If you bought your house since 1979 I have attached a list of the relevant interest rates....

[EllenWaiteourkid]

Bank of England base rate 1979-2017

Bank rate at year end (%)*
1979 17

1980 14

1981 14.375

1982 10

1983 9.0625

1984 9.5

1985 11.375

1986 10.875

1987 8.375

1988 12.875

1989 14.875

1990 13.875

1991 10.375

1992 6.875

1993 5.375

1994 6.125

1995 6.375

1996 5.9375

1997 7.25

1998 6.25

1999 5.5

2000 6

2001 4

2002 4

2003 3.75

2004 4.75

2005 4.5

2006 5

2007 5.5

2008 2

2009 0.5

2010 0.5

2011 0.5
2012 0.5
2013 0.5
2014 0.5
2015 0.5
2016 0.25
2017 0.5
2018 0.75
2020 0.25
2020 0.10
2021 0.25
2022 0.5
2022 0.75

We purchased in 1991 and then years later moved north/south never a good idea financially 🙄and quadrupled our mortgage, the baby that it looked like we were never going to have came along after ten years, so that was us down to one salary.

They were ummmmmmmm interesting times, so that is why when some people in our social circle think we are on the pigs back I make no apologies for being finally financially secure.

I bought in 91 and remember the agents’ disbelief when I refused to consider repossessions. There were a lot. I really hope we never see a repeat, it was dreadful.

We bought in 1984, we were in our 20s, a terrace house for15k, it went up and down a lot and we sold for £32k in 1997 and bought a 3 bed detached probate house for £65k, it's now worth about £300k-£330k, neither time we were we near our mortgage limit, income was fairly average. We also got a tax relief call MIRAS iirc

A high interest on a low principle is still better than a low interest on a high principle

@Mummyoflittledragon i don’t think you really get it. We’re tat-rich now (easier to buy low quality items produced en masse for less) but that is literally it.

Housing will always be a person’s biggest expense - if the average wage:house price ratio was equal now to the 1980s, the average house would cost around £120,000. Instead it’s 354,000. Now factor in many more women work and need childcare at 1000+ a month - there’s literally no comparison, and saying ‘but shoes were more expensive’ is a bit of an insult to be honest.

Exactly. The 17% is shocking on paper but in real terms was still more affordable than what we’re dealing with now.

Exactly

Misery fetishism.

If you can't afford to buy a house, you don't need to worry about carpet.

Have you ever wondered why the clothes are cheap. Because they're poor quality and don't last but that's what people can afford.

I just gave my dd a lambswool jumper that looks perfect and I bought from next in 1989.

This is meaningless unless you include average house prices and wages.
Yes I had high interest rate to contend with when I bought my first property but the price was just 3 times my salary.
A similar property/location today would cost an eye watering 12 times my current income.

Not going to dispute it's harder to buy a house now, but when I bought my first one in 1979 we paid 18% interest. Our house was cheap. And borederline derelict (made a retention of 1/8th of the value of the house) The BS (Halifax) offered us twice husbands salary and 1/4 of mine. He was an apprentice. Those saying ' now you have to have 4 times joint to buy' THAT was when it all started to go wrong. Had they stuck at 2x one wage and 1/4 of second house prices would not have risen like they have simply because no one could have afforded them. Now we're in a catch22 situation and there is no way out.

I’ve just looked at the first house I bought. It was a two up, two down Victorian terrace in a nice Berkshire commuter town and I paid £69k in 1991. It was sold last year for £385. 😱

I think we are talking at cross purposes. I totally agree it is far far harder for you to get on the ladder today. I think house prices have gone way way out of control and would welcome stagnation for 20 years so that everything else could catch up. I’m responding to the comment that it is far worse for you in all respects (or that’s how I understand you to be saying) now than it was back then.

If you look at my comment of £2 an hour and the cost of clothes etc, ok people would have been buying at the market. But the bra would have been maybe £8 and the shoes maybe £25. Those people wouldn’t have been heating their houses let alone buying their own home. So I am not just talking from the pov of people, who bought a house. I am saying it was very, very hard back then for many. Especially in the north.

£385k obviously!

Same. Bought in 2017 after living with mum for 5 years for deposit saving. I was 27 partner 29. Our house cost 180k when we remortgaged this year it was valued at 280k (and neighbour sold identical house for 300k). Absolutely ridiculous we wouldn’t have been able to save 100k in that time and we were fortunate to be living with a family member who had very cheap rent/bills (we split 3 ways).

No, the only point I was making is that it was not always possible to buy on one salary.

House prices are too high, I’m not disputing that at all.

I expect in a few years there will be threads about previous generations enjoying low energy prices. There’s always a struggle; that struggle is different for each generation

@Mummyoflittledragon it wasn’t ‘very, very hard’. None of my relatives (not wealthy) even pretend it was harder back then. My MIL (70s) was only saying yesterday how lucky she was to be able to stay home with her kids and not work for 10 years until they were all in school (she is from and lived in Hull). She said that as she commented on how exhausted I look working full time, in the throes of morning sickness with one in nursery. Running ourselves ragged.

And the north has never had it harder than the south. Particularly the south west.

Yep my first flat was one bed basement Shepherd’s Bush before it got gentrified. Mushrooms growing out of electrical sockets, carpet tiles etc. Opposite of instagram worthy even if that had been invented! My income was 700 pcm, my mortgage went way up beyond that and I shared my flat with some weirdos for a while. Then I had to rent flat out and move home till things normalised. Many friends just posted their keys through building soc’s letter box and described a huge relief on doing so.

My parents bought a 3 bed detached house in 1978 for £24k on my Dad's salary as a social worker. They paid off their mortgage in 1990. No help from anyone. We had multiple holidays every year, went abroad every year, 3 DC. Life was good.

The house is now worth £300k. I'm also now a social worker, DH is a postman working 50 hours a week. No way could we afford that property. We live very frugally and only have 1 DC.

Looking at historic interest rates is irrelevant.

Funny this thread should pop up today. I was visiting my parents today and we were talking house prices etc. They bought the house I grew up in in 1987 for £60,000 and about 9% interest my dad said. They were early 30s, both working but two young children (I was 6 that year, my brother 9). My mum said they spent the first year or so having to lay all the bills out on the table and figure out which one to pay first, which one could wait a week or so, to get through, as the house purchase was a stretch for them.

Now that same house is worth probably six or seven times the value they bought it for, with the mortgage long paid off, and they are enjoying their retirement.

I bought my first flat, a one bedroom in a nice area of south Manchester for £42k in 1997. I was in my first year as a trainee accountant on a £12k salary so after deposit, my mortgage was approximately 3x my salary. 3 years later I sold my flat for £75k. Even if I assume a trainee accountant’s starting salary was then £15k, their mortgage would now be 5 times their salary or they would need a significant deposit. The same flat sold a few years later for 6 figures, not a price that a first time buyer could afford. From 2000 onwards, the relationship between house prices and annual salary became even more distant.

I lived in a deprived area in a northern town and former mining area for a few years in the late 80s and early 90s. This was a time, when people were handing back their keys. A time just after the miners had been squashed and during the poll tax years. I also voluntarily worked for the local MP in his monthly surgeries so was aware of people’s struggles and desperation. I know a lot of women didn’t have to work. Many did on tiny wages and had it hard. As I said, dh was paid £2 or £2.20 an hour and there were people, who were doing it as their actual job longer term rather than dh whilst he looked for better work. I can only speak of my experiences rather than the experiences of other people.

The early 90s were very difficult, our terrace house went from £15k in 1984 to a high of about £55k in the early 90s, we then moved in 97 and sold for £32k, anyone that bought at the £55k would have been in negative equity for years

I first bought around twenty years ago and house prices have gone up a lot in that time but salaries havent really changed much - a real stagnation. My partner and I were both on 21k and my role is still advertised at 24k.

Interest rates were obviously higher when we first bought our flat which actually means the mortgage payments for the smaller loan with bigger interest v bigger loan with smaller interest were almost identical, but obviously those interest rates could really go up on that bigger loan. Scary. Also much harder to save the deposit. And looking back the council tax payments were tiny as that went up at least 2% minimum each year but 2% on the new amount.

Take a watch of this it does a good job explaining it

m.youtube.com/watch?v=PkJlTKUaF3Q

I bought my first house in the 1980s. I won't go into the horror of it all but the interest rates and negative equity gave me sleepless nights and I was terrified of being homeless and in debt. I still get anxious about it. I was only in my 20s and I remember worrying I wouldn't have enough money to last until the end of the month. It took years to get back on my feet and I'm still anxious about money and debt.

And many people have struggles and desperation now. The figures simply don’t back up what you say. I think this is a case of ‘no, I had it worse’ just because it’s usually the case that in times gone by it was harder. That is no longer the case.