The reason young people can't afford to buy houses

[GrabtharsHammer]

Is because they all have iPhones and Sky telly.

So sayeth my mother.

Nothing at all to do with the ridiculous house prices then? They are baby boomers and bought their first house for a few thousand quid on my dads modest salary.

Apparently the youth of today just need to get rid of their gadgets and telly subscriptions and then they will easily afford a deposit and mortgage.

Are everyone's parents this judgemental and out of touch or am I just particularly lucky?

(Fairly lighthearted) AIBU?

[AngryGinger]

Yes the combined £30 a month me and my OH pay for our phones will soon add up and we will have a deposit in no time 🙄

[Laiste]

Same here.

If everyone 'worked a bit harder' they'd all be fine. Sayeth my mother who hasn't worked since 1966.

[GreenTureen]

She's obviously bu in a literal sense...but in general (in terms of the attitudes of many people with money, she kind of has a point.

What some people class as 'essentials' I find ridiculous sometimes. I know plenty of people my age (30) who 'cannot afford to buy' but their rented house is like a show home with top of the range everything, they have 2 nice cars on the drive and go abroad every year with weekends away in between.

[OohhThatsMe]

A couple who are spending a lot on phones, Sky, holidays and alcohol can't really complain they haven't got enough money, but not everyone is in that position.

[BolivarAtasco]

At the risk of getting flamed, I think SOME people, not all, are not prepared to accept a drop in lifestyle to save for a deposit. I have certainly met people who claim to be desperate to buy but not willing to forgoe holidays, tech, cars and stuff in order to do it.

Yes, the property market is ludicrous, but owning a home is not a god given right. It would be better if the rental market was better regulated and tenants had a better deal so buying wasn't the only other decent option.

[Applesauce29]

The baby boomers have most of the wealth in this country, and a vast proportion of the budget (public spending) goes on them in terms of providing pensions and funding the NHS! The government is doing nothing about it because they are the ones that actually vote. The young are being screwed over in terms of taxes to have to support the spending on them(and service the debt mountain), which means even less scope to increase salaries in the public sector, and no real appetite to start a meaningful house building project that would ultimately bring house prices down

[Briarthorn]

I think someone worked it out on here that if you didn't have a phone for 65 years you would have enough saved for a deposit, but even that seems a little optimistic...

[AmberEars]

My mum is the same. But, to be fair, my parents worked hard when I was little, struggled to meet their mortgage payments and managed without a lot of things we take for granted. Not just iPhones and so on (obviously, as they didn't exist then!) but also things like central heating. Yes, it paid off for them eventually, and they are now classic baby boomers who are being paid final salary pensions and own a 4-bed house in London zone 2. But I can see how the current generation of 20 and 30 somethings seem a bit pampered compared to them at the same age.

[pinklimonade]

I think it's really hard buying a house alone.

It just be difficult for single people getting on the property ladder.

[whatsthebigdeal]

She has a bit of a point, although ridiculous house prices are partly to blame
For example my daughter is nearly 19, been working since 17, she spends everything, last year she earnt £5.5k
She has nothing to show for it, no car, no savings, just loads of designer pants, she pays no bills or rent
I saved £2k between age 16-18 earning £2.24 an hour to get on the property ladder

[UterusUterusGhali]

In their day you could scrimp a bit and buy a house on a manual worker's wage.

Absolutely impossible these days.

[clumsyduck]

It is by far harder to get on the property ladder these days I don't think anyone would argue with that ! Hours a cost a lot more on a warning to house cost ratio than they did and of course the days of 100 percent mortgage are over

However I do agree with some other posters who say some people do spend on crap and then moan thu can't afford other stuff

I saved every penny I could so I could afford a deposit to buy . if I'd have spent the money differently I wouldn't have got the money together simple as that of course people can spend as they see fit but with a finite income you have to sacrifice in order to get what it is you really want whatever that may be and for me that was owning my own home

[Iamdazedandconfused]

Oops wrong thread! Ignore me.

[fakenamefornow]

I saw on TV the other day that if salaries had kept pace with house prices average salary would be £80,000.

Oh, and on Radio 4 a while ago, the average baby boomer has been subsidised by the state (younger generation) by £200,000. £200,000 more taken out in free education, pension and healthcare than they have paid in.

Tell your mum that.

[clumsyduck]

Jesus spell check woman

[YorkieDorkie]

Ugh fake name I bloody hate the baby boomers. They don't know how lucky they are!

[Gillybean76]

But while wages may have been higher, in the 70s homeowners were dealing with 15-17% interest rates as opposed to the 0.5 we have now.
Against that I was able to get a 100% mortgage 15 years ago which is no longer available.
Swings and roundabouts.

[Ta1kinpeece]

When I bought my first house it cost £30000 against a standard graduate starter salary of £12500

the current average house is around £250,000
the current average graduate salary is around £25000

that ratio alone proves the problem

[Wayfarersonbaby]

Cost of my iPhone contract per month: £40
Cost of my iPhone contract per year: £480

Cost of minimum deposit where I live in the south east where ex-council 2-bed starter flats begin at 330k: £60k (let's say - in reality I'd need a fair whack more than that - that assumes a household income of 77k which I only wish was true...)

Number of years required to save for deposit at the cost of my iPhone contract per year: 60,000/480 = 125 years

My life expectancy....85 years-ish?
Number of years left until I retire at 68.....30
Amount of deposit I actually have after saving for 15 years and paying an extortionate rent: £30k, partly gifted from my parents
My household salary: nowhere near 77k
Starter places I could buy at age 38 within a 75-mile radius of where I work: zero
Amount of bollox your dear mum and all of the other baby boomers spout about this (my own dear parents not excepted): PRICELESS

[ilovesooty]

Yorkie nothing like a spot of ageist generalisation.

[AnnieAnoniMouse]

House prices are definitely a different ratio to wages than they were in the 60's. That's the biggest factor without a doubt.

However, I don't disagree that people then were FAR more willing to 'go without' to save money and for some this could make the difference between being able to afford a house and not. It's not just phones & sky, it's clothes, eating & drinking out, coffees on the go, running cars when you could walk/get a bus, working two jobs.

My parents scrimped and saved in ways that are beyond my generations belief, let alone the 20 year olds of today.

It's not their fault though, it's how they've been brought up and the general change in our now 'disposable' society.

[blackcherries]

I scrimped and saved to get on the property ladder soon out of uni. Didn't have a car or fancy holidays or anything but the basics. That was early 2000s and it was difficult then even with loads of things going right for us.

Doing the same thing now would in no way get us anyway near the amount needed to buy a house. I live in a large city and property prices are absolutely unbelievable, and I say that as someone who 4 years ago was watching every house on the market etc - it's gone crazy even since then.

[GrabtharsHammer]

Dh bought his first flat 20 years ago for 60k, he lived at home and saved nearly all his wages for two years for a deposit.

We bought a house for £500k in 2014. It's now worth £600k. It's just a very normal family home, it's large but it's smaller than the house I grew up in. If we were just starting out now we'd be living in a tiny flat. His original flat is worth £200k now.

It's crazy.

[BarbaraofSeville]

In the 1970/1980s it was perfectly possible for a manual worker or averagely paid professional and a SAHP to buy a family property.

DP and I bought in the mid 90s following a big crash for a price that seems to be ludicrously cheap by modern standards (we saved about £2k in a year and this was the deposit on a £30k 2 bed terrace).

Fast forward 20/30 years and deposits are similar to the average salary and multiples avaialable are inadequate for a family house in a signigificant fraction of the country.

Yes, people are spending money on things that didn't exist when previous generations were buying houses, but saving even £500 pm isn't going to provide a deposit for even a modest property in a reasonable timescale and that's more than a fuckload of iphones, Sky TV and Costa Coffee.

Having said that, I have no sympathy with people who say they are skint, or 'can't afford holidays or nice things' but are spending hundreds of pounds a month on luxuries like the latest phones or takeaway food and drink but can't accept that these are discretionary purchases, but this is a separate issue.