Find out how Gransnetters helped their DC get on the property ladder

Sadly I was never in a position to help my children buy a home. After a divorce I needed to help myself buy a home which two of my adult children bounced back to at different times in their lives. One has managed to buy with his partner but the other rents.
I wish it had been different I would love to say I helped but not every family has the means.

I haven't been any help to mine either. They managed by themselves to work and save and buy as cheaply as possible and gradually move up the ladder. They are not in London, I might add, and their partners all worked too.

They put off having DC in most cases too until they owned their own flat It's only our youngest who has still to get on the ladder. I would certainly give an interest free loan if they asked for help though compared to when I was their age, it costs 100 x more.

The first house we wanted to buy cost £1,700 but we didn't have enough because we couldn't get a mortgage.

I will leave one of my properties to my grandson. As long as I don't have to sell one of them to pay for my elder care.

We had one of our sons and DIL to live with us for a year. They saved enough money to put down a deposit on a house, which they’ve been in for the last three years. My DIL was pregnant at the time, so it eased their stress over that as well. We’ve still got their ‘ Thank you ‘ card, which says they couldn’t have done it without this help. ?.

DS was living in a rented house with college pals and then a flat with his fiancée, he thought it would probably be a good idea to get a mortgage as paying rent in London is not cheap. We gave him a 10% deposit so that he could move quickly.
DD was relocating abroad for her job but wanted to keep her home in the UK so we paid off her mortgage, that enabled her to afford the very expensive rent in a European city.
When I married I did not have any savings because I had just qualified as a nurse, father loaned me the deposit for a tiny cottage and we paid him back with interest, my money to the DC was a gift I never expected it to be returned.

When I got my divorce form my first husband we sold house and business and pension shared. This meant I got awarded a lot more pension for my pot. I used my half of money from house to firstly rent and then put down on another property. The money from our business I split up and set aside £30k for three deposits for my three children. I know my ex husband will not leave them anything. I have given my dd £10k money for deposit and she used it to get onto property ladder. I invested the £20k left. My two sons still live at home but when the first one wants to buy a house I shall give them half and keep the rest invested for last son. I have told them all money can only be used to buy a property not cars. They all work full time and can save for cars themselves. My dd is married with two children now and I help her to pay towards the nursery fees so she can keep her job. My second husband and I also have a property portfolio of 6 houses in UK and French house. They will each be left one house if I die first and use of French house. When second husband dies he is going to leave rest of property to my children too as he has no children of his own but has helped to bring my younger two children up with me. I have always encouraged all children to save for what they want and not to get loans unless interest free.

I should have added when I got married my Dad gave me deposit for house and paid for my wedding reception and dress.

As both our children were living in London we gave them the deposit for a flat. My daughter although living with her husband in Kent still has her flat opposite the Olympic Park and is earning quite a lot from it. It was ex council and she bought at the right time so has nearly paid off her mortgage.
My son bought a flat with the help of Phil and Kirsty and has just sold it for a profit and has moved to Brighton.
We had no formal arrangement although I believe my son, as he was buying with a girlfriend did have an agreement drawn up that he would keep the deposit if they split.

My DH's parents gave us the deposit for our first flat in London.

Dsd bought her council house. We weren’t in a position to help her at that point but had previously given her money for carpets and furniture when she first got the house. We plan to downsize next year and give our two older boys a deposit for a flat ds3 is still a teenager and will get the same when he is ready. Should anything happen to us, ds3 will have the right to live in the house for as long as he needs. If it’s sold he will get half and his brothers will share the other half. If I’m still living when ds3 sets up on his own I will change my will so that they get a third each.

Both my sons lived at home for a nominal rent while saving to buy their own property, we live in London so saved them a fortune. I'm on my own and giving them a lump sum wasn't possible. I've since become disabled and rely quite heavily on the pair of them for getting about and getting to hospital appointments etc. My younger son and his wife and baby have moved back in with me and are renting their place out so they don't lose out property wise. It's working well for us, I don't make unreasonable demands and we all get on very well. So far so good.

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.

My exH and I gave DS £6000 towards the deposit on his first house. Then, when I was given a substantial pay out from my work, I was able to give DS and DIL another £12,000 when they moved to a bit bigger house because GD was on the way. Sadly, I'm no longer in a position to help them financially any further now but I'm so glad that I could when they needed it.

Both of our DDs were able to take advantage of 110% mortgages and fast increasing house prices.
DS, who is much younger, won't have this opportunity and so will need to save hard for a deposit or rent.

I didn't help them. But I did make sure they knew how to respect their money from an early age. They knew how and why to save. They understood choices about going on holiday/partying/buying stuff, versus looking to the future. They knew to buy the most modest house they could find and not the big one to show off to so-called friends. They started small and worked their way up to a little bit bigger.

They all had their own home by the time they were 25.

My DS deliberately decided to look for a job well away from London and the south east, where the rest of his family lived, because he chose a profession he wanted to follow, but which is not particulary remunerative and he said he would have difficulty finding anything family sized in the south that he could afford.

We helped with the deposit for our DD to buy a flat in Thurrock.
She sold a few years later and had built up some equity .
She moved into our buy to let property with her partner. We expected them to stay for a short time and buy near us.
Didn’t happen, they married, she got pregnant, he left when she was 7 months on.
He moved back and they are still there! Very happy. That’s a good thing ?
The money is mostly gone, she needed it to live on when she was on her own.
Our retirement pot is a little compromised now?

We helped one of our sons and his partner buy their first house by lending them part of the deposit. That was five years ago, when they were in their late twenties/ early thirties.

Ok, we couldn't officially 'lend' the money, as that isn't allowed by (I think) the mortgage lenders. It has to be a gift. However, a loan is what they came to us asking for, because they had found a small new build in our area that seemed perfect, and they were keen to act as quickly as possible , and unofficially a loan is what they got from us.
They also borrowed from one set of grandparents, plus the partner's parents.

The arrangement was informal, but they kept their word and managed to repay all of us within a year.

We could not afford to make a gift of the money we lent them, as it was our savings, our safety net.

Our other son and his then-partner bought their first house (a modest terrace) without any financial help from us, but we helped a lot in practical terms, with things like decorating and gardening.

I had forgotten that they each inherited when my DM died and her property was sold so that will have helped towards deposits on houses although nothing was specified so they could have blown it all on anything..

My 3 AC each scrambled onto the ladder through sheer hard work and saving. We managed to give each a lump sum several years ago, to do some maintenance or pay off their mortgage, one had a new roof. Its the DGC I worry about now so I have put a nice tidy sum into premium bonds for each of them, it will go a fair way towards a deposit, one day

Our eldest daughter (29) and her husband are currently trying to buy a house and I have given them money towards the deposit for their first house although their first house fell through and the current chain has problems. Our eldest son (26) works in London and thinks that buying a property there is out of his reach despite having a good job.

My dad paid the deposit on our first house in the eighties and I volunteered to do the same for my daughter about five years ago. We are not a wealthy family but ‘ comfortable’ as they say.
I want them to have their own house and it gave me pleasure to do so.

Should have said that I bought my first flat when I was 27 with no financial help from my parents but I paid not much more than 10% of what my son pays in rent so could save for the deposit.

We have 2 DS. DS1 and DDiL live overseas and have been renting from DDiL's parents for several years. They have now been able to buy the property. DS2 and DGF are our tenants in a house we bought when we realised our savings were making very little money. We only charge them what they were paying for a small flat five years ago, probably not market rent. We keep their rent money in a separate account and have only used it to improve the property. (Patio, new boiler and half a new roof.)