Hi All, thanks so much for a wealth (!) of information.
Living anywhere else is not an option, my fiance's field of work is quite specialist and not only does she love her job, moving up north to save £25k over some random amount of time doesn't make sense. I'm from Sheffield and she is from Ontario, plans are ultimately to head out to her home turf. Anyway, I digress.
I think what we'll be doing, given the current financial climate among other factors, we'll be living 'cheap' and saving what we can. We're in our early 30's and after much, much deliberation, borrowing to 'speed up the process' doesn't really, looking beyond the financial asset, make much sense. Assuming we start a family and either of us takes time out of work, pa/maternity pay doesn't go on forever and we have to take that into account in our planning for the future.
We did some regular savings type calculations last night, each of us putting £200 a month into an account over 4 years means we can have over £20k in the bank. Which assuming we put a 5% deposit down means we can quite reasonably afford a house without getting too much hassle.
Yes it's a major inconvenience and not particularly enjoyable to be paying off the mortgage for mr/mrs property owner, however, it means that when we are ready to move we will be in debt to just the mortgage company - and that's got to hopefully not only make us more attractive to the lender, but also offer us peace of mind knowing that we have one large fiscal commitment and not 2.
jt