Buying property on lower income?

This morning, I heard in the news that the fund for social housing projects is practically empty already. The government provided extra funds this year, but there have been more applications for a cheap loan than the years before.

Now I may seem old-fashioned and probably lots of people will not agree with me, but I still think you can't buy anything when you don't have cash in hand.

I am not against the fact that someone wants to buy a house or flat. But when you only have a low income, you must realize it's not for you. Buying property right now means you must have enough means, as most banks don't lend the full amount of the money you need. I know couples where they pay off their loans with installments of more than 1,000 Euro a month. If you only have 2,500 together, this is already very difficult to manage.

Freya Van den Bossche, one of our socialist ministers, has created a fund where people with low income can borrow money for practically nothing. It is this fund which has no more money today. Everyone wants to get such a cheap loan.

I don't think this is fair. Because what is considered a 'low income'? For instance, is is 1,200 Euro netto a month? (I really have no idea about this.) But what about someone who earns 1,250 a month? For a difference of only 50 Euro he or she can't get this government loan. They have to go to the bank and have a quart of the money needed for the house already in hand. When you know decent properties are not sold under 180,000 Euro you can calculate....

I'm glad I am not young anymore. Even with my decent income and the one of my sister combined, we could not afford to buy a house such as we have. I bought it for only 25,000 Euro and now it's worth at least 180,000. How would we have paid for that, and still want to live a decent life? Paying off such high loans means not being able to spend money on leisure, on eating out, on trips abroad,, ... And for us these are more important than owing a big mansion or having a Beemer in the garage.

We still don't buy or order anything when we know we can't pay for it. That was our upbringing, and I think these are good values. I always pay my bills promptly, because I know the other needs this money to continue his or her business.

What's your take on this?