Our children bought houses in the mid 1990s when prices were at the bottom of a slump. We had been saving, £5 a month for them since they were born and this amount was boosted after my sister died in a road accident and they received £1,000 each.
Each had about £5,000. DD bought an ex-Council flat, about the cheapest type of property available, in south London, the area where prices had fallen most. We helped her with all the negotiations and then helped her sort it out.
We are a family who never buy new if we can buy old and restore. She furnished a two bedroom flat, including appliances with change from £500. Everything was begged, borrowed or acquired at auction or in junk shops. She lived there for nearly 15 years before selling up for 5 times what she paid and bought another ex-council property ,this time a house outside London, entirely on her own.
DS bought 4 years later when prices were rising. He had to pay twice as much as DD for his flat in Oxford. Fortunately we had just inherited a tiny rural bungalow that we sold and that provided two thirds of the price of the flat he bought. He got a mortgage for the remaining third, he was a post-grad so had little income of his own. For both of them DH and I acted as guarantors for their mortgages. Once again we raided the junk shops and auctions to furnish it.
He only stayed their two years, but the prices were rising fast, so we bought him out of his share of the property, less the mortgage, that I took over, and he had a enough to buy a house on his own account in the city his new job was in. I then let the flat out for about 5 years and when prices stabilised, I sold it.