Would it be worth moving to a smaller place until you buy (once your lease ends) as that should save money and you don’t *really* need a second bedroom as far as I can tell.

I definitely would put some of your savings into a Lifetime ISA so you get the government bonus when you buy/retire.

I would strongly suggest that you don’t pay off your student loans – if they were set up like US ones, it would be different but I think that the fact that you don’t pay them back when unemployed and that they can be written off makes up for the below inflationary interest.

I’d be wary of buying to let as you’d lose out on incentives for first time buyers and need a bigger deposit if you borrow at all – lots of lenders don’t do BTL for first time buyers.

Regarding the buy or rent issue, I see no problem with renting if you have a good savings rate and invest wisely. Renting is not simply paying of someone else mortgage or throwing money away as a lot of people say; there are many costs involved which come with home ownership. Renting can also give you freedom to relocate to a lower cost area or for better pay. Commuting to London may be tricky due to trains strikes, delays and eye-watering costs.

Finally, I know that you are risk averse but I recommend investing savings in the stock market. I have been investing since 2010 and haven’t regretted it since. I currently hold low cost global index funds through Vanguard and Fidelity UK. I wouldn’t stand having any cash sitting in a 0.5% cash account. For an emergency fund I use a Tesco current account (3% interest on the first £3K and you can open 2 accounts each).

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Lastly, don’t wait for the ‘perfect’ place. In my experience it was the place you want at a price from 3 years ago, and it’s not going to come down. Even in the last property slump good places held their value, they just failed to rise in line with previous expectations.

Good luck!

Just a small point but houses in the UK don’t require a new roof every 20 years. On the whole home maintenance is cheaper for the landlord in the UK ( I am one), and the current rent could actually be the mortgage payment.

I think the bit you are looking for is the USS benefit illustrator. You need your USS member no and it is (unhelpfully) separate to the bit you’ve logged into! It is one of the links on this page: https://www.uss.co.uk/members/members-home/resources/modelling-and-illustration-tools. The bit you logged into would give you info if you decided to take “the match” or earn £55k+.

I decided to take “the match” ie add 1% of my salary (over and above the normal scheme 8%) to the investment builder part of the scheme despite being really risk adverse. I did this as this 1% of my salary is matched by the same amount from my employer so it would have to do REALLY badly to lose what I put into it. I looked at it as being about the same amount as my salary increment increase last year when it started so I didn’t miss it. There are a couple of ethical options too.

Personally I would ignore your student loan for the reasons already mentioned above by others.

As to whether to buy or not… It is a hard one! I made the decision to buy. I ended up buying a flat that needed a bit of work long term but was livable in (functional but ugly kitchen and horrible coloured bathroom suite) but as a result could afford more floor space than some of my friends who bought places needing no work. It has worked for me as now more than a decade down the line the work is done (saved up for over time!) and I still live there and size wise it still works. My friends have all moved to gain more space even if they’ve not had kids. Neighbours do have kids in the same size place as mine so I figured it was a flexible space. If I’d not bought a do-er upper (then saved to do the work) and just continued to save I couldn’t afford to buy my flat now even after the credit crunch. Uni salaries are not keeping up with inflation let alone house prices. I’d do your research based on what you need for the next 5 years but research options too for what you could do if your possible health issues do have an impact. It is hard to plan for much longer than that realistically anyway! Whether you decide to buy or not (and there is no right answer) you’ll be making an informed decision.

Good luck!

Same here. It wasn’t FOMO for us. We wanted our own house, and it had to be a house where we could see ourselves living in for a long time. So whether the real estate market went up or down after, was irrelevant.
So we went with a suburban 4 bedroom in anticipation of kids. We have 1 kid now, and hope for 1 more. And we are glad we really bought then, because our house has more than double in value in value from $600k to $1.3M. If we hadn’t had bought then, we would have been priced out like so many of our friends.

This is such wonderful advice!

Secondly, as a fellow risk averse person, reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing is helpful. If you are worried about the stock market dropping, just put a smaller portion of your savings there. You can add more when/if you feel more comfortable.

Oh I totally get that, I didn’t think you were being disrespectful at all 🙂 I was just trying to offer a different angle on “sketchiness”, but if you’ve lived in this type of area you know exactly what I’m talking about… We have personally decided to buy property in one of these areas because our priotity was affordability (we have a 5-year mortgage which for many people is unheard of!) But yeah, it’s not for everybody. Good luck with your search, I’ll watch out for future updates!