22-Year-Old Landlord Shares How He Bought Property By Living With & Working For His Parents — 'There's No Excuse For Not Owning A Home'
He says getting on the property ladder is as simple as changing your mindset — never mind all the help he got from his parents!
vadimguzhva via Canva | fizkes via Canva | Susannah Townsend via Canva Everywhere you turn nowadays there's a new story about how impossible it is to buy a home for all but the lucky few, as real estate prices continue to skyrocket and housing inventory continues to be inadequate. But somehow, no matter how bad the housing supply seems to get, the supply of wildly privileged people claiming that buying a house is easy never seems to run dry.
A 22-year-old British landlord says there's no excuse to not own a home — even though his parents helped him buy his.
In 2021, Josh Parrott, a student from Stockport, UK, made headlines with the story of how he plans to semi-retire by 30 after becoming a successful landlord in the Manchester area. Given his runaway success, he offered his advice to young people about how they, too, could get on the property ladder. But his recommendations elicited what was likely the opposite of his intended reaction, including, as one person on Twitter bluntly responded, "eat the rich."
Parrott bought his first property by living with his parents for virtually free and working for them at their business.
Using money he saved up from working two jobs between his university courses, Parrott bought his first property at the tender age of 19 for £115,000 (about $147,000) using the equity and rent money from the property to buy a second. He plans to repeat the process every year until he's 30, when he'll own 10 properties and simply kick back, living a life of leisure off other people's rent money.
Sounds like a dream, right?
Parrott says all it takes is a shift in mindset and a bit of hard work.
"It wasn't about being super bright or anything," Parrott said, "I just didn’t blow money on going out drinking and I spent almost nothing on clothes."
Well, that and lots of parental help. Because surprise! The purchase of his properties hinged almost entirely on privilege, like how he lived with his parents for £120 per month, allowing him to bank almost the entirety of his £14,000 salary from one of his jobs.
And as for his second job? Well, he didn't reveal how much it paid, but he did reveal who his boss was — his own parents, whose locksmith business provided the other part of his income. Seems it really is easy to get on the property ladder when your parents are willing to help.
Financial help from parents in buying a home is becoming increasingly common as housing prices skyrocket.
If it feels like it's impossible to buy a property unless you're a kid like Parrott whose parents can help, you're definitely not off-base. The number of first-time home buyers relying on parental windfalls is rising in tandem with housing prices, which continue to skyrocket far faster than wages especially as more and more "corporate landlords" on Wall Street buy up available housing.
Studies and surveys from the last 10 years have shown anywhere from 22% to a whopping 75% of young home buyers relying on financial help from their Boomer parents to come up with a down payment and secure a mortgage — with some peoples' parents solving the economic problems by just buying them a house outright.
And on social media, more and more people are getting sick and tired of young people like Parrott misrepresenting how they got on the property ladder and telling others there's no excuse not to own a home like they do.
There's nothing wrong with accepting parental help, of course. But there is something wrong with judging others for not being able to do so.
In the end, this issue is similar to the Hollywood "nepo baby" controversy that erupted last year. It's not so much the nepotism that galls people as the denial of its game-changing influence.
Actress Allison Williams, a "nepo baby" herself as the daughter of veteran news anchor Brian Williams, put it perfectly in an interview on the matter. "All that people are looking for is an acknowledgment that it’s not a level playing field," she told Vulture. "It doesn’t take anything away from the work that I’ve done. It just means that it’s not as fun to root for me."
So yeah, congrats to people like Parrott for their real estate successes. But "no excuse not to own a home"? As they say in the UK, "oh give over, mate."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.