This is the situation that I am in. I got married many moons ago, and thought about buying a house. The idea was to rent it out whilst in the Army and let the tenants pay my mortgage. Something in the back of my mind told me this was not a good idea. I left the Army and got divorced. Then I knew why I didn't buy. She would have fleeced me for half the house.

Now married again and would love to have my own house. We actually went out and went house hunting. We worked out our finances found that we would be able to afford a house of about £90,000. We went out and looked at houses in that price range. NOTHING there, unless we bought a 1 bedroom dilapidated house on the corner of some rundown area.

As time goes on and we get older the opportunity to buy a house looks more and more remote. So now we rent a nice big semi-detached with the knowledge that we will never own our own house. The good thing about the place that rent though is it's an assured tenancy, so as long as we continue to pay the rent, we can stay put without the fear of being turfed out. On top of that, we can make any alterations to the house as we see fit. So long as it improves the the condition or adds value to the house the choice is ours.

So although we will never own the house it's nice to know that we can actually make it the way we want to.

We waited for the housing market to crash, believing that it must be coming some time soon, but as others have said, it looks to be further and further away.

I would'nt bet on there being no property crash.We've lived in an artificial boom for some years now sustained by high government spending on the public sevices.This has kept unemployment down and allowed property to go up and up,but I suspect the gravy train is entering the siding as public finances are no longer able to support the spending we have got used to.As government spending is cut back unemployment will rise dramatically as there are fewer and fewer real jobs in industry for the surplus workers to go to.It's like a bubble that busts when enough people realise the economy can't sustain the property boom.
I shall now go and tell the Emporer he is not wearing any clothes. :lol:

Whoopie. So when the property boom collapses I still wont be able to buy because I'll be unemployed. :roll:

i too feel sorry for first time buyers, how can anyone afford to get there foot on the property ladder now? i know on my salary i couldnt do it now.

I think Jenni has a good point. With all these programmes on tv on house buying, improvements etc, people want to live in nice areas in nice houses. Im probably guilty of that as i currently live in a decent area and i dont want to move to a rough area. Im prepared to pay the money to get the house i want. The only worry is if the market crashes and i end up in negative equity. However, the general consensus is that house prices will rise 4% this year.

Here in Shrewsbury the local council has a target of building 500 affordable homes within the next few years. But every time they find a site, people protest cos they don't want housing association houses lowering the tone and also the value of their own houses. It's just downright snobbery, I wrote to the paper about it - where are people supposed to live - I don't know. It's a desperate problem.

housing can be quite expensive here in the states, but fortunatly, there is a lot of inovative financing available

where i was staying, for just a bit more than my house is worth i could have afforded a 5 bedroom house on a few acres of land! that was in north western indiana near michigan city, not too far from chicago - about 60 miles!

I have 2 plans:

Plan A - Buy a place in France in a couple of years, renting out my current place so it covers the Mortgage

Plan B: If/when my son goes to Uni, buy a place in that town for him to live in, and maybe rent a couple of rooms out to other students.

Selling one of the properties at the right time and using that capital to help my son fund his own place is the only way I see him getting on the property ladder.

In Europe purchasing is not the norm, most people rent and are happy to live in apartments. House ownership seems to be a very "British" trait.

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Have you researched this much? The more I visit France the more I like the place and indeed the people, however, my neighbours are French, and they paint a very different picture, of corruption, bad politics and high taxation. ( Oh hang on, maybe thats here... )