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?

*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?

But, traininthedistance in 1979 a three bed semi near Margate was worth about £14,000. In 1961 it would have been worth about £1,500. So not much has really changed.

I do agree - I think the bubble will burst again in the next 18 months.

The notion that a 100 grand increase in a little over a decade on a property that only cost 110k is not much of an increase!

I agree with the poster (sort can't remember who) who said that it sounds like a pity party. Yes, we know it's a shit situation but it's your reality. Some people have given some really good advice but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Disingenuous, Windymill - a couple of inflation calculators using official UK inflation data suggest that 1500 in 1961 is worth the equivalent of approx. 30k now, and 14000 in 1979 is worth between approx. 62k and 67k now. Find me a 3-bed semi in Margate for 30k (or, indeed, 62k) and we'll call it quits.

Have a go yourself with one:
www.hl.co.uk/news/calculators/inflation-calculator

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

I would be happy to live there. Its quite similar to my ftb actually. But its not a 4 bed new build on a housing estate I guess.

I remember about 10 years ago buying a 2 bed semi detached house for £20,500 outright in a very popular village. It needed quite a lot of work but was habitable - at least it was for me and DH but then we don't mind roughing it. We sold it a few months later for £95,000. When we viewed it, there was a lot of other people viewing it and making disparaging remarks - it had the floorboards in the living room removed in preparation for digging out the solum.

We recognised one of those couples interviewed in the local paper, standing outside a new build detached, looking glum, under the headline "Local first time buyers cannot afford to get on the property market".

Admittedly those sort of properties are hard to come by now. But what is still possible is to buy very small properties in suitable plots and extend them.

I've said it before on similar threads (and others have on this one) .... It's fairly pointless to try to make comparisons across the generations because its comparing apples and oranges.

So- my parents were able to buy a modest 3 bed house shortly after their marriage- and yes, the mortgage was based on one income. It was a new build back then and they'd since been able to extend as houses then were built on bigger plots, whereas now it's the norm to move more frequent and work your way up.

If I compare what it was like for me and DH to get onto the housing ladder compared to them- yes, I quite agree, it would be easy to envy them

On the other hand, my mum probably envies me that regulated childcare exists so I can have a career. Many women couldn't back then. She could envy the fact that my children by their early teens had visited many European cities, camped in Provence, and have a level of first experience which would have seemed unbelievable back then. She and my father had a very modest Honeymoon in England and had never been abroad. My mother had the brains but not the opportunity to go to university: my dd will have that chance.

If you cherry pick you can always find something to envy previous generations for. However, if it was a case of actually trading places and taking the on the rough with the smooth, I'm sure it's a very different story

First hand experience

I entirely disagree with you for the simple fact that my mother bought a house very close to Margate in 1975 after she divorced my father. It cost £13,500 and has been valued recently at £160,000. DH's parents bought a three bed semi in Leeds for £2,200 in 1960 and it is worth about £160,000 now. I was trying not to be too specific because that sort of information is outworthy but it is true. It is all cyclical.

The notion that a 100 grand increase in a little over a decade on a property that only cost 110k is not much of an increase!

A 90% increase over 15 years (not a decade) is not particularly massive inflation. House prices increased much more than that (proportionally) over the previous 15 years. My salary (same job) has increased by a similar amount over that period of time as has national minimum wage for example.

Windymill for someone who apparently spent so much time working in the city I'm at a loss to understand why you don't seem to understand basic inflation

Two full time earners with kids cannot achieve the same living standard now as one full time earner with kids in the previous generation in similar jobs.

Our society has a huge and ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots.

OP you are right to question this and I am fascinated that the great british public are so meekly accepting of their ever dwindling quality of life, working ever harder and longer for less and less reward. We truly need a revolution to topple the fat cats imo. Bankers, Bernie Ecclestone,Duke of Westmister et al, companies that make billions in profit in the UK and pay 1% tax I'm looking at you. And all of us who endorse this situation with our own inaction I'm looking at us too.

Yes, we can eat on £1 a day and reduce our expectations and be happy with our lot but I don't think this was the OP's point.

Flat one: purchased for £32,000 sold for £95,000 (1981-1986)
House one: purchased for £118,000 sold for £138,000 (1986-1992).

It's cyclical and goes round and round. We have recently sold our family home and downsized.

Thanet is not really that nice, apart from Broadstairs, so people tend to be a bit snobby about them areas. Especially Margate and Cliftonville though they are trying to sort Margate out. Tbh I would love to be able to buy anywhere and would gladly live in Margate just to be able to have my own house! And people are right, it is cheap there. You can even rent pretty cheap and save up more of a deposit whilst renting on the cheap there to. I'm only 10ish miles from thanet but it's a LOT cheaper there than it is here.

The calculator you used isn't based on house price inflation alone.

I grew up in London, I went to school with people whose parents were teachers, health visitors, secretaries, junior managers. Lots of SAHMs and part time jobs. The 3 bed houses my friends and me grew up in that were affordable on one slightly above average salary are now worth well over £1 million. I didn't grow up in Kensington either, but a mediocre bit of zone 3 surrounded by flyovers and high rise estates. I will never earn enough money to move anywhere near where I grew up. Although there's no point moving back, as all my school friends have moved away too as the prices are so crazy. Their parents have moved away too, with a nice lump sum to ensure a comfortable retirement.

We managed to buy a flat in Scotland 3 years ago, we are moving soon and a flat in the same block has sold for £35k more than we paid for ours. That is insane. The one bed flat that took us 10 years of hard work, saving and budgeting to afford would be totally out of our reach if we were trying to buy it as first time buyers today. In my area at least, houses have risen by 15-20% over the last 3 years but salaries no way reflect that - our income has gone up by about 5% and that's with promotion.

To the OP, I don't think you are being unreasonable to feel screwed over. House prices do not correspond to salaries at all and what was reasonably affordable to average earners in our parents' generation now requires 2 exceptionally high salaries. But you are being unreasonable to think that you can't have kids until you have everything perfect. My mum spent the first years of her life living in a glorified shed and she survived. There are cheaper parts of the country even if this means a long commute. The housing situation won't change overnight so you just have to make the best of it for the moment. And vote for parties that promise to address inequality instead of allowing wealth to concentrate in the hands of people who are already rich.

But does anyone really want to go back to the mid/late 70s when girls were still told they didn't need a career - just a nice little job until they got married so there wasn't really much point in going to university, etc., and wouldn't it be better to do a secretarial course, bit of flower arranging, cookery course, etc?

Expectations have changed about more than housing but even so it was only really during the 20th Century that families depended on just one income. Before that everyone was in rented, no contraception, no unions to support basic health and safety, two weeks' holiday, and women worked and probably left their children in the care of an 11 year old.

i agree downstairsmixup but parts of it are hidden gems, the trains to London are faster than they used to be and there are still grammar schools. Personally I think it could escalate quite quickly quite soon.

Windymill, that is the exact point: house prices have increased dramatically beyond general inflation, whilst salaries have stagnated it fallen compared to general inflation, thus making it harder to buy

Broadstairs etc are lovely in parts, likewise Rochester (half hour to London) We need more innovators, artists etc down here to help out at the film club, writing group etc

Two bed terrace - £150k ish
come and look

OP I understand where you're coming from but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand how your circumstances are really that dire.

My OH and I have just bought our first house - a nice 2 bed end of terrace house in the South East - Berkshire to be precise. Fast local trains can get you into London in about 30 minutes. We are both mid 20s, had a modest loan from parents towards the 5% deposit we needed, and both have good, but not exceptionally well paying jobs.

So I'm struggling a little to understand where you are living to be unable to afford even a modest 2 bed flat. Surely you must be able to increase your combined income - it might mean a compromise and a move away from doing the job you really love, but if children and a house are that important to you then maybe it's something to consider?

I'm not saying the house prices are acceptable, but we don't have a choice about when we are born and can only make the best of the situation we have.

Not all house prices everywhere. It's a bit like stocks and shares - some go up and some go down and yet there is always an average quoted. Salaries too differ from industry to industry and sector to sector. You have to compromise and play it a bit. I worked in the City so I could afford the property - it wasn't fun but I did it.

It all depends on where you are in the cycle and how well you judge that cycle. Personally I wouldn't dream of buying right now in London - the market is bubbling as it was in 1989. It will boil over and stop. You buy as the market starts to recover not at the top.

Now do stop banging your head on the desk - it's rather silly and you will hurt yourself.

Am wondering if you should do a breakdown of your ins and outs income and expenditure wise on the money matters board[I think that is where that sort of thing is done on here?]

I am yet to be convinced you worked in a trading role in the city, Windymill, given your knowledge of market "cycles" and inflation!