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No. It's realism and pragmatism. I was not in stable employment. Years of working in sales jobs, then a family business that went under, then unemployed whilst going through a minor breakdown, then doing voluntary work and then into adult ed. I loved my job teaching literacy, but I didn't feel like it was in any way secure. A lass who started working there about 4 months before I did, signed up to a mortgage, got herself a tiny little one bedroomed terraced house (£100k). She, like me, earned less than 15K a year and was starting with no deposit. She was a sub-prime mortgage. None of the main sellers would take her on because of the rule of thumb on percentage of income.
The same people were saying to her, that she should try and get onto the housing ladder, that were saying to me I should get on the housing ladder. Houses are big, fucking expensive things. How in God's name does someone earning £13,500 a year think they are going to buy a house that costs £100,000?
Less than six months after moving into her house she got made redundant. She was scrabbling around desperately trying to make mortgage payments while the industry she'd been working in (in various firms) collapsed around her. It's since picked up again, and she may well be back in her usual line of work. But I do wonder if she managed to keep hold of the house.
If I make it to my eventual goal of history lecturer, I'll probably look at getting a very modest property, but until I am able to earn at a level that justifies that kind of investment/debt, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot bargepole.
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