to think that the norm of having a 2 working parent household, is fairly responisble for making housing cost so high

[carriedaxmaspud]

fair enough if both parent swant to work, its their choice, we are all differnt and want to do different things,
but seems to me that now the norm is for both parents to work, thats whats made house prices and rents go through the roof

i mean ther prices can only go up to what people can afford, so if buting a house was based on one persons wage not 2, the house prices would never have reached the outrageous prices they have.

Its because the banks lend stupid multiples, and not because of women working.

But if house prices weren´t so high, "stupid multiples" wouldn´t be needed.

I think a shortage of new housing plus people living longer must factor.

I'm too exasperated to read all of this thread - I started exploding on page 3.

Women have not only just started working. As others have pointed out, working-class women and high-achieving women have always worked. So the changes you're talking about are amongst the middle classes.

50 years ago, the home that was afforded by a middle-class man with a SAHM was less high-spec than the one you (yes, you over there!) live in. If you chose to go back to having 5 kids in a 3-bed semi, one bathroom, one car, a small kitchen with basic appliances and one short-haul holiday a year, then you'd probably find you can afford it on one salary.

The reason why you "have to" work double to afford your home & lifestyle is your aspirations. The barefoot wife option is still available to you, if that's really what you want.

Plus: a home is not an investment. A house is an investment if you don't live in it, otherwise its "value" is irelevant.

Absolutely. The outside loo shared with other families, the 4 children per bed, the no central heating - that was common. There was no golden era of women happily at home providing domestic services in wedded bliss. There were a few women at home most of whom hated it hugely resentful that after WWII they were turfed out of the work place for the returning soldiers to pinch their jobs and all the state provided nurseries were dismantled. Those women turned to drink - gin wa popular and some even to drugs in the 60s and total most of them will work save a few who seem to like the housewife model but they are few and far between.

Yeah, Xenia. I left those parts out due to high blood pressure

In the 1960s it was an important mark of male status that "his wife didn't have to work". The idea of the career man + SAHM wife was born from that. The SAHM was a male status symbol for the middle classes. Simple as. And, I repeat, you still can live like that if you choose to.

..no double glazing, no central heating, no fited kitchen....etc etc

i am a bit tired of the 'baby boomers had it easy' crap.

Heh, Edgar, me too! Moreover, I am back in the very house we're describing (only 2-bed but I'm on my own) - it hasn't been renovated since the late 50s, going by the paint colours. Why do I live like this in 2010? Because I needed to slow down - and this kind of life is still affordable.
QED :)

The reason housing is so expensive is because credit became so widely available and cheap that having a larger mortgage became the norm. As people were able to borrow more to purchase a home, the "value" of the home went up (something is only worth what someone iare able or willing to pay for it) because people were able to pay more due to lots of cheap credit. This resulted in the housing prices rising, people had to get bigger mortgages and the only way to do that was to be a 2 income family.

Hopefully, now that credit is no longer as available as it was (and soon will not be as cheap)house prices will fall as people are no longer willing (or able) to pay what they were and house prices will fall to realistic levels.

Probably been said before BUT

Previously (eg with the currently retiring age group) you could only borrow upto 3 times the main earner's salary and that was quite unusual, plus most people had to have a big deposit for their house... Hence an automatic cap on lending and what house prices could stretch to (eg if no-one has the mortgage, no-one can buy the house)

Now as far as I know there is no real cap and also (previously to the crash) 100% mortgages were fairly available, plus there was the lucrative sub-prime market...

So, lots of money, lots of leding and lots of upwardly mobile house prices.

AND we live in a free market economy, where supply and demand often dictate prices. More single people, broken families and people expecting NOT to live with their parents or have their older parents come and live with them and there's more demand - just look at the discrepency with house prices in lots of high demand areas (eg the South) vrs lower demand areas (some of the Norht)...

I'm not at all sure I like the idea that my income or DH's 'should' be disregarded by a mortgage lender. As it happens, we prefer to have a mortgage that is affordable on one salary (just in case), but if we wanted a bigger mortgage, and could afford the repayments, I'm not sure there is a moral imperative for our building society to turn us down.