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 and I'm in London.

That's a tough one, Sigyn. I feel for people who grew up in Hong Kong, New York, Oslo, San Francisco - can any of them even dream of buying a house that compares with what they grew up in? Or should they consider themselves lucky to have spent their formative years there, and draw a line under it.

I was informed on Friday that we are being evicted from our rented house. We have 2 months. Currently we are near school, and near the childminder. I am friendly with the neighbours. All ds's friends live near. There is fuck all to rent in this area, so will have to move quite far probably.
I thought this house would be our long term home; in fact, I rejected many other nice houses, as they were also up for sale, or the LL's wanted to sell, and I was desperate for a long term home. I am going to have to tell ds that he is going to have to get used to another place. The 3rd "home" in his young life. He will be gutted.
And rather pressingly, I don't know where I am going to find the money to move. It took me months to get sorted after the last move (agency fees, moving van, buying new curtains, painting).
I just put in some new climbers in the garden.
Sorry for hijack, just, when people say things like "oh but renting is better for catchment areas" or "Oh but you have so much more freedom renting" it makes me despair of certain people ever understanding what a fucking failure you feel as a parent when you can't even provide a stable home for you kid. When your child says "can we live here forever?" and you have to say "I don't know". Because you don't.

IfNot this happened to us only 3 months ago. We have as a result managed to get a housing association house...have you had official notice to leave?

If so, get onto the council tomorrow or Tuesday about applying for a HA home. As you're being evicted and have children you are a priority.

I do agree that priorities have a part to play.

I've been reading around this subject lately and will admit to being that, for example, someone on a debt management plan thinks it's appropriate to work overtime to pay for a foreign holiday 'because the kids deserve it'

That kind of mentality is clearly a recipe for disaster IMO but unfortunately many other people are so far away from the required disposable income to get any mortgage that even the most shrewd prioritisation won't help.

And there is nothing wrong with not having a mortgage. I haven't....all I want is secure accommodation for my family at a price I can afford.

I am happy to accept that I don't get the freedom an owner gets...or the right to sell or make money off it...the main aim for the government right now should be to provide more social housing to working people who don't earn enough to get a mortgage.

Eh, you live on an island where nothing is more than a day away. Grandparents will see the kids. If you or they can't visit often enough for their liking then they can always move to the cheaper area too. I know a number of grandparents who have done this.

I live on a different continent from both sets of grandparents. One set has a deeper relationship from the other, mainly because they put more effort into it. My son is currently skyping his grandfather twice a week for several hours, my father is tutoring him for one of his exams. When he was young my parents read him stories over the phone or sent videos for us and we sent them back... still do.

Is your DH setting up his own business part of the problem? My DH wanted to do that when DS #1 was small but we really needed a better income and more stability. He is doing it now instead.

Thank You Mrs Winnebago. That is helpful. I will see the council on Tuesday, and yes, official notice.
We are on the council waiting list, but, i have always been able to rent privately (not without a struggle)
I just feel so out of fight right now. It's exhausting. And I agree; I don't want an investment either. Just a home where I can fix it up nicely and not be chucked out because the LL has decided the house needs too much work doing, and he can't be arsed with it.

Ifnotnowthenwhen same thing just happened to me. Landlords who never repaired the property we've rented for the last 5 years have told us to leave. My dcs thought if the place as home. I thought of it as a long term place . Anyway I got the money for the move by selling loads of stuff and borrowing the rest. We moved to a less than ideal flat 20 mins walk away from the school which costs more. The agency told us landlord was selling up as they couldn't afford to maintain the property but it turns out that they just painted it and it's been let out to a we tenant. The move was a massive upheaval in out lives. We both work full time and can't afford anything by the time paid rent and nursery and bills. And we earn decent salaries. I should feel rich in the amount of cash that passes through my account every month but instead I just feel screwed . I'm amazed at how sanctimonious people are about saving hard etc when the circumstances are stacked against us and we really have nothing left. How much more would we have to earn to get to a place where we could save ?? It's ridiculous...

even so sorry that you are going through this.

It is unfair that you both work yet cannot create a stable home for your dc.

Private renting is expensive, even more so than a mortgage.

Sorry even. That is shit.
My LL bought my house (and others) in 1970 (for about 20 p) and he gets about 7.5k a year from me in rent, but the poor chap can't afford to make even basic repairs. Makes your heart bleed, doesn't it?

Yes I feel for my ll too poor lady my rent didn't cover her mortgage apparently. I rented a cottage with holes in walls and damp and rotting floorboards and paid her 11 k a year for the privilege .... She lives in a 4 bed in herts which is new and has two cars. I don't have a car - I would live to have a car. This is not a pity party btw but basically I agree with the op. If you didn't buy earlier unless your circumstances are exceptional you won't buy now and this will leave you at the mercy of exploitative market and ll's and since you have to live somewhere there is nothing you can do . I've contemplated squatting but dh is dead set against it

even i have to agree, the situation is dire and I agree its awful knowing you cannot have a stable long term home for your kids if you cant afford to buy.

The landlord here is a long term close family friend of DPs and has business dealings with him and his family members, he is very very laid back and owns the house outright, I feel very stable here but I agree you always have to prepare for the worst with private renting. Ours didnt use an agency but we do have proper written agreements, he also rents to SIL.

We feel we can't afford a house (we have a large flat which is paid off) or a car (ours was written off last year after an accident) without a) going into uncomfortable levels of debt or b) having huge ongoing expenses each month and our household income is supposedly in the top 10% of our country. Technically we can afford both by the bank's standards but we'd have little to no savings.

It doesn't make me feel like society has screwed us over. It makes me worry about how much debt others might or must be taking on to service their lifestyles and the consequences it might have if there's a downturn and they think we have money.

"Or should they consider themselves lucky to have spent their formative years there, and draw a line under it."

I don't think that's really the point. In my case, and in the case I imagine of the OP, the problem is not a "dream of buying a house that compares with what they grew up in?".

Its not wanting to live in an expensive city and stamping our feet that we can't afford it.

Its wanting to live near family, pure and simple.

London and the South East have skyrocketed in price in my lifetime. One side effect of this is that people who grew up there, who have chosen to work, say, as teachers or civil servants, who do not have family behind them with spare cash they can hand over to help them with a deposit, simply cannot afford to live there.

I personally just want to live near family, where I grew up. Its unfortunate for me really that that place happens to be London. But it happens all over the country. It happens when people buy holiday homes in small villages and price out those who grew up there, who just want to live near their families.

I can't actually see a simple solution. But I do feel that, for the OP, the situation is more complex than just wanting to the in the South East. As I understand it, she wants to be near family, not the facilities of the South East.

I suppose historiclaly people have always had to move away from family. I did - hundreds of miles, not a day's babysitting a year just about from grannies etc (we both worked full time ) only way to find work. My relatives in all generations have had to move from family to find work or be housed.

I agree there is a London issue here. 30 years we found it impossible to buy in inner London on our salaries and today it is the same. I just checked the supposed rise in house prices of my own house zone 5 and my daughter's flat zone 2 over the last 5 years (hers 25% - the owners before her had it for 5 years and got very little more than they had paid for it which shows how areas and prices stop and start!; and my house in 2 years 13% zone 5). I looked up my parents house which we sold 5 years ago and that over2 years has risen supposedly has risen 1.4% (8% over 5) (NE England).

So we seem to be seeing much more of a the places where people want to live where there is work - London zones ` and 2 very very very high rises and outer London where I live not quite so much. I don't think my house is worth more than it was valued at 10 years ago to be honest.

When my daughter bought about 18 months ago we both knew prices might be due for a massive reduction particularly given the fact the last owner had owned for 5 years and made just about no profit but I said let us get on with it use every last penny, borrow etc etc and it if you keep somewhere for 50 years you'll be fine. I still think that's wise - even if you have to live out in the sticks or rent in London and buy a small flat by the sea which you let out. I was talking to my teenagers about it yesterday when we drove down a road I wanted to buy on 30 years ago and we could not afford. I said we had had free job accommodation (teaching) which we used for 6 months and could have stayed in that for decades as some teachers did but made things much harder for ourselves by buying because we thought longer term that was best.

No it isn't the same as 30 years ago.

My grandmother bought a house in dalston on a nurses sallery back then. Same house now is 800k and only affordable by the top 1%.

It is the same as 30 years ago outside London and the maybe the South East though Lauranda.
I appreciate the you don't won't to move out of the South but many of us have had to move away from our family and friends at some time in our lives, not just your generation. It's not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things and I think you are being completely over dramatic and self pitying when you talk of being "screwed over by society" just because you won't be able to live close to your parents.

Its more than just house prices.

This generation is experincing a significantly lower standard of living than the one before, that is very unusual.

I personally would rather move abroad than to the north east to avoid contributing to a system that is screwing the young.

Lauranda, that's just one example. Your grandmother got lucky (or did well for herself) that doesn't mean everyone of her generation did. Other people of her age were living in festering slums, or crappy high rise flats. I was born in 1960, we couldn't afford the standard of home that our parents had. My son is 25, he and his partner already have a baby and are buying their own home, a much nicer house than mine. And that is in the southeast.

A good few nurses have sought better lives in Australia.
My great aunt was a nurse and she had to leave the NE and all her family in the 1920s as there were no jobs at all and move away from everyone to London where she became a nursing sister in Wapping - no one in our family of that generation owned any property. The only reason my children's father school offered school flats to teachers was because most of them could not afford to buy near the school 30 years ago as they did not marry professional wives I suppose like I was who with difficulty could buy with them.

Life is often hard for most of us over the 50 years we might be adult and looking to live somewhere in all generations. When I graduated most people didn't get jobs. It was dire. Our industries were dying left right and centre. It is hard now but not as hard as in the midst of the recession and not as hard as during WWII and many other times in our history. We found it very difficult to buy 30 years ago. We only could because I took no maternity leaves and worked until I gave birth, because we did without things other people chose to have and because we had both worked pretty hard to enter good careers. If it were not for that we would like most people in that area then not have bought.

I do divide people into though though - the oh woe is me crowd who like a good whinge and do nothing to make changes and every change you suggest to them they reject out of hand and the lot who think okay these are my circumstances now let us see what we can do, sleeves rolled up and get on with it. We can all to an extent choose into which category we fall and I suspect the latter group are happier than the former in life.

a couple of observations:

• Houseprices are high because there is a shortage of housing. Our population is rising for one reason or another and there are far more one-person households than there used to be. Therefore they won't necessarily crash, even if there are blips along the way.
• Doer-uppers. Yes. We bought a house in a right state in 2000. We sold it in 2010 and I was about the ftbs being really fussy about having a nice new kitchen etc, discussing details they liked/ didn't like. ..... I got into conversation with the girl who bought the house (with help from parents). She explained that as you need such a high deposit they would not have a single penny to do anything to the house for years. They couldn't just keep a bit back on a slightly cheaper house because then they wouldn't be able to get a mortgage, unless they lived without water for a few years perhaps.
• those young people bidding on expensive houses are likely to come into 3 categories, lucky enough to buy one young (like me, 36 and in very fortunate position), have inheritance or a very highly paid job it isnt about 'grit'

That said op I don't understand how you have no savings of your own . I can understand they may not be enough and that would make me more sympathetic.

In what way is the standard of living now worse than that of the last generation, Lauranda?

Apart from house prices obviously. (Although in mine and my husband's family it is only those aged 60 below that have bought eventually (once children left home) previous to that, every single person rented for their entire lives).

My standard of living now is way better than my parents and grandparents at the same age and stage of life - thanks to huge leaps in technology the world and country is so much smaller now and more accessible to all; you are not as trapped in the location of your upbringing like you used to be - it has never been easier to move away and yet still be in close contact.

It may not have happened in very recent history but I'm sure it's happened a lot in the past. The is no reason to assume that the next generation will always be richer than the previous one. I don't think that by moving you will be "contributing to the system" either. If anything, if people moved out of London, house prices might drop and jobs in the UK might start to be more fairly distributed.