to feel screwed over by our society, can't afford a home, can't afford children, can't afford car

[Lauranda]

I'm in my early 30s, had a great up bringing, do a job I like and got married last year. I do feel very lucky.

However where we live in the south east, all we can afford to rent is a badly converted 1 bed flat with a damp problem. Can't really save much and are very economical with our money so can't see ever affording anything bigger and could never bring up a child here.

My parents managed to get a large 4 bed Edwardian house on one sallery when I was growing up and dads job level was about the same as dh. No way could with double sallarys afford anything near that lifestyle.

Parents keep saying my time will come, but looking at the statistics that seams very wishful thinking. Parents have kindly offered 15k to help get a house but to be any use would need much more than that and to pray interest rates never rose much.

Am I alone in just being unable to afford children even though we both work full time?

Oh I definitely "get" the issues facing the age group that traditionally fight all the wars/become active protestors. Since the dawn of time pensioners haven't been the ones on the front lines of wars etc but young people aged between about 18 & 30.

One thing that will cause the bubble to burst eventually is demographics - the baby boomers have dominated all elections simply by dint of being the most numerous. But they have been very short sighted. Eventually they will need to downsize for retirement and the generations below cannot fund current prices therefore eventually they will have to reduce to a level younger people burdened by student debt can afford. Any asset is only worth what someone is willing or able to pay for it.

This is being hidden a bit at the moment by foreign buyers. However foreign oligarchs are also limited in number and have no loyalty to the UK - they may identify a better investment elsewhere.

House prices are NOT sustainable relative to native people's wages. We all know the current bubble is not sustainable. the bubble will go "pop" sooner or later, and when it does I truly worry about the consequences for all of us, including those who at the moment seem to be benefiting from the crazy bubble. We've seen the misery caused when previous bubbles have burst, yet have knowingly allowed the current one to grow greater than any that have ever gone before. Shelter, like food is such a basic need, and the housing market has always relied on the first time buyer as it's engine.

I am really worried that this government is doing more than just creating poverty and misery - I think that if we are not VERY, VERY careful the awful riots of 2011 will go down in history as the prelude to something awful! A LOT of people are discontent and unhappy - eventually that feeling WILL bubble over. I also think having seen the mass repossessions of the 1980's that being a first time buyer in London at this moment in history will turn out to be a move many ultimately regret as negative equity creates a very unique sort of misery.

Buy a house to live in it not to make money from it!

I had a fairly harsh upbringing, worked my butt off to get through education I'm still paying for, and also can't afford to buy despite earning pretty well, in the southeast. I don't feel 'screwed over' by society, it just is what it is. Does it bug me? Sure, but just get on with it. There are choices, like moving, as others have suggested. As I prefer not to change my job right now and like other aspects of living where I do, I choose to carry on renting and not move.

Train - I can imagine

Train - I can imagine That is pretty full on. But you know the problem very well, can articulate it excellently and unlike me have a good deal of empathy. You'd have my vote in the future!

The 15k would only be given to buy a family house in the area, has to meet parents approval, they wouldn't just give it to me and let me buyg something up north. Its about as useful as a small deposit on a car, but the car has to be a Porsche.

Well that 15k deposit is ten percent of a 150k place. Buy a 2 bed flat for 120k

itsbetter most mortgage lenders want 20% from FTBs at the moment, and where are these 120k 2-bed flats? Studio and 1-bed flats in my town are 200k+, 2-bed flats are 260k+. There isn't an 120k 2-bed flat within 100 miles of here (and I have looked).

We are almost 30. Last year we bought our first home. Paid 5k deposit on a 90k 3 bed semi. Ex council stock. Huge garden.

The sacrifice? DP has to commute a total of three hours a day

The upside? Living here we should pay off the mortgage in 15 years. And if interest dates screw us over we have the choice of extending the mortgage term to allow us to be comfortable. If we moved nearer his work we wouldn't have any of these luxuries.

Oh, and nobody is offering me 15k towards anything either. Still not feeling 'screwed over'.

I know people who are buying with 10% deposits at the moment!
I live in the south east and see a lot of 2 bed flats under 120k. We are looking to buy one soon. Don't sigh I'm not lying..

The 15k would only be given to buy a family house in the area, has to meet parents approval, they wouldn't just give it to me and let me buyg something up north. Its about as useful as a small deposit on a car, but the car has to be a Porsche.

So don't take the £15k, move somewhere else and accept you will have to commute.

This is sounding more like a pity party, there are solutions but you won't consider them.

Where are you in the SE? Can't be anywhere near me! The local park homes in this area are 180k+ and you don't even own the land... No 2-beds for 120k to be seen in a hundred miles.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41489395.html

2 bed terrace in Chatham £120k

There are 5% deposit offers out there. It's what we got.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45236456.html?premiumA=true

2 bed maisonette Braintree £110k

Just coming back to the basic point though - do all the "you're a pity party" posters think housing in this country is sustainable? Cos it's obvious that you can't run a country by telling everyone that if they can't afford housing that they should get a better job/move to Scotland etc. Is everyone under 35 and/or who earns less than 100k going to relocate to Dundee? (Better get in there before you need a visa, chaps....)

Obviously not. So where's the point in this endless "lower your expectations/too many holidays & coffees/move to a 1-bed in Luton/we had 15% interest rates and a button to play with and slummed it in a flat with made of wattle and daub with no running water in Tufnell Park/Hove/Ramsgate/Warrington in 1979 before we made it to our nice family house in Hampstead/Brighton/Tunbridge Wells/Knutsford through sheer hard werk I tell you so you can too"? Unless it's just to derive pleasure from other people's hardship by trying to pretend the housing market isn't crazy and a massive asset price bubble that will end up crashing our economy. Oh, wait....

Maidstone, Gravesend, Gillingham, Ramsgate, Margate, Sheerness - are these not SE?

Look on Zoopla under Kent - 2 bed flats..... there are great differences in different parts of the SE.... some areas pricey - some not...

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29212725.html

2 bed house in Colchester in Essex.

There are propeties but you have to be willing to travel.

I read that article too Lauranda but I don't think we were quite handed free housing. Many people bought because it was extremely hard to rent at all.

In 1981 it cost me £128pcm to rent a pretty basic two bedroom flat in Fulham. My income at that point was £382pcm - non negotiable outgoings were about £185 pcm including bills and tube fares. I quickly got a payrise and was on £447pcm. At that point my dad helped me to buy a flat for £32,000. My mortgage was £23,000 because I had saved £3000 myself.

Monthly outgoings were: mortgage £245 (and this rose a lot at one point), service charge £40, Rates £40, Bills £40, Fares £30. That left me about £50 pcm for food and clothes. Even in 1981/2 that was pretty tough and I had to have a lodger. It took me at least 18 months to tip my earnings over the £500pcm mark too. I also had to compromise on location. In those days the compromise was SW15 rather than SW10 or SW6; now those compromises are further out but you can still get a cheapish flat in places like Sutton and Croydon which aren't a million miles from central London.

It was doable in the early 80's but it certainly wasn't easy and there were plenty who didn't have the guts to do what I did at that age knowing that once it was done it was done and you couldn't then decide to travel the world or chuck in your job. I cannot remember the number of friends who told me I was mad. Who told me they wouldn't put in the work hours I would, etc.. It would have been much much easier back then to have carried on renting but it was money up the wall and rental properties were extremely hard to get hold of in the days before "buy to let".

Some of my generation have made a lot of money from property but actually a huge proportion haven't because they kept missing the boat because they weren't prepared to make sacrifices.

I'm still not entirely sure why at the age of 30+ you even need £15,000 from your parents and you haven't explained why you have no savings or investments of your own. We have just sold our London family home - the bidding was between three couples in their mid to late 30s so it clearly can still be done by those with the grit to do it.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29212725.html

2 bed house in Colchester in Essex.

There are propeties but you have to be willing to travel.

The
house I bought on 1999 for 110,000 (in a
different part of the UK) is now worth 210,000
which is obviously more but not really massively
more considering wage increases during that
time.

Thanks for the laugh!

Sorry double post!

Stardust - Ramsgate's a 3hr+ drive from me and I don't own a car (too expensive to run), so where does that leave me?

The
house I bought on 1999 for 110,000 (in a
different part of the UK) is now worth 210,000
which is obviously more but not really massively
more considering wage increases during that
time.

Thanks for the laugh!

Why is that funny?

What's your combined salaries op? Unless you live in the middle of London you can find cheaper places.