So what happens when we're all old and we don't own our homes?

[user8665410]

Genuine question.

I'm a millennial with no hopes of ever buying a property despite earning a decent income.

There are many in my situation.

What happens when we're all in our 70s, 80s and 90s - which we will be because medical technology keeps letting us live longer - and no longer able to work. Where will we live? Who will support us? Will we just get kicked out of our homes we've been renting for (potentially) decades??

My current rent is £2,585.00, the State won't be supporting that I'm sure.

I wrote to David Cameron when he was prime minister about this. It’s a massive ticking time bomb no one wants to address.
I was told they had lots of schemes to help people buy houses.
the benefit bill will be massive to the tax payers and the majority of that money will be going to private individuals

I left London and moved 200 miles away to a place where I knew nobody as a single parent in order to buy my first home. I was 32.

would you really suggest a 17yr old drop out of school and leave her entire social network to rock up in some random place, and then what... just cross her fingers and hope to find a cheap flat to rent, a non-London job that magically pays for it, and a new school place?

No, of course not. That sounds like an extremely niche situation.

Nobody expects 17 year old school kids to be self supporting.

Why can't you buy a house if you can afford that high rent. Do you live in a very expensive area.

@AcesBaseballbat I get it & have friends in similar situations. As I said I couldn't have what I have now without help from family. I'm really lucky in that aspect, lots of people don't see how they have benefited though.

If you can afford that much in rent then you do have options to enable you to buy. They might not be options you want to take (eg relocating) but you can't pretend you don't have them.

Round here (easily commutable to London) you could buy a substantial house with that budget for housing. You could rent a nice house for half that amount and save up rapidly

The reality is this is about comfortable middle class people choosing to judge people who don't come from privileged backgrounds by sneering and pretending it's all our own fault, that we could easily afford houses if we'd stop being so precious and just move.

👏👏👏

@AcesBaseballbat This thread is not about a minor leaving her support network. It’s about a couple in their 30’s with children who cannot afford the privilege of owning a home in London.

They have the choice to stay renting in London or move to a different city and buy. I’m not suggesting a village/rural move, but 2 minutes on Rightmove will show you endless homes in less “desirable” but beautiful, cultured and historic cities all over the U.K. where they could afford to buy.

Living in London is a lifestyle choice, not an obligation.

the benefit bill will be massive to the tax payers and the majority of that money will be going to private individuals

this does piss me off. More tax money getting funnelled to the few.

Really? There's places where you can purchase a house for less than two thousand pounds??

@Passerillage the issue is saving the deposit & having to have such a big deposit.

@FerryPink so how much is rent & how much are houses to buy?

Well they did in my case.

All the people posting that they upped sticks and moved to a new area: did you find/get offered a job first, or did you randomly move then look for work?

Were you established in a successful career and have to abandon that career when you moved to your new area? How did you find a new career?

I disagree. I think we can all see there is a real crisis for many. And personally both my career and my volunteering time are spent trying to deliver new affordable and social housing as I care about it so much

But if op can spend well over £2k on rent then she is by definition part of the "comfortable middle class". She's choosing location over home ownership.

Also worth remembering that once you’ve moved to an area where rent/houses are cheaper (like the NE where I live), wages are also significantly lower too.

Having seen friends move from where I live to London, they’ve basically kept the same living standard despite much higher wages.
Only Positive side is that by the end if it, they have a bigger capital so could hope to move to a cheaper area, downsize and be kept with a nice chunk of money when they retire.

But people can't be selling their homes to get that because then it wouldn't be care in the home.

people downsize or use equity release.

cherrypieintheskyyyy tbh I think there should be a subset for the older millennials as they will have had a very different experience to those a bit younger.

I agree. I remember when I was 22, my (now) husband and I despairing that we would never buy a house because of renting. Most of my friends were allowed to live at home rent free so saving was an absolute slog. I look at people who are renting now, they have zero hope of saving, no matter how much they slog it out.

Things can change so quickly. My sister is just two years older than me and only had to put a deposit of 5k down for their house. She bought it age 21! Then the recession happened.

Now people in their 20s are battling literally everything. My mum still says things like "well things were still hard for us". No they fucking were not! They could afford for just my dad to work, to buy a house on one wage of about 20k per year in the 80s. Mum retired age 60. Dad works part time because he likes it.

They have no idea how fucked people are. I heard on the radio that the last time it was this hard to buy a house was in the VICTORIAN times!!!!

My husband graduated and got a job once we'd decided we needed to move if we wanted to buy a home one day. I had a newborn so I was on a break from my university studies at the time. We weren't established in anything, so in a way that made it easier. Us doing this was very unpopular with family but they weren't going to help us (and we didn't expect it). The biggest change for me was, when I went back to study, having to transfer universities.

I thought that benefits paid for rental expenses in many cases, no matter where or how high the rent (another topic for discussion!). I must agree with PPs though, why on earth would anyone pay £££ rent in London when they could move elsewhere and probably be able to buy with the same money. We had to rent last year while househunting, in Cumbria, and paid £900 rent which we thought absolutely extortionate - but there's not much rental property in rural areas..

To add, I also didn't go back to university for a few more years as I couldn't afford the childcare needed.

Where are you based OP?
What you pay in rent is more than what I get paid in a month as a nurse!
I live in a cheaper area. My husband would be on a higher wage if we were further down the country but with the way house prices are we wouldn't be any better off.
I'm a millennial also.
Most of our friends have mortgages who live in the north.

It’s also public opinion, a lot of people don’t want to live like that let alone live like that and lose all their money. A lot less people are religious so it’s less taboo. My only concern is that some people may feel pushed into it

@FerryPink or she is choosing having a network of family and friends around her to support her. If you’ve had to be in your own, you’ll know how hard it is to have no support network at all.

Or she is choosing to not have 3~4 hours if commuting everyday. With all the consequence in family life and dcs.

It’s never as easy as ‘just move away’. Nor does the fact that you might have done that with no issue at all means it will be as easy for everyone else and it’s a choice.

I have two friends who are in their mid 70s in this situation.

One of them has children who help her financially because it was either that or she would be moving in with one of them (which neither of her DC wanted!). She is still working part time but her state pension and pension credit isn’t enough to live on.

My other friend is being evicted because the landlord needs to sell up. She is unable to afford anywhere else to move in the area and the local authority won’t help until the landlord has been to court. My friend is still working part time, despite being in poor health. The landlord (who is sympathetic towards my friend) has decided to wait another 6 months to give her more time to try to find somewhere.

In order to save anything substantial we will have to move about 2 hours away, dh will have to close his business I will have to pull the children out of school, away from guides etc. ones coming up to exam years.

i get what your saying. It’s just not feasible for everyone once you’ve set up life. I didn’t expect never to be able to buy