to feel seething resentment towards those who profited from the house price bubble and hot anger at the Governments who allowed it to happen?

[TartyMcFarty]

You'll have to forgive my naivety here - I'm ranting about something I don't really understand.

DH and I are stuck. In 2006 we bought a (modest) property on a 100% mortgage. Foolish in hindsight, I know, but based on the advice of our IFA, the unshakeable faith of our families and society that property ownership was the way to go, and the increasing pressure at the time to get on the ladder or miss out, that was the decision we made. We then found that the lender, bastard bastard Northern Rock were unwilling to remortgage based on our lack of equity, despite us having overpaid by several thousand pounds. We couldn't shift the place, and with the agreement of a different IFA, remortgaged against the equity in my DM's property (love her!). It gets more complicated than that, but that's all that's needed here. Now we still can't sell it , our tax credits have suddenly disappeared, my pension contribution has increased (DH doesn't even have a pension) and the tracker rate is slowly increasing. We're on interest only, and as I'm part time since the having DD, with another DC on the way, there's not much of a cushion.

What's really angered me over the last couple of days is the dawning realisation of how people just a few years older than us have profited from the massive increase in property 'values'. I'm still in touch with our ex-neighbour. She bought seven years earlier than us, sold at £120k profit after 10 years (this is not London!), her partner was in a similar situation so they have ended up comfortably in a property of twice the size, renovated to a really lovely standard. Obviously my resentment isn't directed at them personally - they're good people, have profited from a stupid market and good luck to them - but it's just an illustration.

How can we possibly hope to survive in a property market that boomed by more than 3.5x in this instance alone? We can't even afford to maintain our own home to a good standard. Pay isn't moving at all, and we're currently looking at less than .75 of a pension between us. I can't even bear to think about how we'll support our DCs through HE, and the risk to my DM's home if interest rates shoot up.

I just need a rant. Those of us stupid enough to be sucked in at high LTV rates towards the peak of the market are fucked all ways, whereas people just 5 years older than us are untouchable. I know I've only given one example for which I know the exact figures, but there are others I can think of in the same lucky situation. There just doesn't seem to be any point in trying when you compare our situation with those who profited so enormously in the 00s.

I bought a house in south London in 1996 for £140k - it's now worth just shy of a million quid...and it's a bog standard Victorian house - it's just in the 'right' area.

It was affordable - three and a half times what i was earning then.

I don't blame people who want to get on the property ladder for resenting me. You'd nee to be earning over £100k to buy a house in a nice part of London today. It IS unfair.

But - equally - I'm bloody grateful I did it

nappy valley,never heard that before,lol

Sorry to hear about your mum YellowWellies... that's the thing about the baby boom generation. They fought for women's rights, civil rights, gay rights etc etc, they're actually quite selfish now because they think they laid down all the ground work and we should actually be very grateful for all they've done for us!

thekidsrule Battersea (aka Nappy Valley, South Chelsea, the Toastrack etc etc) ridiculously expensive now. When we moved in it was all green fields blah blah :o

Indeed and a huge part of this mess is because one generation was so much larger than all of the rest. In a democracy everyone tends to vote for their own interests (yes yes we should all vote for the good of the country but Maggie ruined that ethic) this is fine when generations are equally balanced but we have had 'a pig in the pipeline' that has voted for it's own interests the entire time and is large enough to ensure that policy was shifted to their needs at each stage of their lives. I mean now they are about to retire it's all about benefits for pensioners, but when they were in the peak earning years - in the 80s and 90s, there wasn't much talk of looking after pensioners then was there nope it was all about low tax and greed is good? Politicians know two things - the old vote, but it is the young who riot. Think this will be an interesting decade.

at the end of the day we all have to ask ourselves if we had known about how the market was going to increase and you had the chance to buy rockbottom and make 5 times on it now,would you????????????

i bloomin would of and i think many many would to

it kind of answers the ??????? those that have not had the luck regarding prices would surely given the chance done the same and wouldnt of given a glance back

im now confusing myself,hope you get what i mean

I agree yellow, however me and dh saved for our house, both of us are under 30, and we didn't go socialising, with being at university, and working full time, neither of us had the time, we brought our first house cheaply, spend X doing it up, had first DC and then had to sell for a bigger property. Although we waited to buy,as we knew the area we wanted, however wasn't going to buy at silly prices, when 5 years beforehand they were 25% lower, and also houses in the area varied by £15000 to £30000 in selling price. I do stand by my post, in saying buying at the wrong time, in which you have quoted.

Our parents (and us too I suppose) have left the world a much worse place for our children. I really feel for them and think things are only going to get more polarised.

There is a book I am dipping in and out of ATM something along the lines of 'how the baby boomers stole their children's future and why they should give it back'

Very interesting so far and written by a politician.

I never in my wildest dreams believed the labour gov would do so much to artificially inflate house prices and keep them up based on the feel good factor of illusory wealth. All at the expense of 'sensible' people and savers, we never bought and I think it was the worst decision I ever made.
will certainly make us much poorer in the future!

I will try and read the whole thread

We need to be clear it's not luck really is it
It was gov policy to favour one set of people over another

Way different debate but I have a friend who says similar about being self employed vs a professional over the same period of time

I'm going to get slated for this but I reckon buying a house for a 100% mortgage is just a really crappy idea. And it always was. House values fluctuate. It's not just about the market, it's the local area. Shit happens. Factories close and a whole town is suddenly worthless. Similarly stations open and suddenly property values shoot up.

Which leaves people in difficulties with deposits - I know that. But in no other circumstance would you bank on an asset increasing in value entirely for your financial security. Pension assets drift from high risk to low risk to ensure stability over the long term for this reason.

And yes some people made a lot of money in the 80s and 90s. But a lot of the same people also lost a lot of money. Plus in real terms they have seen their earning capacity shrink so even though they have the house they struggle to heat it etc.

Don't be resentful, it's just stuff that happens. Envy is a poisonous business. You have a home OP.

And if you have a house which is worth X today and X tomorrow then surely you can look on it as having a rent free property to live in.

It's worth reading "23 things they don't tell you about capitalism" by a Korean economist. A lot of this is covered there, about how the monetarism experiment and globalisation/succour to capital of the last 30 years has really screwed things up, in the UK especially.

Yes politicians keep talking about growth drives me slightly mad we don't need all this growth we have all the plastic s%#t we could ever need and more, we just need good food, decent education safe warm places to live etc etc

We can't keep consuming at this rate.........

Yes yes yes Southwest this is NOT luck this is the government deliberately pandering to one generation because of it's sheer size (and thus ability to make or break elections)!!!!

That book is brilliant Southwest written by David Willetts MP himself a boomer, who as soon as he was in office brought in the tuition fees increase to well and truly shaft the young - so he clearly knew what the problem was but deliberately pandered to the large boomer generation (whose kids are by and large thru higher education) who would rather the money saved was spent on free swimming and bus passes for themselves. My generation is often slagged off as 'Maggie's children' but we didn't vote for her, we were kids when she was in power - it seems to be our parents who learnt her lessons to heart. Even the hippies!

I'm taking in so much info from this thread.

What an education!

Oh thekidsrule you're right we all would have piled right in - but what I'm saying now is it's time those that are about to retire used their electoral clout for good - rather than personal gain. It's time they use their majority to think about what is good for the society that is going to be looking after them. Yes they have broken the generational pact by pulling up the ladder after them. But as they are going to get more and more vulnerable - using their clout to keep all the pies will be a dangerous and socially divisive game. Time to share, hippies! (after all it's all about peace and love not materialism eh?) no more getting your kids to clean up the mess after your party.

And whomovedmychocolate I totally agree - getting a 100% mortgage is just asking for trouble and did state that in my first post. But if the OP was only getting pressure to buy, buy, buy before they missed out from their parents who had done well out of property, or worse the media saturation - I can see why if you didn't do your own research you would get stung. (Though when making the biggest purchase of your own life, I am constantly surprised how few folk do do their own research!).

Kirstie Allsopp has a lot to answer for - that woman is evil. I suppose negative equity isn't scary when your Daddy owns Christies' the auctioneer and is a baron - he bailed her out of negative equity in the 80s! Funny how she didn't make these credentials known when she was pressuring folk to over stretch themselves because house prices ONLY EVER GO UP. Until they don't.... Still we've all got Daddies who are barons who can bail us out.

Yellow - you would even had to have shaved the lab to get a mortgage. The problem with the 'its not fair, by the time I could buy house it was too much' is that its ignoring what you did get. At the OPs age uni grants were available. My dbro qualified for one. 4 years later I didn't. I decided uni was a viable option, financially. Had I have been 4 years older I may have gone to uni, but I don't bleat that people like my brother 'got it easy' or 'didn't earn their place'. Its not the fault of those that benefited from grants that I didn't it was down to timing. The same as I (younger than the OP) was ready to get married at 20, so bought a house. Then decided as I was pg at 21 to get a bigger house near my parents, the decided to get a bigger house to be nearer dds school and as I was pg again. There was almost 7 years between pgs. I have bought houses to live in not for gain. I don't think its fair to say its people like me that have caused the problem.

Well Jajas you see we weren't really all at the same party - the invites were very dependent on age (and most credit applications were very dependent on home ownership status!) DH and I were earning £80k a year between us and couldn't figure out how friends who earned a quarter of what we did were buying new cars every year and going on 4 or 5 holidays. It turns out they were withdrawing equity from their homes (bought during cheaper times) whilst we were living in rented, and forced (horrors!!!) to live within our means on our earned income and skills rather than by the profits realised from piling into a ponzi early. We were offered a 10x salary mortgage but refused to take it up as we knew we'd be vulnerable to interest rate rises - the bank that tried to sell me the mortgage told me not to worry interest rates only go up when the economy stagnates (WTF???? err that's the opposite actually!) and the economy was booming. We left and refused to take them up on the offer, on the basis that they didn't have a scooby!

but I was lucky to be one of the ones that was favoured by deliberate government intervention. I can definitely understand being angry at the way the government manipulated the market, but the individuals that made money on it? No, can't understand that.

Absolutely Hopandskip I struggle to understand that, until you meet some middle aged Boysey type character (unable to differentiate between luck and judgement) who reckons he is the font of all wisdom because his house doubled in value by virtue of him living in it. The sort of chap with not an ounce of modesty or realisation that he has just been damn lucky. And that the reason you're not doubling your wealth is because you aren't working hard enough even though you know you'll be working 20 years longer than him. Then yeah, I can understand the anger.

For those wondering about future price trends. I've just read an amazing post on another forum which I think summarises my view that prices are about to go tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimber in a much better way than I could have put it:

Apologies for the plagiarism for the original post see: www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=177517&st=90

For a 2008 house crash event on steroids any one of the following would do the trick and in my opinion is more likely than not this year:-

1. Spanish credit default
2. Italian credit default
3. Irish credit default
4. Collapse of the Euro
5. Collapse of most of the banks in Europe (as a result of one or more of the above)
6. End of forbearance by UK banks on those mortgagees in arrears.
7. Chinese recession (classified as 5x joint earnings loans
8. and finally, most tax rises / austerity measures have yet to hit home

This Country has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem of propping up a market destined to crash, they've nothing left to throw.

Well idiots come in all shapes and sizes. If it makes you angry listening to idiots then don't pay attention to what they say.

I do think that while I have been one of the lucky ones (and FTR I'm in California now, not the UK) to come out of this in better shape than I went in there is also an 'in it to win it' element. Those who took some risk are more likely to benefit. It is still luck of the draw for individuals though.

But the OP hasn't differentiated between the 'boysey' type and everyone else who just bought a home. If she had, the response may have been different.

Very intersting YellowWellies... dh (who is usually the more prudent of us) is quite keen to move in the next couple of years. I'm much much more cautious. I think I'm going to win out, but that's not necessarily a good thing because that means our economy is shrinking further.