Buying a house

[kymmy]

In your opinion is it possible to raise a family
and have a comfortable standard
of living
as well as buying a house?
We are getting a lot of pressure
to buy a home.
We are single income
on minimum wage.
And our young family comes first.

[zenifa]

Can't answer your question Kymmy, except to tell you my situation. DH has a decent wage and I work part time, with no childcare costs (grandmas look after DD), and our only debt is the mortgage. We consider our standard of living comfortable but don't have much money to spend on luxuries such as meals out, movies, concerts, holidays, clothes etc. I guess it is possible, but not easy.

[MZmama]

I really hope its possible kymmy!

We had planned to buy a house a couple of months before i fell pregnant, and we ended up buying when i was 3 or so months pregnant and now we will be a one income family trying to pay a fairly hefty mortgage..

My DP isnt on minimum wage, is average so hopefully we will be ok.. just remember you should be able to get some money from centrelink/family assistance too.

Good luck with your decision! :)

[kymmy]

My hubby talk about buying a home
but it is in the future
as i said ,
our children come first
we do get government assistance
but i just don't want to put our lives on hold
to buy a hose
that we may sell
cos we are always fighting
and we divorce..
Is that the worst that could happen?

[MZmama]

I totally understand where you are coming from, just remember tho once you have little kiddies the amount you are able to borrow decreases, so banks may not be as willing even though you might very well know you can afford it!

[kymmy]

I totally understand where you are coming from, just remember tho once you have little kiddies the amount you are able to borrow decreases, so banks may not be as willing even though you might very well know you can afford it!


That is the problem!

We have 3 children now
we want at least 2 more.
Having children now is more important.

we don't want to go into debt.:devil6:

[MZmama]

We thought about staying in a rental as it would of been easier, but at the same time the sooner we bought a house the better off we would be in the long run.. i mean we were going to do it sooner or later so why not now?

We said as long as we are together we dont care if we dont have HEAPS of money to go out to dinner etc.. I am sure whatever you decide you will be happy! :hugs:

[zenifa]

I got pregnant the month we moved into our new home, so we were a little stressed at how we would cope financially with a mortgage, costs of a new baby, plus a reduced income. Its a personal decision and you have to put your family's needs first. If your relationship isn't stable, then it may not be wise to get into such a big financial commitment, like a mortgage. The financial pressure of a mortgage can also lead to more tension and arguments between spouses. Also if you are wanting more children, then as long as you have a roof over your head, does it matter if its rented or owned (by the bank mostly anyway)?? Good luck with deciding what is right for you.

[kymmy]

Also if you are wanting more children, then as long as you have a roof over your head, does it matter if its rented or owned (by the bank mostly anyway)??


EXACTLY
thanks

[Ana Gram]

I gotta say, wee are on a single income and my partner earns a decent wage and we could never afford a morgage!

[ThomasMum]

Everything is possible these days. Depends your priority, and yes from our experience we can still have all the fun (holiday on regular basis etc) mind you though we bought the house long before Thomas was born, and NO the bank doesn't own it anymore! :smiliedance:

I have posted in general section long ago abt this stuff whether its best for you to buy a house or rent etc, I'll see if I could find the post and will copy and paste it here...

TM

Here we go


Hi,

Most banks offer free financial planning (basic) and you'd have to pay for a detailed plan. On independence, every financial planner has a product they want to push - the advantage with banks is they have either home loans and/or other investments. So if you're open to both, they should do a good job of outlining a strategy.

You could of course shop around a couple of banks to get free financial planning advice - see who is easiest to work with.

The other thing you could do is find an accountant, but most generally charge for a financial planning meeting. You may also try a specialist financial planner on http://www.fpa.asn.au/

A financial plan will cost you from $375-$3000 depending on how many investments and sophisticated you want to get (i.e. if like us: we have shares, property, international shares, trust funds, etc. then it's pricey). But you pay for them to look after it so it's money well spent.

Lastly you could always look at a book ;-) or if you want to go easy try picking upa copy of something like Money magazine. If you want to just take your chances, I think Paul Clitheroe (editor of Money magazine) does free advice in the Sunday Telegraph (NSW) if you write in - but then who knows your chances of being the letter he responds to (1 or 2 per week) that gets free advice.

Not being a financial planner or anything, I can't give advice. But someone famous once said "If you want to live in a house, buy a house". Keep in mind you will always need somewhere to live. If you want to work out where you're better off renting or buying, check out this: Calculator (http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=loan&t=res)

Hope this helps :)

ThomasMum (Bubhub dated 25.11.2005)

[LittleBoysRock]

DH, DS and I have moved back in with my Mum to try and save for a house. It was impossible to save for a deposit and pay rent. DH is well paid and even so we can't lend what it costs for a house on a single income. I am not prepared to put DS in care so I think we might be waiting a while.

[Ana Gram]

Our priority is actaully being able to eat! It would probably take us 20 years to save a decent deposit and with that loan recalculater we could only afford a 30 year loan of $150,000, couldn't buy a shoebox with that!

[sugar n spice]

I think its possible i mean we owned our own home well morgaged then sold it and now we are building a bigger and better house:smiliedance:. We are only on 1 income i mean he does get a good wage but its still only 1 income. We dont get to go on holidays but at the same time i buy whatever i want. It is hard at the moment as we are paying rent while building so rent and morgage is hard but in the long run it will be worth it

[reAllytee]

Its hard very hard but its possible !
You need to look at what your priorities are etc then also understand you wont be able to afford the best house in the best suburb.
We had planned on buying a house a few months later than when we did but as we found out i was pg we hurried it along. We worked out that as it would be only a single income family that we had to lower our standards so to speak so looked in different areas to those we previously had scouted through.
We were lucky that we had investments ourselves so had a decent deposit which helped us get a smaller mortgage that we could afford & we then went off that to where we could buy & what we could afford.
So we bought a 3 bedroom townhouse in an area we would never have thought of before but its still nice & we are slowly doing it up & making it our own. The thing is to get into the Sydney or major cities markets you have to start small so we were happy we found something to start at.
As i said its very hard & some weeks you wonder whether it worth it but we worked out that we wouldve been spending more on rent anyways & its better we are paying off our own place.
Good luck i hope you can work something out but also remember if you guys are happy where you are & with what you have then thats ok too not everyone has to be a home owner !

[MissSparkle]

I don't think owning a home is a necessity. If its not at the top of ur priority list then don't get pressured into it.

DF and I bought our house when I was 17 and doing my hsc (and pregnant). DF was 22 and working as a full time chef. Im not sure what average, minimum or high income is considered these days but we manage to have some of the luxuries we want for ourselves and most importantly DS. I work part time and we get not government assistance besides childcare. We plan on buying another house soon after we get married next year.

We just chose to do it this way because DF refused to pay rent when we could be paying a mortgage.