We bought our first bungalow, in Essex, in 1961 for £2400, and lived there for seven years, then sold it for £4750 when DH job relocated to Berkshire. We bought a three bedroom semi for £5500 in 1968, and they are now going for around £375000. My parents, married in 1933, in London's East End, and bought a three bedroom detached in Hounslow for £600, having to borrow some of the deposit from Grandad. Mum thought she had moved to the back of beyond after London. When we married, she told us that as long as you had your bricks and mortar, you could sit on orange boxes!
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What did you pay for your first home?
(80 Posts)Cheeky question...but I'm intrigued when I keep reading about the property market gone bonkers. We paid £23000 in 1981 for a 2 bed flat in north London. Goodness knows what it's worth now... If only we'd been in a position to keep it!
We paid £5300 for a middle terrace house, with a front garden, in Exeter in 1972 - seemed a lot at the time
When buying our first home in 1971, we couldn't afford to go higher than £4000, and managed to buy at £3985.
That was a new build and you couldn't buy a garage for that these days.
I remember we struggled to pay the mortgage, things weren't all roses round the door 45/50 years ago, whereas our DC pay their mortgages easily
Have lovely furniture and holidays as well, thanks to interest rates being so low for so very long.
My grandparents bought a brand new 3 bedroom house in Surrey in 1922.
I don't know what they paid for it but my parents bought it from them when they got married in 1948 for £500. I lived there all my life until I got married in 1970 when my husband & I bought it from my dad for £5,000.
We sold it in 1980 for £28,000.
All these prices were market value sales not discounted for family.
I estimate that it would be worth about £350,000 now. It may be more now as that part of Surrey was taken into the Greater London area some years ago. Mind you - then it was a lovely tree lined, friendly avenue where everyone knew each other & all the houses were well looked after & you polished your door step & washed your outside paintwork regularly. Now it is a horrible rat run with speed bumps & looks very run down & tatty. I rarely go back but when I do, it breaks my heart.
Uprooted upon marriage in 1970 from North London to Hamilton, Lanarkshire. Paid £4,400 for a Wimpey chalet bungalow (semi-detached).
Moved to South Bucks in 1979, sold Hamilton house for £17,500 and paid £24,250 for a big pre-war brick-built semi with lovely views. Sold for £315,000 in 2008, now living in another chalet bungalow - detached this time. We paid £420,000 and it's just been valued at £525,000.
Crazy, and to think that my parents lived in a rented house all their married life!
Money's worth put in your year of purchase and what you paid and it's still a surprise.
We bought a 'shell' for £10,000 in 1976; borrowed a further £5,000 to make it habitable, plus all the money we could spare for the next 10 years to make it a home. Still here and just valued at £450,000. Nottinghamshire.
£4600 for a three bedroomed semi in 1968, moved south 2 years later and paid £6600 for a smaller house! The first house is in an area which is now going down but the second is now worth c £500000!
£3600 for a Wimpy semi in 1970. Sold 3yrs later for £7200. Bought present house for £6,700 and now worth about £250,00. All in North Yorkshire
We bought a 2-bed Victorian terrace house in West Yorkshire in 1965 for £1600. It needed lots doing to it but we could only afford to paint everywhere and beg and borrow odd bits of furniture. My take home pay from the Inland Revenue was £32 per month and DH-to be was on about £40 per month so we really only had our love to keep us warm. No central heating! It was real luxury when North Sea gas came in and we were given an allowance to buy a cheap gas fire to use it.
Over the years since it has been modernised and the cellar made into a trendy dining kitchen. Last time it was for sale in December 2014 it sold for £190,000.
We married in 1953 whilst I was doing my national service in the mistaken belief that the marriage allowance would help us save for a house. Having been demobbed and still with very little savings I took a job abroad so that my poor wife having led the single life 22 months was left alone again. This time things went a bit more in our favour and she was able to bank my salary while I could survive on overseas allowance. This then enabled us to buy our first house in 1957 for £2.500 only by putting down a 25% deposit. In those far off they would only take one person earnings into account, with repayments at one weeks wages in four. Having moved into our own home last on Saturday, on Monday morning the postman dropped our first rates demand through the letterbox. All we could do was put on the mantle piece, laugh and go off to work for we had no money to pay it. We lived on bare boards with bits of cast off furniture a quite a time until carpets etc could be afforded.
£20,000 in 1978 for a two-bedroom flat in West London.
I feel so sorry for Generation Rent - a lifetime of paying rent with very little hope of buying a property would depress me.
In 1971 we bought a 3-bed terraced house for £3,450... Sold it in 1984 for £18,000 - thought ourselves rich and moved to a 4-bed semi bought for £27,500.
The house next door to our first one (identical) has just sold for £248,000....!!! 
We moved from Richmond , South london, to colchester, essex in 1976. (Silly move). But that's another story. Mother in law set us up on the property ladder with a two bed terrace house, bought for £7,500.
Wish we had stayed put in London now.
We bought a new house in 1968 for £4100. It was ready a month before schedule and we asked the bank for a short loan. The manager asked us if we were able to pull out, as he thought we were spending too much.
We sold the house four years later for £10500, so were certainly pleased we hadn't taken his advice!
Bought a brand new 3 bedroom semi in 1972 for £4,250 then moved 4 years later to our present house, 3 bedroom detached in a lovely village, that cost £12,000. We really had to push ourselves to afford it but all paid for now.
Feel sorry for the youngsters today, many have no chance of buying. Can't see us moving anymore now. We are very settled here, they will probably take me out in a wooden box!
Born and bought first house in Scunthorpe but now midway between Scunthorpe and Gainsborough
I paid 8/6d rent for my first home in 1960 and then saved up to buy my first end of terrace home in 1972 for £1,750. It took me that long to save the deposit.
£1,400 for a large terraced house in a village in West Yorkshire in 1971. Needed quite a lot of work, we had an outside loo but three large bedrooms so made the smaller the bathroom.
My parents sold their house in 1951 for one thousand pounds. They lived off the money for three years. Our first house in 1969 cost £3,000. It was a struggle to meet the mortgage repayments although we were both earning good salaries. When I finished work in 1970 it became a real struggle to meet the repayments. These figures seem so small these days.
That house is currently on the market for £110000
Two up two down terraced house we bought in 1975 in a small town in Kent cost £8,500 
In 1971 we paid to £7,500 for a lovely chalet house in North Bucks which I saw again recently and felt very emotional and wanted to restart my married life again there.
We moved 6 years later to South Bucks and paid £17,500 for an end of terrace house, we couldn't afford to buy a detached house again. Recently we were offered £500,000 for it. 
I am going to stay here for as long as I can, it's small but I love it and the view is to die for. What does Kirstey say 'Location Location Location'.
Shysal I know the shark road in Oxford, we pass it on the bus when we go shopping there.
We bought a humble 2 bedroom semi detached in a bonny hamlet in the Kingdom of Fife 40 yrs ago. We paid £8,000 for it and my sister borrowed £1,000 for us to pay the deposit. How very kind she was in guaranteeing our first and only house purchase. We've spent more than 3 times the original value of the house making it into a lovely wee family home. It's now priceless to us. 
We bought our first house in 1979 in Horsham, West Sussex and I believe we paid around £11,000.
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