I'm 25 and I want to start saving for a house. Where do I start? šŸ”

Forget shared ownership, completely unaffordable and expensive. Discount market scheme is the way to go, Iā€™ve ended up buying a share of a flat, within a luxury estate with gym, pool, golf room etc and paying no rent!

Doesnā€™t this depend on what you want to do with your house/flat?

If you want somewhere to live without rent, then great, go shared even if its a smaller amount you own.

If youā€™re after a house to keep for years, make changes to it and knock down walls etc, then any shared ownership might not be the way to go.

Yes, but mainly I would say its to do with affordability. Shared ownership is a great option if you canā€™t afford a full house on your own (esp. if deposit is the challenge)

Hard to argue with free rent! But i wouldnā€™t say shared ownership is unaffordable or expensive at all, it can be a great deal - you just need to shop around hard to find the ones with cheap rents (which tends to be the old resales)

So you still own a portion of a house/flat and share the ownership? :confused:

Yes. But Iā€™m highlighting two different schemes rather than the literal words.

When I looked at shared ownership, as a scheme, it was unaffordable where I was looking, a normal rent with a normal mortgage just made the monthly expense too high.

DMS is shared, but you live ā€˜rent-freeā€™ and just pay your mortgage, making it a great option for getting a foot on the ladder in London, within excellent central locations.

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Ah okay thanks for clarifying, I wasnā€™t aware of the differences.

Having now done some reading into both, shared ownership doesnā€™t seem very good. Owning 50% of a Ā£200,000 house would be a mortgage of Ā£100,000 and still paying service charges + rent (3% annually of unowned portion). This would still put total spending at Ā£800+ per month for a 25 year mortgage

A 10% deposit and Ā£180,000 mortgage then comes at around Ā£950 per month.

I think i have this right? In which case I completely agree with you, shared ownership is terrible!

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Iā€™ve heard not good things from people who have done Shared Ownership :disappointed:

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I can second this.
My Mum needed a new phone and doesnā€™t have a 0% credit facility, so she went with these guys for a phone plus SIM.
Brilliant service and the deals are very good. Customer support via phone is also very good and the person on the other end was very patient.

I did the same last year - have already had Ā£2000 worth of bonus!

Youā€™ve already reached the limit for the year? :scream:

I put Ā£4000 in in feb last year, then another Ā£4000 in May.

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I started from scratch last June, so only incremental savings ATM. Ā£333 pm with about Ā£82 bonus paid within the month. Need to put in that last Ā£4 at some point. :see_no_evil:

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I would love to use a Lisa instead of a HTB ISA but I think its too risky. With buying a house getting more and more difficult I donā€™t want to risk losing money in case it doesnā€™t happen.

https://community.monzo.com/t/im-25-and-i-want-to-start-saving-for-a-house-where-do-i-start/38451/43?u=rolanddeschain

@brenda, as @anon23935806 also said, I can highly recommend moving to a rolling 30 day contract over being with GiffGaff. Nothing against GiffGaff, they provide great flexibility when first starting out, but do nothing to help show consistent payments.

Iā€™m currently on a rolling 30 day with Plusnet. It was 4GB of data for Ā£10 a month. They then had a new offer for 5GB for the same price, so I rang them up and from the following month I was on the newer deal, no problem as it is only a 30 day commitment. However, it is taken by DD and still counts as a contract, so you get those benefits. (and since it comes out of my Monzo account I see it 3 days before as an upcoming payment :wink: )

MSE has a page where it shows latest offers, and you can get your PAC code fro GiffGaff so your number transfers across.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-sim-only-contracts/

Could also bump the thread on here about SIM only plans: https://community.monzo.com/t/sim-only-plans-what-do-you-guys-think/37084/28

And here: https://community.monzo.com/t/share-your-money-saving-tips/35989

r/ULPersonalFinance has a FAQ page on LISAā€™s its worth reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/wiki/lisa

And a flowchart,
https://community.monzo.com/t/r-ukpersonalfinance-updated-flowchart/23587?u=rolanddeschain

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Iā€™ve changed my mind and went with a LISA with moneybox! Went for adventurous as well. :scream:

Itā€™s hard to ignore how much quicker your money will grow compared to a help to buy isa.

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I havenā€™t looked at the details, can the LISA be cashed out for a deposit where the H2B canā€™t?

Yes the Lisa can be used for both the mortgage and exchange deposit. The HTB ISA can only be used for the mortgage deposit. This has caused issues for people when they come to buy.

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Good move. Youā€™re certainly not going to be worse off even if you do have to bail out.

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Iā€™d be interested to know where these sort of projects are offered. I already work in software in a full time position so advice for being able improve my take home would be appreciated. The only success Iā€™ve had is through word of mouth by friends doing small website projects

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Hey - sorry took a bit of a break from the community as I felt I was spending way too much time here.

If youā€™re a software engineer currently employed full time the best advice I can give you is to invest in your LinkedIn profile and then switch to contracting. Talk to recruiters, theyā€™re always hungry for fresh meat and will get you a contracting gig in no time. Feel free to DM me or email hi@rjevski.io Iā€™ll do my best to give you some advice.

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