From living on a houseboat to moving back with your parents, four people on how they've coped with not being able to afford their own property – and one on why she regrets buying
In the UK, buying a house is often presented as the only credible option for someone wanting a happy, settled, successful life. We are a culture hopelessly devoted to home ownership. But as the property market has spiralled out of control – in the late 1990s, the average house was five times the average salary, whereas now it is 10 times that, and rising – more and more people, especially young people, are questioning this. One twentysomething I spoke to said that what was now being asked for a house felt like finding a £90 pricetag on a doughnut. And rather than being despondent, many are seeking out more affordable, alternative options, and finding unexpected silver linings …
**Sharing a flat**
Jaber Mohamed, 24, is a reporter for the Haringey Independent, and rents a flat in Tottenham with his sister, Bushra, for which he pays £550 a month
In the three years since he moved to London, Jaber Mohamed has lived in a range of houses and flatshares – and found the one in the most expensive area was by far the most boring. He came to the city as an intern in 2011, and found a room in a shared house in Peckham through the classified ads website Gumtree. At £500 a month, including bills, it is the most affordable place he has lived in in London so far, and he says other friends have had similarly good experiences with sites such as spareroom.co.uk.
For Mohamed, the answer to finding somewhere affordable to live has been to look in areas people often dismiss. Tottenham has a certain reputation, he says, "and for the most part it's nonsense. I've lived in Peckham, Tottenham and Elephant and Castle, some of the, quote-unquote, roughest areas of London, and I've loved them all. I've also lived in East Finchley, and to be honest, I absolutely hated it. It was very boring. Obviously, it's very family-friendly, but if you want a bit more variety and culture in an area, there are much more interesting places." He and his friends live in an old, converted house in Tottenham, which was refurbished just before they moved in.
He recognises rental prices will probably rise in Tottenham soon too, that people are being pushed out of cities such as London, and he would like to see more rent controls. Being able to rent has given him a freedom he appreciates. "Buying a house feels like a massive commitment, like having children," he says. "All of a sudden you have responsibilities, and you're tied down. I'm constantly on the verge of going away, travelling, deciding I want to move country – recently I was contemplating moving to Germany, and before that, Australia. You can't just go and be a fruitpicker on a farm, and live off that, if you've got a mortgage."
* *
**Living on a houseboat**
Paula Haydock, 28, works freelance in TV production, and lives on a houseboat she bought for £24,000
In summer 2010, Paula Haydock was cycling to work along the London canals, when she had a revelation. She could live on the water. Since moving to London in her early 20s she had moved from one flatshare to another, with no prospect of buying a place. She had been left some money by a relative – too little for a house deposit but just enough, she realised, to explore a different option.
Haydock spoke to a colleague who was living on a boat, stayed there to see whether she liked it, then started looking on a website called Apollo Duck. She found a 56ft houseboat for £24,000, and decided to go for it. There's a tiny bathroom with a shower and toilet, a living space with a kitchen, and a separate bedroom compartment, which swung it for her, she says.
Permanent moorings can be difficult to find in London "because those who have them keep them" and so instead Haydock has a continuous cruiser licence, which means she has to move every two weeks. This is included in her annual boat licence, she says, which costs around £800 a year. Moving suits her because, as a freelance, she works in offices all over the city, and it allows her to "pull up near work. I don't have a big commute, which is nice." In fact, "being on the canal is an amazing opportunity to be in the centre of London … You're so lucky, you can be in Regent's Park, and not that many people could afford to live there normally, could they?" Being able to buy the boat outright also freed her from some of the pressures of her work, "because when you're freelance you're always thinking, 'when's my next job, when is the next contract coming in?' And that's not quite as stressful now."
The downsides are the cold in winter and having to empty the toilet every few weeks, but these haven't phased her. She lives on the boat with her rescue dog, Rupert, a staffie cross, and remembers evenings last summer, with her hatch open, as being magical. "A swan will go past, and it's very calm and quiet. You think of London as being so noisy, but it's much more relaxing on the canal."
**Moving back home**
Rachael Jones, 27, works for a PR agency in Shrewsbury, and lives with her parents and younger sister in Kerry, mid-Wales
When she tells people she has moved back in with her parents, Rachael Jones often sees a look cross their face – they clearly think she's taken a step back. But she feels differently. Before moving to her parents' farmhouse almost a year ago, she was living with friends in a small house in Birmingham, spending nearly half her monthly salary on rent. "You can't really enjoy yourself if you're always thinking about money," she says. "There was a strong sense that I was working my arse off every day, and I didn't have much to show for it."
When her company decided to move her job from Birmingham to Shrewsbury – a 40-minute commute from her childhood home – she asked her parents if she could move back in. She's not alone in making this decision. In the UK, 3.3 million people aged 20 to 34 now live with their parents, 26% of the young adult population.
There have been some obvious advantages for Jones. She can now afford a car, and see her friends more often, and the move has given her much more financial freedom to travel too – she's going to Australia in a few months' time, and has been thinking about a trip to South America.
It's also given her the chance to spend time with her family again, and she says the experience is quite different to living at home as an adolescent. "I definitely feel there's more equality in my relationship with my parents, and they respect my decisions and independence." Her family keep about 50 sheep on their smallholding, and she's been helping out recently with her favourite time of year – lambing season.
**Being a property guardian**
Jonny Douglas, 33, runs his own design consultancy, and is a property guardian in Sheffield, paying £250 a month
When Jonny Douglas's friend Jamie first heard about the house they now live in, he assumed the advertised price was an error. The building is a three-storey mansion in Sheffield, built as a private home in 1777, and used over the years as an asylum, a school and, most recently, a community centre. When it fell into disuse, the council decided to fill it with property guardians – a cheaper option than security guards – and the rooms were advertised through Ad Hoc. The £250 a month Douglas pays includes all his bills.
Property guardians live in empty properties – sometimes fairly quirky ones – to help keep them secure, and report any problems that might arise, such as leaks. There are eight people where Douglas lives, and they share a communal kitchen and shower rooms. He has three rooms to himself: a large living room, bedroom, and kitchen. "Including my little balcony, I've got about 1,100 sqft," he says, "which is the size of the average two-bedroom house in the UK."
Concerns have been raised about the limited rights afforded to property guardians – Douglas's contract stipulates he can be given two weeks' notice to leave, for instance, but the freedom to leave also suits him, he says. He has felt settled and confident enough to redecorate his rooms, mostly via Freecycle, where people give unwanted items away. "I've ended up with everything I could want – a pool table, a table football table, dining table and chairs, sofas, carpets. I even got five and a half metres of kitchen worktop and a fridge freezer. The only thing I've spent money on in this place is paint."
There is more than an acre of grounds for him to practise his hobby, slacklining, (a form of tightrope walking), and there are plenty of restaurants nearby. "Every single morning when I get up and walk into the main room," he says, "the sun is coming through the windows – because my room is south-facing – everything's light and airy, and I sit in here, with birds tweeting, and kids running around enjoying themselves in the school nearby, and there's nowhere I would rather be … It's perfect. I don't play the lottery, but the one reason I would is so I could buy this place."
*'I regret entering the housing market so young' by Eleanor Ross*
After university I moved to London to start a graduate role in the Civil Service on an average wage. I quickly got sick of renting grubby, dirty rooms. I had worked thankless waitressing jobs since I was 16, and, coupled with a small inheritance from my late grandmother, I'd been able to put aside a small sum of money. My boyfriend suggested that we should look into buying. I thought he was joking. Rich kids buy houses, I did not. Before long he'd booked us into a whirlwind of appointments with banks and we were told that we could look at getting a small mortgage.
A "small mortgage" stretched to a one bedroom in the least salubrious area of London's zone two, which we were assured by the estate agent was "up and coming". We jumped and our offer was accepted. I felt overwhelmingly fortunate, and surprised. Perhaps it was a rushed decision or perhaps it was just a "two fingers up" to everyone who said that this generation were lost.
Although buying a flat gave me enough financial security to leave a job I hated and start a journalism masters', I still regret entering the housing market so young. Newspapers in London have stopped hiring and I'm terrified that I'm going to end up unemployed and saddled with a mortgage when I finish my Mastersgraduate. Friends have accepted job offers in Hong Kong; a few more moved to Singapore, or Berlin. In London, the job market is saturated with graduates. On job sites, adverts for jobs based abroad dominate in my field. At university we're encouraged to look further and further from the UK, to the Middle East and to China. But I'm tied to London now, I can't leave.
I can't bear to even think what will happen if I can't get a job on graduation – will my home be repossessed?
What may have been right for my parents' generation, who bought when the job market was buoyant, is possibly not right for mine. Because of the conditions of my mortgage, I can't even rent the flat out.
Something that should be a pleasure, feels like a noose around my neck. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.
In the UK, buying a house is often presented as the only credible option for someone wanting a happy, settled, successful life. We are a culture hopelessly devoted to home ownership. But as the property market has spiralled out of control – in the late 1990s, the average house was five times the average salary, whereas now it is 10 times that, and rising – more and more people, especially young people, are questioning this. One twentysomething I spoke to said that what was now being asked for a house felt like finding a £90 pricetag on a doughnut. And rather than being despondent, many are seeking out more affordable, alternative options, and finding unexpected silver linings …
**Sharing a flat**
Jaber Mohamed, 24, is a reporter for the Haringey Independent, and rents a flat in Tottenham with his sister, Bushra, for which he pays £550 a month
In the three years since he moved to London, Jaber Mohamed has lived in a range of houses and flatshares – and found the one in the most expensive area was by far the most boring. He came to the city as an intern in 2011, and found a room in a shared house in Peckham through the classified ads website Gumtree. At £500 a month, including bills, it is the most affordable place he has lived in in London so far, and he says other friends have had similarly good experiences with sites such as spareroom.co.uk.
For Mohamed, the answer to finding somewhere affordable to live has been to look in areas people often dismiss. Tottenham has a certain reputation, he says, "and for the most part it's nonsense. I've lived in Peckham, Tottenham and Elephant and Castle, some of the, quote-unquote, roughest areas of London, and I've loved them all. I've also lived in East Finchley, and to be honest, I absolutely hated it. It was very boring. Obviously, it's very family-friendly, but if you want a bit more variety and culture in an area, there are much more interesting places." He and his friends live in an old, converted house in Tottenham, which was refurbished just before they moved in.
He recognises rental prices will probably rise in Tottenham soon too, that people are being pushed out of cities such as London, and he would like to see more rent controls. Being able to rent has given him a freedom he appreciates. "Buying a house feels like a massive commitment, like having children," he says. "All of a sudden you have responsibilities, and you're tied down. I'm constantly on the verge of going away, travelling, deciding I want to move country – recently I was contemplating moving to Germany, and before that, Australia. You can't just go and be a fruitpicker on a farm, and live off that, if you've got a mortgage."
* *
**Living on a houseboat**
Paula Haydock, 28, works freelance in TV production, and lives on a houseboat she bought for £24,000
In summer 2010, Paula Haydock was cycling to work along the London canals, when she had a revelation. She could live on the water. Since moving to London in her early 20s she had moved from one flatshare to another, with no prospect of buying a place. She had been left some money by a relative – too little for a house deposit but just enough, she realised, to explore a different option.
Haydock spoke to a colleague who was living on a boat, stayed there to see whether she liked it, then started looking on a website called Apollo Duck. She found a 56ft houseboat for £24,000, and decided to go for it. There's a tiny bathroom with a shower and toilet, a living space with a kitchen, and a separate bedroom compartment, which swung it for her, she says.
Permanent moorings can be difficult to find in London "because those who have them keep them" and so instead Haydock has a continuous cruiser licence, which means she has to move every two weeks. This is included in her annual boat licence, she says, which costs around £800 a year. Moving suits her because, as a freelance, she works in offices all over the city, and it allows her to "pull up near work. I don't have a big commute, which is nice." In fact, "being on the canal is an amazing opportunity to be in the centre of London … You're so lucky, you can be in Regent's Park, and not that many people could afford to live there normally, could they?" Being able to buy the boat outright also freed her from some of the pressures of her work, "because when you're freelance you're always thinking, 'when's my next job, when is the next contract coming in?' And that's not quite as stressful now."
The downsides are the cold in winter and having to empty the toilet every few weeks, but these haven't phased her. She lives on the boat with her rescue dog, Rupert, a staffie cross, and remembers evenings last summer, with her hatch open, as being magical. "A swan will go past, and it's very calm and quiet. You think of London as being so noisy, but it's much more relaxing on the canal."
**Moving back home**
Rachael Jones, 27, works for a PR agency in Shrewsbury, and lives with her parents and younger sister in Kerry, mid-Wales
When she tells people she has moved back in with her parents, Rachael Jones often sees a look cross their face – they clearly think she's taken a step back. But she feels differently. Before moving to her parents' farmhouse almost a year ago, she was living with friends in a small house in Birmingham, spending nearly half her monthly salary on rent. "You can't really enjoy yourself if you're always thinking about money," she says. "There was a strong sense that I was working my arse off every day, and I didn't have much to show for it."
When her company decided to move her job from Birmingham to Shrewsbury – a 40-minute commute from her childhood home – she asked her parents if she could move back in. She's not alone in making this decision. In the UK, 3.3 million people aged 20 to 34 now live with their parents, 26% of the young adult population.
There have been some obvious advantages for Jones. She can now afford a car, and see her friends more often, and the move has given her much more financial freedom to travel too – she's going to Australia in a few months' time, and has been thinking about a trip to South America.
It's also given her the chance to spend time with her family again, and she says the experience is quite different to living at home as an adolescent. "I definitely feel there's more equality in my relationship with my parents, and they respect my decisions and independence." Her family keep about 50 sheep on their smallholding, and she's been helping out recently with her favourite time of year – lambing season.
**Being a property guardian**
Jonny Douglas, 33, runs his own design consultancy, and is a property guardian in Sheffield, paying £250 a month
When Jonny Douglas's friend Jamie first heard about the house they now live in, he assumed the advertised price was an error. The building is a three-storey mansion in Sheffield, built as a private home in 1777, and used over the years as an asylum, a school and, most recently, a community centre. When it fell into disuse, the council decided to fill it with property guardians – a cheaper option than security guards – and the rooms were advertised through Ad Hoc. The £250 a month Douglas pays includes all his bills.
Property guardians live in empty properties – sometimes fairly quirky ones – to help keep them secure, and report any problems that might arise, such as leaks. There are eight people where Douglas lives, and they share a communal kitchen and shower rooms. He has three rooms to himself: a large living room, bedroom, and kitchen. "Including my little balcony, I've got about 1,100 sqft," he says, "which is the size of the average two-bedroom house in the UK."
Concerns have been raised about the limited rights afforded to property guardians – Douglas's contract stipulates he can be given two weeks' notice to leave, for instance, but the freedom to leave also suits him, he says. He has felt settled and confident enough to redecorate his rooms, mostly via Freecycle, where people give unwanted items away. "I've ended up with everything I could want – a pool table, a table football table, dining table and chairs, sofas, carpets. I even got five and a half metres of kitchen worktop and a fridge freezer. The only thing I've spent money on in this place is paint."
There is more than an acre of grounds for him to practise his hobby, slacklining, (a form of tightrope walking), and there are plenty of restaurants nearby. "Every single morning when I get up and walk into the main room," he says, "the sun is coming through the windows – because my room is south-facing – everything's light and airy, and I sit in here, with birds tweeting, and kids running around enjoying themselves in the school nearby, and there's nowhere I would rather be … It's perfect. I don't play the lottery, but the one reason I would is so I could buy this place."
*'I regret entering the housing market so young' by Eleanor Ross*
After university I moved to London to start a graduate role in the Civil Service on an average wage. I quickly got sick of renting grubby, dirty rooms. I had worked thankless waitressing jobs since I was 16, and, coupled with a small inheritance from my late grandmother, I'd been able to put aside a small sum of money. My boyfriend suggested that we should look into buying. I thought he was joking. Rich kids buy houses, I did not. Before long he'd booked us into a whirlwind of appointments with banks and we were told that we could look at getting a small mortgage.
A "small mortgage" stretched to a one bedroom in the least salubrious area of London's zone two, which we were assured by the estate agent was "up and coming". We jumped and our offer was accepted. I felt overwhelmingly fortunate, and surprised. Perhaps it was a rushed decision or perhaps it was just a "two fingers up" to everyone who said that this generation were lost.
Although buying a flat gave me enough financial security to leave a job I hated and start a journalism masters', I still regret entering the housing market so young. Newspapers in London have stopped hiring and I'm terrified that I'm going to end up unemployed and saddled with a mortgage when I finish my Mastersgraduate. Friends have accepted job offers in Hong Kong; a few more moved to Singapore, or Berlin. In London, the job market is saturated with graduates. On job sites, adverts for jobs based abroad dominate in my field. At university we're encouraged to look further and further from the UK, to the Middle East and to China. But I'm tied to London now, I can't leave.
I can't bear to even think what will happen if I can't get a job on graduation – will my home be repossessed?
What may have been right for my parents' generation, who bought when the job market was buoyant, is possibly not right for mine. Because of the conditions of my mortgage, I can't even rent the flat out.
Something that should be a pleasure, feels like a noose around my neck. Reported by guardian.co.uk 7 hours ago.