Life as an apprentice can be tough. With minimum wage at £3.50 an hour, it can be difficult to treat yourself to the odd takeaway, let alone start saving for a mortgage. But it’s not all bad, many apprentices earn a lot more than minimum wage – some around £24,000. And compared to your counterparts at University, you won’t have an average of £50,000 debt to your name. But that's not to say that life as an apprentice isn't tough. If you are really struggling - you might qualify for a bursary from the Government, this is even more likely if people rely on you.
There are other things against us though, ‘us’ being millennials as a whole. Mainly money, we all want to be in well paid jobs that we want, which can be difficult to find. They’re competitive and we’re paid less for them, especially as young apprentices. And the idea of buying a house? That’s hilarious, tell me another one. I have a bigger chance of bumping into one of the love island contestants whilst they’re still in the villa than I do stepping on to the property ladder anytime soon.
How much do I need to be earning to buy my first home?
Unfortunately, a rat infested, two bed-flat in the roughest area of a city doesn’t really appeal to me. Nor you I presume. Even then, the price of that really ought to drop by half and half again for me to even consider if I can afford it. Shelter, an organisation which helps the homeless, has worked out the salary that first-time buyers need to be earning if they want to buy a house by 2020. A whopping £64,000. I know, ouch. It’s time to clear up your cup of tea you’ve just spat everywhere. With the average salary of an apprentice being around £11,000 we ought to start our search for a pot of gold, or £53,000 at the end of a rainbow. This is quite extreme, especially when many young people won’t be considering buying a house for a few years, but still – it is very unreasonable.
Although if you consider buying a house with someone else – the dream does seem to be slightly more in reach.
Generation Rent to Generation Buy
It is for this reason that we are called ‘Generation rent’, when we’d rather be ‘Generation buy’. Compared to our parents who could quite easily get on the property ladder. On the plus side, we ought to consider that we are in a much better position than our good friends at University – we’re not in debt and we’ll find it easier to get a job!
If you are looking at buying a house, good luck and let the housing market be forever in your favour.
