Is Buying A House Impossible?

Buying a house has long been considered a staple part of life. You grow up, go to college, find yourself a good job, and then get your own home to settle down in. However, in recent years this formula has fallen to the wayside, and more and more people are choosing to stay at home due to financial considerations. Combine this with the lack of eligible working positions for the world’s best would-be executives and we have a huge economic downturn on our hands. So even if you’ve answered the question over whether it’s right for you to buy your own home or not, it might not be even possible for you to do so.

Since the credit crunch of 2008, the housing market has been on a slow and gradual rise back to its previous notoriety, and has seen an eventual 11.4% increase since last year. Yet, this is a double edged sword for our current generation. With house prices averaging $200,000 when it comes to owning your own house outright, it’s hard for anyone under the age of 50 to afford anything above an average apartment rent in an urban city.

But is it really impossible to own your own house? Can you really afford not to invest in a house that can make you a huge return profit when the time comes to move on? There’s so many questions involved in the process it’s hard to make sense of what to do.

The Fluctuation in City Prices

Climbing the property ladder is something every burgeoning adult wants to be able to do. A lot of house listing sites out there like to claim you can get your foot on the first rung for only $100 or so, but according to the current market statistics, that’s not going to get you anywhere. Especially if you live in the more populous, and therefore high end, cities out there. London, Paris, New York etc. are all notoriously terrible for being able to live in, with an average salary of over $90,000 a year needed to own a home in Los Angeles. But it’s these cities that have the good jobs people need, and you have to be close in order to make any money at all.

Trying to find any kind of land for sale is going to be hard when you’re earning about $1500 a month or less. Becoming a first time buyer is going to take a whole lifetime based on those figures, and trying to move up in salary is going to be difficult to negotiate with a boss whose business is already crashing and burning.

Salary Dictates Mortgage Chances

There’s some strict criteria you have to fill to even be considered for a mortgage, and your chances of success are usually determined by the kind of job you work. Getting a mortgage used to be a lot simpler on you; you just headed to a bank or a lender, laid out what you earned, to which they multiplied a few times to see how much you could end up borrowing from them. But because of the unsure success of our current economic future, it’s a lot stricter and involves a lot more variance in interest rates these days.

Back in 2012, the world’s average wage was calculated at just over $1000 a month, adding up to less than $20,000 per year. When you can see how little normal people earn via their working endeavors, seeing as the economy has only slowly strengthened and declined since, getting a mortgage that’s five times that rate that can also cope with 5% interest at least is going to be impossible. Of course there’s plenty of alternative funding sources out there, but risking your luck with a secured loan can mean the loss of your home, your independence, or anything you think was worth the collateral to try and afford a place of your own.

Does Renting Really Throw Money Away?

A lot of people are attracted to the idea of owning their own house as they believe it’s going to save them money in the long run. They’ll have a place of their own to decorate and renovate how they like, and they can live comfortably in the knowledge that the mortgage they’ve finally been able to afford will pay itself off bit by bit with regular payments. However, this is still a dream that many people can’t afford to reach, and thus they have to stick to renting out a place.

And this leaves those same people with a bad taste in their mouth. They still have a roof over their head, and a place to bunk down at night, but every year they’re paying tens of thousands in rent alone. Combine that with every advice article out there telling them they can’t do this long term and you have another formula in the works that just puts more pressure on anyone choosing to stay in a lease.

But renting doesn’t actually throw your money straight down the drain. Buying a house is going to break your entire bank, and you’re likely to never recover from the ‘investment’ within your lifetime. Instead, staying in a place you know you can comfortably afford means more home security and the ability to do what you want with the rest of your life. Of course situations vary depending on where you live and how much you’re losing on a one bedroomed place alone each month, but it’s the optimal solution for the state of your local economy in the modern day and age.

So is buying a house really impossible? That’s the question you came here to have answered. And truth be told, the odds really are stacked up against you. But if you’re in a good situation, away from a main town or city, and you have a good savings account and credit score behind you, you might just manage it. Otherwise, it’s a thin chance.