in wondering what this generation of enforced renters are going to do

[mustbetimeforacreamtea]

When they reach retirement and can't afford commercial rents on a pension? What happens then?

[notmyname14]

Yes but Damn, even before last century, things improved. If you look at the state of the nation in the Middle Ages and then compare it to a couple of centuries later, quality of life was better and things were improving for "ordinary" people - still dreadful by our standards, of course!

[MrsWinnibago]

Name but don't the cycles go on longer than that?

[MrsWinnibago]

And I must add that I think my quality of life as a child was better than that of my DC. I grew up in a decently sized council house with lots of freedom and a good community.

they're growing up in a council flat with no space...and not much of a community.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

Putting your house in trust counts as deprivation of assets. Local authorities are increasingly wise to it.

[Ratbagcatbag]

Tinkly - it depends how long ago it was done. The existing trust was set up 15 years ago. Authorities won't challenge them that old. (Or haven't yet)
For us well set the trust up and hopefully it will be in place for 20-30 years before anything happens.

[notmyname14]

Yes, but in general terms (which sounds flippant of your children, Mrs, which obviously isn't what I mean ) things have improved.

I'm not sure how old you are but (for example) education, benefits, etc. all contribute. Obviously some things have been compromised (freedom) but that's because of traffic, which you could argue actually gives people more freedom: I'd certainly be lost without my car!

In terms of cycles, I'm not sure - I'm obviously far from an economic expert but you can see it's been good/bad; good/bad for some time now. I imagine that trend will continue.

[expatinscotland]

Someone always trots out the ignorant paradigm that people can't afford a home because they have a mobile.

[Degustibusnonestdisputandem]

Once again I agree with MrsWinnibago (this is becoming a habit

I don't think my DTDs childhood here would be in any way better than mine (well ok, there aren't tiger snakes here...) - we had so much space and freedom, & a huge sense of community (which to be fair, could have its disadvantages!)

And yes expat the mobile phone thing is intensely irritating!

[Cruikshank]

We are now in the middle of a housing crisis caused by thirty years of failed housing policies. Selling off council houses, stripping tenants of their rights, seeing rising house prices as a sign of prosperity and allowing landlords to do what the fuck they want and charge what the fuck they want has got us to the stage where thousands of families are living in B&Bs, thousands more in cramped accommodation, thousands more again in houses that are in a state of disrepair, waiting lists for council properties being 17 years long and a frankly terrifying annual housing benefit bill of £22bn which is only going to get ever higher as the cost of putting a roof over one's head - the cost of shelter - gets ever more out of kilter with what the majority of people are earning. If, thirty years ago, we had taken £22bn out of the tax pot, and done the same every year, and spent it on providing affordable social housing, that investment would by now have paid for itself several times over in rent revenues. But instead we're pissing it up the wall on rent payments and overseeing a massive transfer of public money into private landlords' hands. It is an utter scandal.

[morethanpotatoprints]

I don't think there is a generation of enforced renters.
Yes, some are enforced, others not.
Some people are buying houses, maybe not as many at the present but it goes in cycles.
My dc are saving for deposits and hope to be home owners. Neither earns a fortune but they are being realistic as to what they can afford, and going for a dooer upper.

[Cruikshank]

Also, the idea that a £130k is 'affordable' is laughable. I work full-time and I can't afford a £130k house.

[mijas99]

Cruikshank - it may not be affordable to you, but it would be affordable to most families. The point is that £130k buys you an average house in a lot of the UK and someone with average household income would be able to afford it

Would a £60k flat be affordable to you? Two people on minimum wage can afford more than that

If buying a house is really important to you then you have options

[Cruikshank]

I am not two people. And a £60k flat would not be sufficient to house us. I'm fucked, really. Back in the day, I could have got a council place - I don't mind renting as long as I have security and know that I have a home. We get by on a mix of tax credits and housing benefit (yes, I need hb even though I work full time because housing is so expensive and I am not in London - in fact I am in the hallowed North that you keep harping on about) but that will stop eventually and I will no longer be able to have a family home because all I will be able to afford to rent without that top-up is a one-bed flat or even, more likely, a bedsit which, same as every other tenant in the country, I could get turfed out of at any time either through eviction or rent increases. Nowhere for kids to stay if they need to for a bit, nowhere to store stuff while they're at uni etc - zip, nada.

[JohnnyBarthes]

WhereDo the expectation that rent should always cover btl landlords' mortgage repayments is a major contributor to the mess we're in now.

[specialsubject]

selling off council houses - yes, bad idea and still going on, without enough replacements.

but the usual babble about 'stripping tenants of their rights' and 'letting landlords do what they want' is not true. Rachmann has been dead fifty years. Tenants have more rights (as they should) and there are more rules for landlords (as it should be)

still, why spoil the usual vicious anti-landlord stuff with facts? And where is the 'we hate all bankers because they profit from mortgages'? Not that I would ask for that but it is noticeably absent in the shrieks on here.

no, I don't have the answers but the lies annoy me.

[Joysmum]

Aspiration of buying your own home is a fairly recent phenomenon. My parent were the first on my dad's side of the family to do so.

[ChelsyHandy]

Probably the same as the present one - live off the state and complain about how unfair life has been to them. Meanwhile the buyers who lived in that scruffy looking one bed flat do-er upper and scrimped and saved and borrowed to get together the deposit and making some effort to plan their lives are now referred to as "the rich".

[mustbetimeforacreamtea]

Joysmum - but in the past there was substantially more social housing and support for those who were struggling. That's not the case now and there doesn't seem to be any political support for improving the situation other than increasing the length of people's working lives.

[teaandthorazine]

Probably the same as the present one - live off the state and complain about how unfair life has been to them.

Oh do fuck off chelsy, there's a dear.

[teaandthorazine]

I work full time in a professional job that pays above the national average (not far above, but above). I am absolutely pissing myself laughing not at the idea that all I need to do to buy a house is save £50 a week for the next 5 years. Well why the hell didn't I think of that?!

Some of the posters on this/these thread are so woefully wilfully out of touch that it beggars belief.

[teaandthorazine]

I was just going to post that this is what £130,000 buys you round my way, until I noticed that they've actually just accepted an offer of £151,000 on it...

[Backofbourke]

In Australia many elderly people, particularly single men, rent rooms in pubs week to week very cheaply. Sometimes they live in very poor conditions with no cooking facilities and inadequate bathrooms. When they finally come into contact with social services either through hospital admissions or contact with the police they are often malnourished etc. They may then end up in privately run nursing homes or hostels with their care being funded by the government. Though these nursing homes are better in that they are fed and warm and dry they are at risk of abuse by other residents, many of whom have psychiatric illness and/or history of drug or alcohol abuse. Hanging around all day the boredom often leads to fighting etc. These facilities are often run for profit so are understaffed with poorly trained care assistants who have little or no supervision from qualified nurses. Which again increases the risk of resident abuse. It makes me sad to think that the people who helped to turn Australia into the country it is today, building dams, railways, roads etc. end up in less than adequate conditions. It also angers me that tax payers money is being used to fund an industry were abuse can go unchecked and care is poor whilst the directors of some of these companies live in some of the most expensive real estate in Australia. This situation is only going to get worse though with more people being unable to afford their own homes.

[IdealistAndProudOfIt]

Mijas has made me so angry I am not reading the whole thread through before replying so apologies if these points have already been made.

'They'll get housing benefit'. 20 years ago, which is when I was last on it, housing benefit did not cover the whole rent. As part of deliberate policy. It is supposed to cover 'the average rent for the area': i never found anywhere that charged the average rent the councils claimed existed. At best it would mean forcing people to live in shit areas in shit housing. Great. I can't see that policy reversing with this current lot of millionaires who also have no idea what it is like to live without money.

'Housing outside the se is cheap'. Maybe when youre on se professional wages. The fact that London properties are laughable does not make northern places cheap to those of us who have lived there on minimum wage or less.

'Its only £50 a week to save up'. If I had always had £50 a week spare i'd count myself well off now. The fact is most of us do not. It goes to rich landlords who rip us off on rent obviously but also power and water meters.

'Well you can't buy a house then'. Why? I pay more in rent than I would in mortgage. By the time I get to retirement age - I will, I assume, be working til I drop to pay rent - I will have paid enough rent to buy rich landlords 3 houses, why should I not have just 1 for myself. I pay my rent regularly and have done for 20 years.

'Live in substandard housing for a few years'. Done it. And before that gets mentioned, we have no family who will help us, my dh and I have been on our own since 18. There are people who've been that way since 16 or younger through no fault of their own.

Finally the implicit one - if youre poorer than others (I am not actually poor now, but have not been well off all my life) it is your own fault. You should be a professional this-that-or the other. I was before kids, as was dh, it's not enough unless you have 10- 20 years of it. We are both from disadvantaged backgrounds and had to struggle to get to the lever you obviously were born at. Anyway, there is not room for everyone to be in those positions. What do the rest do? Society as a whole needs cleaners and shop assistants a damn sight - a damn sight - more than it needs more lawyers, damned accountants and thrice- cursed rich idle landlords.

It really really pisses me off how little the rich know what it is like to really have no money, to have to save for a month for a bus ticket for a day trip or a new notebook. Try it sometime before you try telling us to eat cake.

[WillWorkForMoney]

This is 132,000 within 1 mile of my house. Shame that even at that price its still out of reach for a lot of people around here. Lovely houses though, I often drive past wishing we could buy one.

[JohnnyBarthes]

special the reality is that many, many people find themselves having to move again and again, on their landlord's whim seemingly, or because the landlord can't afford to be a landlord or wants to realise the equity in one property to invest in yet more etc etc. And each time, their tenants have no choice but to shell out thousands in letting agent fees and removal costs.

It's bad enough if it's just you, but add children to the mix, it can mean having to move away from friends, school, security.

That's not landlord bashing - it's the truth.

Whether this is a recent phenomenon is almost irrelevant really - that people are unable to feel any sense of permanence in their homes is scandalous.