deposit by living with my parents for the longest time (I think it took me about a decade). The exception being for 3 years when I house shared - the rent was £325 per month with bills included, but my room was effectively a glorified cupboard.

I will also say that I was saving lots and lots of money with my old job. I'm a software developer, so my salary was good (started off at £22.5k, went up to £45k with about 10 years experience and being a senior dev, then our company got bought out and my salary went up to £55k). A year later and I switched jobs as the annual salary increase was £150 (for the whole year). Ended up with a £75k salary w/ bonus, private healthcare, etc etc. I really lucked out at that moment.

As to why I didn't buy a house earlier with my deposit, there was two reasons:

I had saved up about £100k before for personal savings, then that money went to help a sibling (call this sibling A) with their property. My parents sold a property aborad to effectively give me back the money, but the money was split between me and another sibling's bank account (call this sibling B) because of financial advice given by my uncle. What then happened was sibling B didn't give me back the money and was being incredibly difficult about the money, and since they have a history of being difficult in general, I decided I was going to save that money instead.
Sibling A wanted to start their own business, but it effectively flopped for all sorts of reasons. They had amassed a loan of £15k, and I helped pay that off. This was while sibling B was being incredibly difficult.
Main reason: At the time, I didn't know if I really wanted to stay at the job for so long, and if I did want to stay, I didn't want to move into the area where my job was - despite the convenience, the area was incredibly rough - almost GTA like (and that is no exagerration). I didn't know where I wanted to live, and the places I would be interested in, I effectively had no clue as I was living with my parents at the time.

So yeah, buying a house in the South of UK isn't easy at all. It requires a ton of patience and luck.

[–] Aggravationstation@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Jesus, that's insane.

My house has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and no garage. It is, I'd say, in the second worst part of town but crime rates here are still fairly low. I paid over 4 times less for it than yours just 17 months ago.

TBF house prices here have increased since then and you're looking at around £100k minimum for a place like this now, but still, that's mental.

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