Castles in The Sky

It was never easy to get a foot on the property ladder, well that’s unless you happen to inherit at the right time, or Mummy and Daddy are pre-disposed to offering the ultimate handout; a generous 10% or (£20,000) of the average house price in Scotland. The present financial climate dictates that repayments will start at about £1000 a month on the remaining £180,000 supported by a joint income if two of you are sharing, of about £50,000. This assumes you have a squeaky clean credit history of course and,you haven’t already been down the raggedy path of bankruptcy.

So that’s the few in the gilded cage sorted out what of the others, the other first time wannabes who are seeing it as it is. Damned near impossible!

There were a frugal few who wisely stashed away money every month saving for the elusive deposit. While their friends partied, holiday’d and adorned in the latest fashions, while they were meanly huddled in the cold watching last years DVDs.  I know a few of those who proudly saved their 10%’s  are now meanly huddled in the cold watching last years DVDs sitting on negative equity.  Is there no justice?

One answer would be to buy with friends, we’ve all seen TV ‘friends’ and wished ‘if only life was like that’; friends, lovers and companions all under one roof, sharing the cooking, cleaning and languishing on charming conversation.  Oh how quickly friendship and love can turn to hate when money and property is involved.  As brilliant as it looks, if you are going to do it cross the legal t’s and dot the bad tempered i’s or you might be looking a future nightmare in the eye.

Ok so what about shared equity;another great idea where you can share with a Housing Association.. form a queue and sadly if you earn over £60,000 a year between you, you will have to take a demotion. Housing Association schemes in and around Edinburgh are few and far between and they are in designated blocks which might not be every bodies bed of roses. Other schemes are emerging where private landlords can take the other equity share and I’m sure this will present other options for First Time Buyer.

‘Paying rent instead of paying a mortgage‘ my dad always used to say’ is a waste of hard earn’ t money’; ‘you are lining the pockets of the  landlords’. I’m guessing I’m not the only one that’s heard that one.  He had a point of course, because it’s the landlords we see 10 years down the line behind the wheel of a flash BMW getting ready to shell out for their son or daughter’ s £20,000 golden handshake.

The key is time.

It’s never been easy to save for a deposit. It’s never easy to go without now, in the hope of some unknown reward somewhere down the line. The younger you are the harder it is to even think beyond next year, never mind in 10 years time.

Analysing the facts today,  property investment in any capacity may seem mad, never mind for the First Time Buyer. History has taught us however, that we have to speculate to accumulate;  and this philosophy is substantiated by statistics and our wealthy landlord. There is no reason to believe that tomorrow’s history will be any different to any other.

Waiting for tomorrow’s history is in essence the First Time Buyer‘s Demise.