Thanks for sharing this, Katherine - and I’m sorry this was your experience. We had a very similar trajectory in Scotland (my partner bought our one-bed studio at the height of the Aberdeen oil and gas property market + we sold it in 2019 at a 50% (!) loss…bought for 99K, sold for 56K). Our saving grace was that the mortgage was paid down to the amount we sold for, so we didn’t have to add more money.
Now we live on a small island just off Vancouver, and the average house price is $1.2M. it’s a hard pill to swallow as most of our friends here have generational wealth (something else we should all take about) and have not recently immigrated to a new country.
There was a great episode on the Burnt Toast website that compared money health (is that a term? lol) against diet culture. For example, student debt is ‘bad’ but having a huge mortgage is ‘good’. For me, a lot of my everyday is taken up by ruminating on what we did -or didn’t- do right to have 2 young kids and still be renting.
We went to university, we got ‘good’ jobs, we moved across the ocean. We don’t have generational wealth. Our parents can’t contribute to a down deposit (and even if they could, our relationship makes that moot). We don’t have a portfolio of properties that we’re set to inherit. The cost of living is only getting higher. Childcare for pre-school age kids is in crisis where we are. Working parents (overwhelmingly women) are picking up the slack while fighting the gender pay gap…managing our mental health…slowly realigning our bodies and minds after birthing and/or raising babies/ losing babies/ choosing not continue pregnancies…
It’s a lot. You’re right - a sign of the times, rather than a reflection of us as humans. I’m so happy you shared this. Sending all the good vibes for the completion of your sale 💚✨💚
It just all feels like a ticking timebomb... I saw Britain described as an inheritocracy recently and that feels very apt. I just keep thinking, get both kids in school, keep grinding at the job(s), keep the faith, but when the bar just keeps getting higher, you do wonder. I'm so sorry you guys had that gutting experience, you can second guess decisions, but all you can do is go ahead with what we knew or thought we knew at the time. Sending all the good vibes back xx
Inheritance Tax makes inheriting anything meaningful for a middle class Family increasingly difficult, as the thresholds have not moved in decades but inflation (and asset prices) have.
I think there’s a certain difference in perspective for those who moved here from mainland Europe and realise that house prices (and renting!) are absurdly priced in a relative way. My British friends tend to accept it grudgingly, but my European friends know that they will not live here. Personally, I’ll stay three more years for career purposes, and then I’ll move to Switzerland.
More than a time bomb, it feels like quicksand in my opinion. Everyone knows about it, but no government will be strong enough to make the necessary drastic changes. French citizens would just burn stuff, not saying it’s the appropriate response, but it’s better than generational inactivity. Love the term inheritocracy
I am a homeowner in London, aware of my fortune to type that sentence. But I am also American; back home houses sell and complete in 96 hours. Five to six figure sums are parted with almost instantaneously; all parties have skin in the game. But here? At *every* step of the buying process in 2022 I shouted "HOW DOES THIS COUNTRY RUN LIKE THIS".
I also queried my then-new husband, who is British, on his yen to own a home (he booked our first viewing 3 days after we got back from our last-minute-booked-to-avoid-red-lists-during-covid honeymoon). He kept insisting it was the obvious right thing, but never presented any math that made the proposition compelling until of my own volition I started comparing the rent for a 3BR with what we would get with the same mortgage payment, and our desire to have children. But for him no figures merited notice, and mythical ladder loomed in his psyche. In a country long since bereft of the industries that made it famous, it was not lost on me that Boris' first act of the covid crisis was to prop up the housing market with the Stamp Duty Relief. Artificially propping up the only real industry left in the U.K. (house buying and selling) so no one would notice how horrifically he was handling everything else.
I appreciate everything you've written here and even with my own war chest of lessons I have made note of many of your most ardent points.
Thank you for being so honest about such a stressful (and - understatement of century- infuriating) time. I remember reading when you were left with packed boxes ready to move and feeling so awful for you. You’ve created an amazing home now - however long or short the time is - and you should be proud of that. Best of luck for the future..
I am very very lucky to have a house, but Honestly with our mortgage payments, hole in roof we can’t afford to fix, I dream of selling the place every day. Financial bleak hole.
Generation rent, generation stuck, generation would prefer to have been born ten years earlier....I wonder which choices our Gen-Z cohorts will make... Hopefully they will be savvy! X
Thank you so much for being brave enough to share your (very difficult) experience so generously, despite all the anticipated pushback. You did the very best you could do with the information you had at the time, and I honestly think your attitude to such a challenging set of circumstances is totally inspiring. Your boys will learn so much from that. I remember feeling heartbroken for you when you had that horrendous double whammy of your late miscarriage and the buyer pulling out and wanting to scream for you at the unfairness and injustice of it all. But the home and life you’ve created in spite of everything life’s thrown at you (and I don’t think you need to downplay that - it’s a lot for anyone to have to deal with) is so wonderful and I think you and Haden should feel so proud of yourselves.
Housing in this country is so fucked in so many ways for so many people. I'm a forty-something trapped in an east London shared ownership flat thanks to the cladding scandal and all the other stuff you mention. It was supposed to enable us to climb the ladder, but we've been stuck at the bottom rung for years now. And the full market value of our flat has dropped £100k since we moved in.
I’m so sorry, know that’s of little *actual* value. I try to remind myself that living in London by your own steam in any context really is an amazing achievement. Full stop. I think about all the years I’ve experienced in the city, all the amazing memories and the people and it makes me feel less annoyed with both myself for my missteps and the system for its pitfalls. Someone once said to me that properties are like haircuts - even the worst ones will grow out in the end. I really hope that ends up being true for you ♥️
We have a West London garden flat. My husband is always saying not living in a house when we have two kids makes him feel like we've failed in life. We did put the flat on the market after second baby in 2020 but I quickly felt like it had taken over our lives and it was all tome wasters. Now he says, maybe we'll have a house by the time we're 50. For a while we were living in a way to make us more mortgage application worthy but I've given up on that too now. It makes you feel awful. Over the summer i decided I'd use the save stamp duty money and install a garden room we can work and play from and create a better entertaining space in garden. And it's one of the best things I've done. It has increased value but I did it for us. It's our home, it's our lives. Having some pre-determined end goal that looks like success doesn't necessarily make you any happier.
This resonates so much! I know we are lucky to even be able to get on the ladder in London, but when we bought our lovely little 2 bed flat (with no garden) in 2017 everyone told us you have to offer asking price, flats are getting snapped up in seconds, most go for above asking price (etc etc etc). So we felt very happy getting our offer accepted £5k under asking. Fast forward to 2019 and needing more space for the family etc thinking EVERYONE makes money in properly right, it only ever goes up. 2.5 long, draining years on the market. Initially on for 15k over what we paid to cover all the costs. Then went down to what we paid, thinking what we paid in equity covered the difference. Then down 5, down 10...down to £25k less (plus all the fees). Meanwhile the price of what/where we were looking went up £100k.
We're now in, we're happy, I know we're very lucky. But hard not to feel hard done by when seemingly everyone for the last 30years bar the one moment in time you could do it made money and we couldn't even break even 😩
As someone who has just bought a 2 bed garden flat in South London this puts the fear of God in me! I'm so sorry this was your experience but I'm glad to hear you're in a good place now. How much do you think your experience was due to the unforeseeable event of Covid and the fact that flats without gardens became really, really hard to sell? I suppose no one ever knows what will happen. I don't care about making money on my flat but the idea of losing money on it is hard to bear. Did you get any feedback on why the flat wasn't selling before covid?
Not really, just that post brexit the market for investment flats had flatlined. I also feel that because it was so beautifully finished, buyers might have felt that there was nothing they could add and they were paying a premium for something that wasn’t their choosing. But it’s hard to tell… ultimately, it was a gorgeous flat in a great location. Obviously without a garden being a problem post C19!
Congrats on getting through the heartbreak and finding a way. Reading this from the states, it struck me as amazing that two parents are both able to do creative indie jobs, and then it struck me why: It's because you and your family can get reliable healthcare, and it took me a minute to get my head around that while reading. So, just popping in to point out that it's another blessing you can count - enjoying the independence of being mortgage-free and freelance with reliable healthcare for the family! We all deserve that.
Also, I lived in London for years, so I do get that it's much easier to own homes, and buy and sell them, in the states, and I totally get the - how does the country run like that?! - question. But the healthcare in the UK, such as it is, provides a huge safety net. Here, it is untenable and don't even think about leaving a job to do anything freelance without someone in the household tethered to an employer-based (and still outrageously expensive) health plan. Sorry to go off topic! Enjoyed this article and thread, and enjoyed the vicarious-trip back to London!
Thank you for sharing, I’ve had a similar thought less harrowing experience, thought buying a flat in 2015 would help me on my way, almost year years later it’s about to be sold for £7k more than the purchase price (forget stamp, fees and improvements). I can’t complain as I’m lucky to have the opportunity to buy but property doesn’t double every 7years like they’d like us to believe.
This quote is everything: “Finally, tread carefully, don’t rely on advice from anyone who has never bought in your circumstances (or in the past 10 years)”
When we first bought we were given so much unhelpful (and wrong) advice by boomer parents who last bought houses decades ago, some of which led to bad financial repercussions.
Thank you for so openly sharing your experience Katherine - I stumbled across your article as a repost from @Poorna Bell. I am sorry you went through all of this.
Whilst we bought our 2 bedroom flat in 2022, and ever so slightly managed to dodge the bigger rate hikes (don’t get me wrong, it’s still 3.4%), I’m now frequently conscious of how much we spend on making it better (most of it so far not even cosmetic 🥲) vs. future resell/ceiling value.
As you say, there needs to be a systemic change and a collective mindset shift over the “divine right” to own and increase / pass on wealth via property ownership.
Christ this was a brilliant but nail-biting read. People will be so glad you wrote this, so kudos to you. I write property round-ups on here (though they’re kind of a joke) but will link to this piece in next one. Oof. I fear I would have been one of the people telling you to “just buy it, there’s never a perfect time,” so it’s also helpful to see how unhelpful that would have been.
Thanks for sharing this, Katherine - and I’m sorry this was your experience. We had a very similar trajectory in Scotland (my partner bought our one-bed studio at the height of the Aberdeen oil and gas property market + we sold it in 2019 at a 50% (!) loss…bought for 99K, sold for 56K). Our saving grace was that the mortgage was paid down to the amount we sold for, so we didn’t have to add more money.
Now we live on a small island just off Vancouver, and the average house price is $1.2M. it’s a hard pill to swallow as most of our friends here have generational wealth (something else we should all take about) and have not recently immigrated to a new country.
There was a great episode on the Burnt Toast website that compared money health (is that a term? lol) against diet culture. For example, student debt is ‘bad’ but having a huge mortgage is ‘good’. For me, a lot of my everyday is taken up by ruminating on what we did -or didn’t- do right to have 2 young kids and still be renting.
We went to university, we got ‘good’ jobs, we moved across the ocean. We don’t have generational wealth. Our parents can’t contribute to a down deposit (and even if they could, our relationship makes that moot). We don’t have a portfolio of properties that we’re set to inherit. The cost of living is only getting higher. Childcare for pre-school age kids is in crisis where we are. Working parents (overwhelmingly women) are picking up the slack while fighting the gender pay gap…managing our mental health…slowly realigning our bodies and minds after birthing and/or raising babies/ losing babies/ choosing not continue pregnancies…
It’s a lot. You’re right - a sign of the times, rather than a reflection of us as humans. I’m so happy you shared this. Sending all the good vibes for the completion of your sale 💚✨💚
It just all feels like a ticking timebomb... I saw Britain described as an inheritocracy recently and that feels very apt. I just keep thinking, get both kids in school, keep grinding at the job(s), keep the faith, but when the bar just keeps getting higher, you do wonder. I'm so sorry you guys had that gutting experience, you can second guess decisions, but all you can do is go ahead with what we knew or thought we knew at the time. Sending all the good vibes back xx
Inheritance Tax makes inheriting anything meaningful for a middle class Family increasingly difficult, as the thresholds have not moved in decades but inflation (and asset prices) have.
I think there’s a certain difference in perspective for those who moved here from mainland Europe and realise that house prices (and renting!) are absurdly priced in a relative way. My British friends tend to accept it grudgingly, but my European friends know that they will not live here. Personally, I’ll stay three more years for career purposes, and then I’ll move to Switzerland.
More than a time bomb, it feels like quicksand in my opinion. Everyone knows about it, but no government will be strong enough to make the necessary drastic changes. French citizens would just burn stuff, not saying it’s the appropriate response, but it’s better than generational inactivity. Love the term inheritocracy
I am a homeowner in London, aware of my fortune to type that sentence. But I am also American; back home houses sell and complete in 96 hours. Five to six figure sums are parted with almost instantaneously; all parties have skin in the game. But here? At *every* step of the buying process in 2022 I shouted "HOW DOES THIS COUNTRY RUN LIKE THIS".
I also queried my then-new husband, who is British, on his yen to own a home (he booked our first viewing 3 days after we got back from our last-minute-booked-to-avoid-red-lists-during-covid honeymoon). He kept insisting it was the obvious right thing, but never presented any math that made the proposition compelling until of my own volition I started comparing the rent for a 3BR with what we would get with the same mortgage payment, and our desire to have children. But for him no figures merited notice, and mythical ladder loomed in his psyche. In a country long since bereft of the industries that made it famous, it was not lost on me that Boris' first act of the covid crisis was to prop up the housing market with the Stamp Duty Relief. Artificially propping up the only real industry left in the U.K. (house buying and selling) so no one would notice how horrifically he was handling everything else.
I appreciate everything you've written here and even with my own war chest of lessons I have made note of many of your most ardent points.
How!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for being so honest about such a stressful (and - understatement of century- infuriating) time. I remember reading when you were left with packed boxes ready to move and feeling so awful for you. You’ve created an amazing home now - however long or short the time is - and you should be proud of that. Best of luck for the future..
thank you Jenny x
I am very very lucky to have a house, but Honestly with our mortgage payments, hole in roof we can’t afford to fix, I dream of selling the place every day. Financial bleak hole.
Generation rent, generation stuck, generation would prefer to have been born ten years earlier....I wonder which choices our Gen-Z cohorts will make... Hopefully they will be savvy! X
Thank you so much for being brave enough to share your (very difficult) experience so generously, despite all the anticipated pushback. You did the very best you could do with the information you had at the time, and I honestly think your attitude to such a challenging set of circumstances is totally inspiring. Your boys will learn so much from that. I remember feeling heartbroken for you when you had that horrendous double whammy of your late miscarriage and the buyer pulling out and wanting to scream for you at the unfairness and injustice of it all. But the home and life you’ve created in spite of everything life’s thrown at you (and I don’t think you need to downplay that - it’s a lot for anyone to have to deal with) is so wonderful and I think you and Haden should feel so proud of yourselves.
Housing in this country is so fucked in so many ways for so many people. I'm a forty-something trapped in an east London shared ownership flat thanks to the cladding scandal and all the other stuff you mention. It was supposed to enable us to climb the ladder, but we've been stuck at the bottom rung for years now. And the full market value of our flat has dropped £100k since we moved in.
I’m so sorry, know that’s of little *actual* value. I try to remind myself that living in London by your own steam in any context really is an amazing achievement. Full stop. I think about all the years I’ve experienced in the city, all the amazing memories and the people and it makes me feel less annoyed with both myself for my missteps and the system for its pitfalls. Someone once said to me that properties are like haircuts - even the worst ones will grow out in the end. I really hope that ends up being true for you ♥️
We have a West London garden flat. My husband is always saying not living in a house when we have two kids makes him feel like we've failed in life. We did put the flat on the market after second baby in 2020 but I quickly felt like it had taken over our lives and it was all tome wasters. Now he says, maybe we'll have a house by the time we're 50. For a while we were living in a way to make us more mortgage application worthy but I've given up on that too now. It makes you feel awful. Over the summer i decided I'd use the save stamp duty money and install a garden room we can work and play from and create a better entertaining space in garden. And it's one of the best things I've done. It has increased value but I did it for us. It's our home, it's our lives. Having some pre-determined end goal that looks like success doesn't necessarily make you any happier.
That garden room sounds like such a sanctuary ♥️
That is exactly what it is.
This resonates so much! I know we are lucky to even be able to get on the ladder in London, but when we bought our lovely little 2 bed flat (with no garden) in 2017 everyone told us you have to offer asking price, flats are getting snapped up in seconds, most go for above asking price (etc etc etc). So we felt very happy getting our offer accepted £5k under asking. Fast forward to 2019 and needing more space for the family etc thinking EVERYONE makes money in properly right, it only ever goes up. 2.5 long, draining years on the market. Initially on for 15k over what we paid to cover all the costs. Then went down to what we paid, thinking what we paid in equity covered the difference. Then down 5, down 10...down to £25k less (plus all the fees). Meanwhile the price of what/where we were looking went up £100k.
We're now in, we're happy, I know we're very lucky. But hard not to feel hard done by when seemingly everyone for the last 30years bar the one moment in time you could do it made money and we couldn't even break even 😩
As someone who has just bought a 2 bed garden flat in South London this puts the fear of God in me! I'm so sorry this was your experience but I'm glad to hear you're in a good place now. How much do you think your experience was due to the unforeseeable event of Covid and the fact that flats without gardens became really, really hard to sell? I suppose no one ever knows what will happen. I don't care about making money on my flat but the idea of losing money on it is hard to bear. Did you get any feedback on why the flat wasn't selling before covid?
Not really, just that post brexit the market for investment flats had flatlined. I also feel that because it was so beautifully finished, buyers might have felt that there was nothing they could add and they were paying a premium for something that wasn’t their choosing. But it’s hard to tell… ultimately, it was a gorgeous flat in a great location. Obviously without a garden being a problem post C19!
Congrats on getting through the heartbreak and finding a way. Reading this from the states, it struck me as amazing that two parents are both able to do creative indie jobs, and then it struck me why: It's because you and your family can get reliable healthcare, and it took me a minute to get my head around that while reading. So, just popping in to point out that it's another blessing you can count - enjoying the independence of being mortgage-free and freelance with reliable healthcare for the family! We all deserve that.
Also, I lived in London for years, so I do get that it's much easier to own homes, and buy and sell them, in the states, and I totally get the - how does the country run like that?! - question. But the healthcare in the UK, such as it is, provides a huge safety net. Here, it is untenable and don't even think about leaving a job to do anything freelance without someone in the household tethered to an employer-based (and still outrageously expensive) health plan. Sorry to go off topic! Enjoyed this article and thread, and enjoyed the vicarious-trip back to London!
Wish I had read this ages ago. Thanks for your honesty. Bang on.
Thank you for sharing, I’ve had a similar thought less harrowing experience, thought buying a flat in 2015 would help me on my way, almost year years later it’s about to be sold for £7k more than the purchase price (forget stamp, fees and improvements). I can’t complain as I’m lucky to have the opportunity to buy but property doesn’t double every 7years like they’d like us to believe.
This quote is everything: “Finally, tread carefully, don’t rely on advice from anyone who has never bought in your circumstances (or in the past 10 years)”
When we first bought we were given so much unhelpful (and wrong) advice by boomer parents who last bought houses decades ago, some of which led to bad financial repercussions.
A really great article, thank you Katherine 👌🏼
Thank you for so openly sharing your experience Katherine - I stumbled across your article as a repost from @Poorna Bell. I am sorry you went through all of this.
Whilst we bought our 2 bedroom flat in 2022, and ever so slightly managed to dodge the bigger rate hikes (don’t get me wrong, it’s still 3.4%), I’m now frequently conscious of how much we spend on making it better (most of it so far not even cosmetic 🥲) vs. future resell/ceiling value.
As you say, there needs to be a systemic change and a collective mindset shift over the “divine right” to own and increase / pass on wealth via property ownership.
Thank you for sharing this, Katherine. I am so sorry you went through it all and really appreciate you sharing your words of warning.
Christ this was a brilliant but nail-biting read. People will be so glad you wrote this, so kudos to you. I write property round-ups on here (though they’re kind of a joke) but will link to this piece in next one. Oof. I fear I would have been one of the people telling you to “just buy it, there’s never a perfect time,” so it’s also helpful to see how unhelpful that would have been.