We bought a boat to live on for £45,000. We are now mortgage-free in our thirties

The average UK house price now stands at £272,000, meaning aspiring buyers need at least £27,000 saved to put down a 10 per cent deposit. At the same time, rents are climbing. The average private rent in the UK reached £1,393 in July 2026, up £50 (3.7 per cent) from the year before. No wonder so many people find it a challenge to get on the property ladder. The tough conditions are making some first-time buyers take an alternative approach to make home ownership possible. Shorts ‘A boat means we can be mortgage-free’ Buying a houseboat has meant that Jack Miles, 34, doesn’t have to worry about mortgage or rent.Jack and his partner Gabby are self-employed and work in the media industry. Without a stable income each month, they were keen to not be tied into monthly mortgage or rent payments. “The prospect of getting a mortgage and having a monthly bill that you have to pay back no matter what every single month kind of completely terrified us,” says Jack. “But we didn’t want to rent because it feels like throwing money down the drain.” The couple came up with the idea of buying a boat and bought their first one in 2019 in cash for £37,000, which they sold in 2023 for about £58,000. “It’s given us a space to live without the terrifying prospect of losing our home if we missed a payment. We spent our life savings to buy it outright,” says Jack. The pair then bought their current 54-foot boat, a renovation project, for £45,000. The boat was a shell and they’ve spent the past three years renovating and kitting out the interior, including installing solar panels on the roof. Jack says the appeal of boat living goes beyond purely financial savings. It’s about the lifestyle and access to the outdoors, especially as they now have a two-year-old son, Joe, and a dog, Tilly. “There are moments where you just feel incredibly privileged to live this way of life. You are straight out into nature.” They currently use a leisure mooring in a village in Oxfordshire, which provides a consistent base and somewhere to come back to. “We took a permanent space so we wouldn’t have to worry about moving to a new location every two weeks, which is what we did on our first boat,” says Jack. But while there are no mortgage or rent payments, there are other regular costs that come with owning a boat. The couple’s licence costs them almost £100 a month, and they pay almost £200 a month in mooring costs. They have solar panels, which keeps gas costs low. During the gloomiest months in winter – when they can’t generate enough energy – they occasionally use a generator to keep the battery for their electric boat topped up. A large bag of coal is about £20 and lasts two or three nights. There’s also the cost of maintenance and insurance, and every couple of years they have to get the underside painted with protective paint to stop the boat from rusting, which can cost a couple of thousand pounds. However, while Jack says boat living works for his family, who document it on their YouTube channel @thistinylife, he admits it’s not for everyone. “It’s an experience and a constant learning process. There are moments, especially in the middle of winter when it’s pouring rain, when we wonder what we’re doing. But then there are many more moments where you feel privileged,” he says. “We’re weighing up the future, but we’d struggle to find anywhere else that allows us to live this lifestyle with such access to nature.” ‘We bought with a 1 per cent deposit’ There are still other options for those who want to make a home on dry land. Laura Alemany, 31, and Sam Cole, 30, were able to buy their home with an initial deposit of just 1 per cent, thanks to a new Save to Buy scheme being run by the developer of their new-build flat. The couple put down a £4,000 deposit on the two-bedroom flat in Woolwich, south London, two years ago. The scheme meant they could move in while saving up for the remainder of the required 5 per cent deposit. Before finding out about the scheme, the couple had expected to spend another two to three years saving for a traditional deposit while renting. “Our original plan was to save between £20,000 and £30,000 over a number of years,” says Laura, a brand and digital manager. “Like so many renters, a huge proportion of our income was disappearing on rent every month, making it incredibly difficult to build our savings. We were constantly having to make sacrifices just to put money aside.” Under Save to Buy, Laura and Sam lived rent-free for six months while their monthly payments went directly towards their deposit instead. Their monthly mortgage payments are now just under £1,900 on a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, which is slightly less than the £2,000 they’d previously been paying in rent. Laura and Sam discovered a lesser-known scheme that let them buy their first home with a 1 per cent deposit “When you’re renting it often feels like your money is just disappearing every month. You’re paying someone else’s mortgage rather than investing in your own future,” adds Sam, a paramedic. “Now we know exactly what we’re paying each month, we don’t have to worry about rent increases or whether a landlord might ask us to leave. That security has taken away a huge amount of financial pressure.” Other ways to get on the ladder The Save to Buy scheme is offered by property developer Fairview New Homes across three buildings in London. Fairview says the average time to achieve the required 5 per cent deposit while living in a flat rent-free is six to 12 months. Other similar schemes include the London Living Rent scheme, offered by the Mayor of London and aimed at those with a maximum household income of £75,000. It offers discounted rents to help people save for a deposit, and typically also offers the chance to buy the home through shared ownership. For aspiring homeowners outside the capital, there’s Rent to Buy, offered by the Government. This offers homes at a 20 per cent discount to the local market rent to help people save for a deposit. People also have the option to buy the home once they’ve saved enough for a deposit. Another option is being developed by SuchHomes, a private property company. The scheme allows people to rent their preferred home, which SuchHomes initially buys on their behalf, as long as they already have a 3 per cent deposit. They then pay rent to SuchHomes, and a portion of this is used to build the rest of the minimum required deposit of 10 per cent to buy the home. Meanwhile, Skipton Building Society offers a track record Mortgage for people in England, Scotland and Wales. This lets borrowers take out a 100 per cent mortgage, meaning they don’t necessarily need to have saved a deposit. Skipton takes into account their track record of paying rent to determine how much they can afford to borrow, and allows loans of up to £600,000.