First time buyers - is it still worth buying?
My partner and I are 29 and 33 years old. For the last few years, we have lived at home and saved like mad for a house deposit, with the intention of buying next Summer (2027).
By that time, we should have around £72k, which is enough for a 10% deposit (we live in Bournemouth), a £10k baby fund plus some ££ leftover to renovate / emergency fund.
Between us, we take home around £5,800 a month after tax, which I’d consider a relatively comfortable household income. But a decent 3-bed around here is now approaching £375k. At a 6% mortgage rate, that’s close to £2,000 a month just on the mortgage.
We’d also really like to have children in the next few years, but when you factor in the mortgage, childcare, bills, food and the general cost of living, it’s starting to feel like homeownership + having kids is becoming completely unattainable.
Do we bite the bullet and buy, accepting that things will be very tight for a while? Or would it make more sense to rent?
Moving significantly further away isn’t really an option for us because we both have strong family ties here, and realistically you have to move quite a long way from Bournemouth before property prices make a meaningful difference.
What would you do in our position?