House price hikes in the last century... guess how much a 3 bed terrace cost in Wimbledon c. 1935 in today's money.

[BluebellBlueballs]

I was reading Raymond Briggs book about his parents, Ethel and Ernest, who bought a 3 bed terrace house in Wimbledon on just a milkman 's
salary.

I looked on Rightmove and you'd be paying at least 1.3 million today for similar.

Guess how much that house would be if bought in today's money at the same time the Briggs bought it, mid 1930s.

Put it this way, unless Ernest was head honcho at the milk company I don't think he'd manage it today.

Would £49k be affordable for a milkman today if he couldn’t get a mortgage? These “if house prices were in todays money” posts always miss the bit that borrowing money to buy a house was very very hard for most people. Banks didn’t lend to the “wrong sort” of person if they didn’t want to (usually meant not middle class), wouldn’t lend to woman at all.

in the 1930s, 10% of properties were owner occupied, now it’s 64%.

the renters in the 1930s weren’t too stupid to buy these cheap houses, they couldn’t, the houses might seem relatively cheap compared to income, but home ownership was out of reach to the bulk of of people.

Oh shush OP! You know it’s REALLY because Raymond’s dad didn’t waste all his money on avacados and lattes…

At the time his Dads milkman wage was £3 a week; in addition he had a second day-job as a painter and decorator and his mother worked as a maidservant.

IOW, Dad Briggs bought a house in 1930 that cost more than 5 times his annual wage.

It wasn't. I was on £42.50 per week (unskilled) in 1978, and £4,250pa (salaried NHS) in 1983. I remember that DF was on £16 per week in the late 60s for a skilled blue collar job

We spotted some houses in Catford that you could have bought for £27k in today’s money, when they were built in 1905. They go for £800k now

Anyone beginning to feel they were born in the wrong century?

You don't need to go back that far, just to the 90s!

You don't need to go back that far, just to the 90s!

That is a different century!

In the 1950's the average wage was not £9k a year. It was about £9 a week.

In the 1950s the average wage definitely was not £9K. Absolutely not.
But that being said it’s a given that wages versus house prices these days have no correlation to previous decades.

I started working in late 70s early 80s and mt monthly take home was £275 per month.

When my dad graduated in the 1960s his ambition was to earn 10k a year and own a house worth 100k. He achieved that and then some
I do love Ethel and Ernest.

You’re not wrong OP! My parents bought a suburban semi for £3000 in 1965. They looked at one costing £3,600 but that was unaffordable. When they died their house was with half a million and the one at £3.6k had been vastly improved and worth nearly a million.

in that time the house was changed from coal to GCH, mod cons introduces etc. But still. That’s why cheap housing and DB pensions have left the middle class boomers’ families with such an unfair advantage. Inheritance tax is te only way to even it up.

Wimbledon, like Fulham and Clapham was not smart in the 1930s. Paradoxically Streatham was!

I pioneered in the early 80s and bought in Putney. People were shocked. It was regarded as very suburban, south of the river and middle aged. Wimbledon was even further out.

PIL moved out to Wimbledon in the early 80s because it was leafy and affordable, and they wanted a step up from the flat in the deprived and run-down area they were living in. South Kensington 🤣

I have seen the “run down basement flat” they used to live in, it is practically opposite the Natural History Museum and must be worth a couple of million now. London has changed!

So are we blaming Ethel and Ernest for getting on the property ladder? It certainly feels like it. FWIW We bought our first houses up North for £4250 (DH) and £5750 (me) in the late 70s.

We didn't feel well off - we had interest rates of 15% before house prices increased, friends lost their homes because they couldn't hold out - the stress was enormous, much as it's getting to be now for so many of you.

Our kids remember that Friday night was treat night, because we couldn't afford treats more than once a week (things like a bottle of pop, Birds Eye strawberry mousses and some crisps). We both had two jobs to pay the bills. Looking back from what you're all paying now it seems like we were living the high life, but we really weren't.

When we finally sold in 1988, when we moved in together (from 1978) they'd gone up to sale prices of £12k (hubby) and £13,750k (mine). We both had lovely old ladies in our street who were scandalised when we first bought, because they'd paid c£125 and couldn't believe anyone could afford to pay what we did.

We've obviously had artificially low interest rates for far too long for the current generation, and someone other than the sellers had made a mint on the interest received on those houses. How on earth could these tiny interest rates make any sense? It's ludicrous! Also, how is it our fault that this has happened?

It feels really convenient to get everyone to blame todays pensioners when we had absolutely no say in how high those sale prices were going to go. I worry for my daughters - one has decided to stay in the house she bought 25 years ago because it's too scary to try to step up. The second left a bad relationship, ended up with negative equity (thanks to the government for letting Northern Rock piss on them for years as mortgage prisoners). I agree you're all having a horrendous time but it's not the fault of individuals - blame corrupt governments, banks and big business.

We are the first generation of pensioners who've actually had a decent standard of living - we're the first generation who were better off then our own parents, and obviously someone doesn't like this. Please remember it's not a race to the bottom.

Nice bit or projection there. I wasn't blaming anyone. Nor was anyone else AFAIKCT

But it's the usual- missing lots of info.
A geography teacher had a degree, very few people had degrees, so most people did physical labour or perhaps secretarial or admin work without a degree and earned very little.
My DB wanted to buy a house in about 1970 but just couldn't afford the mortgage on a 16,000 house.
I do agree that housing prices are crazy but it is the same the world over (apparently Sydney is the same as London now, Vancouver is way more) - I don't quite know why this is and it's crap for young people but it's complicated (But a rising population everywhere can't help).

Wimbledon, like Fulham and Clapham was not smart in the 1930s. Paradoxically Streatham was!

Streatham had the first ever Waitrose.

I'm a born & raised Londoner, yes it was never easy to buy & interest rates have been high (although todays rates combined with higher prices have the same impact on people's income), however the roads I grew up in were full of normal people doing normal jobs many with a SAHM or one who worked p/t. Those houses now cost 1m plus & only those with amazing jobs &/or family money can buy them.

That’s why cheap housing and DB pensions have left the middle class boomers’ families with such an unfair advantage. Inheritance tax is te only way to even it up.

There is definitely huge inequality, I know people who have inherited 500k plus, very hard to catch that up with salary.

@Polis 😆 You're right but I meant as far back as the 40s/50s. I know people who bought houses in Hackney for 80k ish in the 90s, close to 2m now.

We sold our last house in Bristol in 2018 for £285. In 1999, houses on the same street were selling for £18k.

@GretaGood populations aren't rising everywhere, in many Western or developed nations, they're decreasing.

Mass immigration to the UK in the last 20 years combined with appalling Government housing policies, first from Labour then from Conservatives plus a view that property should be treated as an investment has caused this perfect storm in the UK.

I can't speak for other countries.

Yeah, I live quite far north. We had a lot of people locally in the early 2000s arrive from London…..the property prices seemed to have shot up there earlier than/more than anywhere else and they sold up and left London. Made a killing due to how much their London houses had gone up. Bought massive houses here, no mortgage needed and still money in the bank.

@twanmever

I don’t blame individuals as such. But I gladly blame the collective.

But when the older generation can’t see the enormous economic divide that has been created through governments they voted, and continue to vote for, yeah I have no respect for them.

The boom in house prices is a result of deliberate policies by government though, it hasn’t come out of nowhere or happened by magic.

since the 80’s government has
stopped building homes
sold off all its housing stock at rock-bottom prices
consistently treated landlords preferentially to tenants & made renting awful
allowed banks to give ludicrous mortgages to people who can’t afford them (banks own most houses, not individuals btw)
given preferential treatment to second-home owners, tax breaks on holiday homes etc

Less stock, poor alternatives to ownership, more money in the market = stupid house prices.