To wonder how the next generation will afford a house?

[Housepricewoes]

DH and I want to move to what will hopefully be our family home, in 2 years. Work commitments means we can't do it sooner but I'm stressing about how much house prices might rise in that time.

That got me thinking about how today's children will ever be able to buy a home.

I know it's a very British thing to aspire to home ownership but rightly or wrongly it is the norm.

Many of my friends and extended family have only been able to get on the property ladder with a significant hand out from the bank of mum and dad, but unless their circumstances drastically change, they are not going to be in a position to do the same for their children.

What do you think will happen about houses with the next generation?

You'll be the lowest paid pharmacist I know then!! My lodger is a pharmacy tech and she gets paid more than that!!

I won't be working as a pharmacist, can't get a pharmacy job. Working my way back up from the bottom doing something else.

Sorry for hijack, but what did miners in Brixton mine?

Suzzie

a miner's cottage in Brixton???

Helluva commute to the pit.

Ha sorry I'm using that to describe the basic terristed property and a blue collar single family worker

I won't be working as a pharmacist, can't get a pharmacy job. Working my way back up from the bottom doing something else.

I'm guessing Brixham not Brixton?

Generational comparisons never really help people.

My grandfather rented in a house with 26 other young men in the NE in the 1901 census results. Most people never owned in those days. It is better now than then.

My parents had no children for over 10 years after marriage so they could save up to buy. even then it was very hard for them - early 60s and most people then could not afford to buy.

30 y ears ago I bought with my children's father. We had to buy a small terraced in very outer London zone 5 as we could not afford inner London as the prices were absolutely prohibitive. We paid 12% interest at times on the loan. That house then cost 5x one of our wages about 3x our joint wage. Today those houses cost £275k (outer London) and my daughter in the same job as I had at the same stage earned £40k so the multiple is not too different but interest rates are much much lower.

However I agree that it remains tough to buy. My second child has bought in London with help towards the deposit. She cannot afford to live in her own flat and rents a room in a house instead whilst letting hers until she can. Other daughter just bought with her husband and that was expensive - again in London.

It has always been hard. It will always be hard. Comparisons with generations don't really help people. We certainly did not have most of what people now spend money on - would never consider getting a Starbucks or buying hair conditioner or orange juice rather than squash. It was a different world where you accept many more sacrifices to buy than most people will accept these days.

My mother moved to a rented house in 1939. Those house now sell freehold in the NE on that road for £50k. Prices are not that high everywhere.

No - that's the going rate for terraced properties in Brixton these days, tho' think they would have been called 'artisans' dwellings' in the past.

(Do they have pits in Brixham? I imagine fishermen's cottages.)

This is just part of the London bubble, where distance from the centre and easy access to the tube is the key, so formerly working class districts are now v expensive. But this has been going on for years. We could afford a one bed flat in Notting Hill as young married students. It wasn't posh then.

It is so much harder to buy these days. Dh and I bought in 1997 and our house will now cost 4 times what we paid for it an identical house sold recently for that amount Our wages since 1997 despite doubling has not increased in line with house prices and the ones in their late twenties who are now starting out will not be able to afford to buy the house that we did we without help from dps and government schemes.

Never mind- why don't we go and cheer ourselves up by watching Threads On YouTube and hope we destroy all life on earth before we retire? Or we could make plan to back a business venture for uselessidiot to combine her pharmacy and nursing skills and open a branch of Dignitas for the poor.

No one young needs houses anymore, they all have smart phones so obviously watching a kitten play with a hoover is a suitable replacement for a roof over their heads. Don't they know how lucky they are. When they are in their 50s they might inherit a large deposit to put down on their first house.

I'm saying in our bit of outer London if you are prepared to slum it a bit as we did with our first house it is not too different today. Then if you didn't have a reasonably good profession you could not buy. Now you can't. Then you had to work very hard indeed to save a deposit and now you do. it also depends where you buy.
Eg today £100k 1 bed flat in Luton. Now some people are too spoiled to want to start out like that and work up. They think they have a God given right to have a designer detached house in Central London or they aren't prepared to work full time when children are babies any more as women used to in my day or they aren't prepared to endure an hour's commuting to work into London as people have done for generations.

i was in my 30s and had 2 children before i bought a house I am sure that buying a house isn't essential I know it is preferable for some people but tbh if rents were lower then younger people could get a better start and maybe start saving to buy their own house

I think it has always been the same and people need to get realistic.

My generation struggled and my parents generation struggled too.
The main difference now is once you have left the property ladder through divorce etc, its harder to get back because of rent prices.
In terms of first time buyers, people have always either had to live with friends or parents until they have saved a deposit.
A few years of a couple living with parents and saving is enough for a deposit, even now, in most cases.
I know it is bad in the south, but this has always been the case.

morethanpotatoprints how can you say it has always been the same? In my parent's case, they bought a 3 bed semi in 1990 for £37,000. About twice the salary of one wage.That house now costs £260,000. I don't think salaries have gone up that much in 20 years?

It most certainly hasn't always been the same in London and the south-east. The cheaper areas haven't changed so much, though. The divide is growing.

Tunip

We could never afford the prices in the south, when we started out so could many others not afford it. My parents couldn't have afforded it neither, even the cheaper areas.
It doesn't matter if you are 50k short or 100k short, if you can't afford it its as simple as that.

"Always been the same"

Anyone that says that is out of touch with reality.

Professional higher rate tax payers across the UK are now living in homes that were previously just for the work classes or poor immigrants, especially in the south east in decent towns.

yy, but now far more people can't afford it.

I think there will be a big divide. I can see it now.

Someone I know has just lost their parents in quick succession. (The parents were old.) They inherited over £1m. They have bought each of their sons London flats.

Dh's parents are sitting in a nursing home. Mil has senile dementia. She could live for years as she is otherwise in very good health. So far they have paid all their savings in fees, and are merrily ploughing through the proceeds of their house sale. Yes, pil could have lived with us and saved the money - but who can care at home for doubly incontinent people requiring hoists?

The upshot is no inheritance for dh or dcs.

suzzie

They aren't round here and we live in a town in the UK.
As I said, its worse in London, but has always been expensive and out of most peoples reach.
I'm sure these hr tax payers will be able to afford to upgrade as they go through life.
Everybody needs to start at the bottom, this has also always been the case.
My parents started off small as did we, then work your way up. They were professional couple too and mum became a sahp after dc. They managed large detached house eventually, but wouldn't have expected to start off with this.
I think this generation are out of touch with reality and expect too much.

There was a spell just after the high interest rates, repossessions of the 80s and the starting of the boom mid 90s when it was a lot easier to buy and many including myself at the age of 19 where buying was not only realistic but affordable. These where single people buying 2/3 bed houses, that are now probably bedsits. I bought and sold (moved about a lot) six houses in a ten year period at one point houses where rising quicker than people could save and chains where collapsing because those on the top where pulling out as price where rising and they where wanting more money or going back to market. The market may have wobbled a bit but not to the extent of the 80s. One of these house was walthamstow and yes there was still people who could not of been able to do this, percentage wise was much favourable and even if a crash happened and went to a similar level there will still be some that it is unaffordable but at least rent would hopefully be cheaper.

No they won't be able to work their way up, other lucky generations, boomers, were.

Childless couples on a combined income of 100k+ are maxed out on two bed places and 30 year mortgages and only keeping their head above water.