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.

victoria, perhaps the teenager you mention had been working at McD's long enough to save a deposit. I, however, graduated that summer, having got by with a PT job (at McD's, funnily enough) and a grant from thr hardship fund (to qualify for this you had to have used your overdraft as this was considered part of your available funding). I left with less than nothing and had to buy a (crap) car to get to work at all.

I don't know anyone who could have bought a flat on a minimum wage job in 1999 or even earlier for that matter.

You still had to find a deposit too.

It goes to show that a big part of our decisions is luck, I opted to work and get a house first then do my degree with the OU later, it has worked to get us in our own home but I think we will 'pay for it' with me having a much hampered career progression.

Do you need vinegar with that chip, tary?

You win some, you lose some. Be thankful you were born in a time of equality and the Pill .

My first flat was £23,000 I was earning £12,000 and put the deposit of £1,150 on my credit card naughty but that's what I think is out of sync the ratio of wages v's house prices

Tarty - I am one of those lucky ones who is sitting on a lot of money in my current property. Although its not exactly easy to cash in on that money as we all still need to live somewhere.

But ...the first flat I bought (1988) was in negative equity for nearly 10 years before I could finally afford to sell it.

House prices go in waves. The value of your house will eventually go up.

why do so many people see it as an investment more than a home

if you plan on being there a fair while history says it will increase

atleast as long as you pay the morgage you have far more security and le way opposed to renting

also the late 40.50 60yrs old struggled to get what they have and only years later they are reaping the benefits,it makes me mad when people say they ha it so easy,they didnt,just was a different time

i am 41 by the way so have no vested intrest in the so called babyboomers

My parents married in 1955. They rented a room in someone's house for five years while they saved up the deposit for their first house and then they TTC.

How many people do that now?

I see where you are coming from and I do think the whole thing is insane although I am probably the type of person you refer to.We bought a flat in London in 2001 with a 100% mortgage. I remember us working out it would take us 2 years to save the deposit and we would have spent another £20k on rent in that time. We kept that property when we moved to our current house in 2005.I appreciate we are lucky.Mostly due to our age (although I was only 25 when we bought our flat) but we also took a risk. It could easily have gone the other way. House prices will rise and you will make money and then someone will say the same about you. I would be shooting myself in the foot given my position but I think for most people it would be better to have a tighter control on how much property can rise by in relation to wages but I guess that would have implications for other parts of the economy - basically my knowledge of economics stretches to what I last read in the paper but even though naive I can see we as a country are far too reliant on house prices to fuel are economy and wonder what incentive a government would have to change this and what effect this would have.

agree with the OP.

All it would take is a law making it illegal to own more than say 2 houses and whomph! affordable housing.

Fuck landlords. Fuck them all.

Half the members of parliament are land lords, the famous socialists Tony and Cheri Blair own a handful of properties

entropygirl I'm a landlord, a newish landlord granted but alongside the "being in the right place at the right time" I've worked bloody hard to be where I am and made enormous sacrifices along the way.

Yep, as I said above I am a Landlord too. We have made sacrifices to do it and I take my role as LL seriously. In fact we are darn nice LL. I see that flat as my pension and a security for my childrens future. I am proud of DH and I owning two properties as we have never received any help and never will ( certainly no inheritance coming our way).

Thekidsrule, you are absolutely right.

When you buy a home you are buying the place where you will live, not primarily the first rung on the property ladder, and the rest of your life cannot be put on hold while you scramble to afford that place month after month. You should not see it as your ticket to riches. You should be looking at it for the long haul, and you should not be buying it if you can put no money down, if it is going to cost too much for you to pay for it month by month to be able to save something, or if you face a scenario where any kind of an income blip means you risk losing it or going hungry. If you can't put something by as savings and something for a rainy day fund every month on top of buying your home then you should not be considering saddling yourself with the massive debt that 'buying a home' really is.

YANBU to feel resentful that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However I do think you have taken some astonishing financial risks. I think you were badly advised, but I do wonder why you yourselves also didn't think about what scenarios could happen if interest rates go up (they can only go up) or if you lost any part of your income, if things are so tight.

I know you are just letting off steam here, and what's done is done. I think from now you should put your energy into making damn sure you can pay off the capital of the mortgage when the time comes, and thinking through each worst case scenario and making a plan. You are very lucky that successive governments have chosen to protect people with mortgages - make the most of this, and do everything you can to protect yourself from this point on.

I'm really not seeing our property as anything other than a place to live. Problem is, it's beginning to cost us more than we can afford, is too small for a family of four and we can't get rid of it because its value has tumbled.

I find the posts suggesting that our time to profit will come patronising and short-sighted. At what point in recent history have house prices been so far out of sync with people's earnings, and how, honestly do you see that gap closing whilst in real terms income is fallen (my salary has been, and will continue to be frozen for some years, as well as the circumstances described in OP). I'm at a loss to see the way out. But please enjoy the blinkered view!

I am one of the lucky ones but not to smug as I can now look at a future with the kids for a long time. But for me the problem was not the home buyers or the investors it was the interest rates. House prices were rising yet my mortgage was going down which meant I ended up owning my house. People could only buy what they could afford the boom would not of happened if the rates had stayed inline. As for the people (lots of friends and family) who saw their houses as equity to spend on lifestyle they are paying the price now. It will take a generation to equal out or an almighty crash which again would be awful for those who bought at the peak.

I believe there is another element to this. It's certainly true of us and our peers. All mid 30s

We left uni with pretty much useless degrees, as every Tom, dick and Harry has got a degree, even if they can barely string together a coherent sentence
These degrees cost us, ive still not paid back my student loan. We started out with big debts, worked in our first, usually low paid jobs, and while we did the market rocketed

We couldn't buy then, we each had £25k of debt

Now we earn more we need to re pay that debt so can't save for a deposit

I wish I'd never gone to university, yes it was just 'The Thing To Do'
If only we'd known :(

YahYah, the belief that it was 'The Thing To Do' was held by us, our parents and our mentors. You're right, and how could we have known otherwise? Don't know about you, but I feel annoyed at comments suggesting we should somehow have known better. So should those who had the good fortune to profit - it's got a lot to do with luck.

My advantage over you is that I went into teaching (for the wrong reasons - to use my degree and improve my earning potential). I wonder how many teachers of my age their are who are good at the job but have no love for it?

I had to stop having this conversation with my sister recently as it made me so cross.

She is 15 years older than me, live in a large 4 bed detached despite being on average wage. They bought in 1995.

They both have generous final salary pensions and retire at 50. None of their children had to pay tuition fees.

Our situation is very different and our children even more so.

She was expressing disapproval that so many mothers worked full time which 'didn't happen' when her kids were little and blamed greed and 'consumer culture'.

I pointed out that her first mortgage for a terraced house (in 1980) was twice her DH salary, as that was the maximum he could borrow. It doesn't take a genius to work out that when banks are prepared to lend 5x joint salaries then prices will increase by that amount.

So now both have to work just to pay the mortgage. It's madness.

We are kicking ourselves though as we sold in London in 2009. It was in the middle of the crisis but DS1 needed a school, we were sick of London with a small child etc.

Had DS1 been born a year earlier or a year later I reckon we'd have an extra £200k in the bank

But I try not to think about it as we are lucky to have a nice house in a nice area and our mortgage is low.

I have two sets of friends stuck in property now far too small for their family that they can't leave.

And another problem us that once you are in your 30s you can't slum it in a tiny flat, in a shit area, eating baked beans, well you can but you want / have children, they need to be safe, and fed, and gave a bit of soace.

So it's hard, you aren't in. a position to make the sacrifices people who 'bought young' were able to make

And yes, OP, rueing a descision I made at 18, with no idea of economics or markets or finance, with NO idea of the impact things like house prices could have in shaping ones future and family is somewhat galling, but a hiding to nowhere really

SOz for typos, sleeping, doomed baby on my arm