I am nearly 29 and still living at home (just me and my mum in a 3 bed). However I have lived away for 6 years - 3 whilst at uni, and 3 whilst in Manchester. I moved back home 3 years ago.

Have recently started to think seriously about getting a house, however I have little savings to my name currently. After doing some calculations, it would take around 3 years to save for a shared ownership house and around 8 years for a house owned 100% by me.

This is quite a long time to remain at home, however I feel that it would accelerate the process of moving out at opposed to moving out now and renting - having done it before, I don't really want to be putting any more money into someone else's pocket.

I am also aware of the social stigma that is sometimes attached to guys who are 30+ still living at home. In all essence I am essentially a lodger - I pay a reduced rent, and the only thing my mum does for me is cook.

Every person I know who has bought a house or flat has had parental assistance of some kind - even my brother and his girlfriend, who are both doctors, had to borrow money from her family! My parents can't afford to help me, so I am going it alone (unless I meet someone in the next few years).

So all in all, planning on sticking it out for a couple more years till I have enough to move out permanently.

My credit rating is fucked at the moment anyway, so hopefully a long period of stability will improve my chances of getting a mortgage.

Anyone else in a similar situation? Just would be interesting to hear other experiences of living at home/renting/trying to buy a house.

I feel for you, the housing ladder is unforgiving on first time buyers. You've got the right frame of mind though, renting is dead money, although is has it place in some people's lives at certain times.

Paying down debt is always a good investment, so start by clearing the decks and sorting your credit rating out as best you can. Get yourself a cash ISA as your savings pot to make a little tax free interest, and keep an eye on the rates. If the bank cuts the rate after a while (which they will), transfer it to another one.

Then create a spreadsheet, and reverse engineer the target savings dates you need to hit, to get there over a realistic timescale...stick to it and get motivated to be ahead of the targets at all times.

The big one however, which is the radically obvious solution, is: make more money. Sounds a frivolous and difficult comment I realise, but as with pickup, maybe things are not what they seem...maybe you could find a better paying job...etc.

PS

I'm 20 years old.. living at home.. I know its still young, but I do wana move out. Its guna take me a few years to save even a deposit, which kind of disheartens me to even wana do it. I can NOT be arsed with a 90k mortgage round my neck.

I'm looking for higher paid jobs all the time, and keeping my career options open. I'm guna start looking for IT courses for maybe a career shift. If I were you I'd do that too (not IT, but maybe change your income)

Out of interest, what do you do now for a living?

Appreciate the advice man - I'll start looking around for an ISA.

I'm a secondary school teacher so already making a fairly decent amount (£28k) which goes up every year. And I'm only in my second full year, so as time goes on I should be able to save even more money.

Rough calcs thinking out loud. You're gonna need, what, £200k, at least £20k down (if not a lot more), leaving at least £180k, you're gonna need to be on approaching £50k before tax just to qualify on roughly a 4x multiple. Your repayments are then gonna be at least £1100 pcm once rates have gone up in a couple years time to calm inflation caused by the quantitative easing, maybe £700 interest only. So the repayments will eat into your disposable income but are doable, so it's the property value, deposit, and level of income multiple, that you need to be most focused on initially.

Hope helps.

PS

Why would he need 200k for a house? Is it cos the area he lives or something? I'm in the Notts area and there are loads of very nice stylish houses for around 100k to 150k...

Plus I doubt its guna take 8 years to save up a deposit on that cash unless you have loads of outgoings.. im on 13.5k at the min and can save approx 250 - 400 depending on if i have car tax or whatever that month.... But I realise its hard especially if you got debts..

Welcome to the South baby, it's a mad house down here. A basic 2 bed flat near me goes for approaching £250k. True though, it depends what he wants and how much it's going to cost, but he can play with the values, the proportions I lashed out quickly remain roughly sound. Seriously, whilst wages are higher in the South, first time buyers are really struggling down here, there is still house price inflation in some areas despite the recession in recent years. It doesn't help that the housing associations swallow up a lot of the lower end properties. Plus you've got a strong rental market concentrating the number of entry properties available to buy, inflating prices. All quite the challenge for a lot of people, it's not right really that a fundamental need like a home, should be such a struggle but that's how it is.

EDIT: SmileyK, look at "key worker" offers, most planning applications over a certain number of flats have to either have a proportion of housing association or key worker accommodation...get advice from your local council on this there might be some partial ownership schemes in the area where you want to buy, a teacher is bound to qualify for this kind of thing.

PS

Okay fair enough, I've not looked at moving down south. Would cost me too much anyways. I will take a look at your proportions for some of my calculations though...

danieljamie - you're right in that I could save more - that was a conservative estimate as I also plan on starting a 'rainy day' fund.

PostScript - people have mentioned the key worker scheme to me, so will find out more. I went to a low cost housing exhibition in Croydon recently and that was quite useful.

But yes, my calculations were based on a 2 bed costing 250k. Repayments of £1100pcm - wow, but what you have said about interest rates makes complete sense. Really difficult to tell what is going to happen to the housing market in the next 4-5 years.

I do have an overdraft (£2800) and some credit cards to pay off 1st however, so that is the priority for now.

IMO now is not a good time to buy, every piece of research I've done predicts the housing market will crash in the near future, current prices are completley unsustainable and a combination of rate hikes, public sector cuts and restricted lending/high deposits will likely knock of 20-30% minimum from current prices in most places bar London. Prices are going down already and those that are'nt being lowered are not selling.

If your going to save an ISA is a must, but personally I would invest some in defensive shares which pay dividends such as utility companies, drug companies ect (5% annually is pretty common which is better than the 3% you'll get in an ISA, but buying through an ISA means you won't pay Capital Gains Tax), gold which will keep flying and put 10-20% into a selection smallcap gas and mining companies.

Also there is a new government scheme for first time buyers which lends part of your deposit at very good rates and look at buying through auctions as you'll get large discounts once repossesions start kicking in and interest rates make houses less attractive for buy to lets.