there's never been a worse time to be young and British, your screwed if your under 30

[lhldn]

OK the title is taken from a torygraph article, but I do find myself agreeing with it and being sad for the next generation.
www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11231796/If-youre-under-30-bad-luck.-Youre-screwed.html
We’re all becoming depressingly familiar with the results of these policies. The single worst (and most easily grasped) problem is housing. Our housing market has become an in-and-out club. If you’re over 50, in addition to your primary residence, you may well own a couple of buy-to-lets which will augment your already well-upholstered pension. If you’re under 30, you’re screwed.

If you’re under 30 in London, you’re super-screwed. You’ll be in your 40s before you’ve saved enough to buy a dump in Catford. And even then it’s likely that you’ll be outbid by a buy-to-let investor or, increasingly and tragically, refused a mortgage because you’re too old.

A long list of policies across three very different governments has got us here. The “one off” sale of council houses to make us all Tories in the 1980s - over two million homes that went cheap, often criminally cheap. The bottom three rungs cut off the ladder, the proceeds pocketed and the houses never replaced. Even so, property was still cheap back then – and if the housing market was anything like a free market, we might still be alright.

However, for all their devotion to the free market, our leaders have shown no interest in allowing the housing market to function this way. Rather, each year, we build a tiny fraction of what is needed ensuring prices march endlessly upwards. We have no coherent national housing plan. Our planning system is a mess. We have artificially low interest rates. We sell homes off-plan to foreign investors and don’t build enough to house the immigrants who are vital to our economy. The result is an cruelly dysfunctional market – and one which works brilliantly for your parents.

In tandem with this, over the last few years we’ve done a great job of increasing the wage gap between age groups. Guess who low wages hurt? Not people in their 50s and 60s. In fact, they actually help older people as they as more likely to be investors and employers. So, there’s no house for you, but the people who vote can afford a cleaner for their holiday home.

Housing is the most pressing problem

I think its also important to remember that change in gov policy can really improve your finances and long term who knows how better off you will be.

People talk about cheap housing from council houses being sold off/ right to buy etc. We had friends who had one month of normal mortgage when doing this before the interest rate shot up to 15%.
They rented out a room with shared kitchen and bathroom to me and dh, we lived there until dh was one.

We never ever thought we would get on our feet as had decided on having a sahp, it was really bleak for a few years then the first tax credits came in and we were better off.

There are always new initiatives coming out and to say that you will be suffering when you are fifty when you are in your twenties is pretty silly really, unless you have a crystal ball.

Well that's been quite depressing reading!

Well, part of being young is getting established, and while you're working your way through the bottom of the totem pole, you're going to be broke.

Every generation has it harder than the previous ones in some areas, but better in others.

Perhaps the property crisis you guys have will pave the way for decent renting and better laws around it, because your LL's sound atrocious.

What really pisses me off is the hateful DM attitude of many baby boomers (eg my parents) who fail to realise how bloody lucky and privileged they are and rail against immigrants, "benefit scroungers" etc

Beware of the high interest card. In the 1970s/1980s this coincided with high inflation-see www.economicshelp.org/blog/1485/interest-rates/historical-real-interest-rate/.

High inflation lead to effective errosion of debt (i.e. the mortgage). So yes suddenly payments were high when interest rates rose, but wages increased and over time the result was that the debt (when compared to average earnings/costs) appeared less. So a debt of say 10,000 pounds in 1970s was equivalent to say 2000 pounds in debt by the 1980s. House prices have risen significantly higher than earnings in the time interveening as well.

I wish for my DS to leave the UK. If you are going to pay for education at Uni go elsewhere eg the States. This is where there are very good and well established bursaries/scholarships.

morethanpotatoprints - my crystal ball says we have an aging population, and a problem with funding.

iggly

Apparently the present aging population are self serving with huge pensions, payment for fuel, free travel, second homes and are rich enough to afford their own care if Mnet is anything to go by.

Relaxing rural planning laws would solve housing problems in a stroke.But as soon as supply catches up with demand , prices will fall and people will be it plunged into negative equity to such an extent the banks will be destabilised.

I wish for my DS to leave the UK. If you are going to pay for education at Uni go elsewhere eg the States. This is where there are very good and well established bursaries/scholarships.

they are generally not available to foreigners.

A bit part of the problem is lack of support for people who want to buy a house to live in. So many (but thankfully not all) landlords seem to be interested only in their rental income, and the government seems to have little interest in protecting the rights of private tenants. Once you are in, and seemingly affording private rental accommodation, you've no chance of help onto anything else, no matter how much you are struggling in reality, or how poor the quality of the accommodation. There is a reason why renting is more common on the continent, it's because it's actually more convenient there than it is in the UK.

Our house is mouldy, damp, the plumbing is noisy & it leaks, the house is very small, there is no shelving or storage, the fire has been condemned since summer & we've no idea when it will be sorted, window frames in poor condition due to unresolved issues that I reported to the agent years ago. Carpets are threadbare in places. We all have coughs all the time & I am fairly severely asthmatic, DD appears to be too, she's only 2.6. We can't afford anywhere else & aren't eligible for help with housing.

By rule of thumb I think people living where they are should take their earnings and multiply it by 3 or 4. They would have to be earning that sum for approx 25 years.

My parents could certainly not have afforded their large house if they were purchasing it today. Remember the only people that benefit from house price rises are:
a) The mortgage lenders.
b) The government with stamp duty
c) Those down sizing
d) multiple homeowners.

Those that pay...your children

morethanpotatoprints: Final salary pensions in private sector are nearly all closed to younger people joining. Companies have a legal obligation to provide the retiring workers with the pension schemes that they brought into, frequently using payments made by younger workers (not on the generous final salary scheme) into the scheme.

Payments made by public sector workers seldom cover the pension entitlements they gain when the employees retire. Raising taxes is very likely the only way to deal with the discrepancy.

Bonkers A lot of people are doing that one hour commute (and more, DH included) but when the offices moved a lot of the jobs were either lost or became job share. For some people the commute just isn't feasible - a lady on our street would be doing that for a job share and would be spending more on the transport there and back than she made, so she stopped. My point was simply that your statement that 'yes there are jobs!' in cheap housing areas isn't always the case.

Times are hard for many.

1. They are not as hard as my parents' generation or their parents who had World War I and World War II and so many died, nor UK 1930s where children did not eat enough and some had bare feet etc. Nothing today can ever be as hard as when the UK suffered its world wars. I feel absolutely privileged compared to earlier generations to live in a UK which has not suffered bombing raid and the like apart from a bit of IRA trouble.

1. Most people over 50 do not have second homes as suggested. Most barely get by. The average pension for those over 65 is pretty low too. There are not masses of well off older people. However some have indeed bought a house. Go back to 1900 and most people didn't buy houses. My grandfather in the 1901 census was living in a house with 26 other young men. Things are much better than then.

1. It was very very very hard to buy a property in London 30 years ago when we did. We could only then and now buy in outer London so have always had long commutes and only two young professionals both working full time, no maternity leaves could afford it without parental help. Most people could not afford to buy then. Stamp duty was lower I accept that but we were paying 8 - 12% interest rates and there was no property to let at all because there were no assured shortholds so if you did let the tenant could stay for life on about £10 a year under the rent acts so people stayed with their parents or mvoed to deprived areas like the worst bits of Newcastle (where I am from) to be able to buy. It was not some wonderful bed of roses in the past.

I would ilke this Government to stop protects OAPs including the state pension also the education budget and the NHS from the cuts. In fact as the TOries have been pathetic at cutting whoever gains power next...we ll you ain't see nothing yet in terms of how hard things may be going to get. people might be back on my 2 weeks maternity leave, full time work, working weekends, drinking only tap water, not affording hair dressers or eating out.

iggly

Sorry, I was being flippant because there are so many on here who do say that the old people are rich, don't need all their money and have exorbitant pensions to carry them through.
I know this often isn't the case and there is a deficit.

I agree with it. I bought my first flat in my 20s and was working in a bar. It was less than 3x my salary and I could still live a good life holidays etc. My son would never be able to buy a flat locally or in some cases even rent unless he was earning at least 70k plus. A very basic flat here is about 15x the local average wage and a house is ££££££££. I am 49 and amongst my friends we all say we couldn't do now what we did then. having said that my ds and his mates seem to have no interest in the idea of owning property etc It is like they have realised it is not open to them and many live at home with their families quite happily and spend their money on living life and travelling. Student debts are huge and are now taken into account on mortgage apps and renting requires a huge deposit and at least 45% of your salary every month

I absolutely think that multiple home owners should be taxed highly

I am sadly not under 30 but i notice a huge difference between friends who did vocational courses at uni eg nursing, teaching, accountancy, optometry and those who didnt. Those of us who did got fairly well paid jobs fairly easily and were able to save up to buy more quickly maybe we have been lucky to also enjoy career progression so are comfortable at the minute.

I would be very reluctant to encourage my ds's when the time comes to go to uni unless their degree is likely to lead to a job/career.

Greengrow, take you and your DP or DHs maximum yearly earnings (if you are retired then adjust for inflation for the years from when you last earnt your maximum amount). Multiply it by 4. Could you afford your property? As for interest rates being high please read my post as to how inflation (that coincided) eroded the mortgage debt.

State pension is not in line for a cut....no political party would dare.

I went back to work as soon as I could (6 weeks post emergency C-section). I would have taken 2 weeks off if it had been a smooth delivery.

I own a second home. we sold a family house and bought two smaller ones in preparation for the prospect of the mansion tax. We certainly didn't sell a mansion but the Mansion Tax is going to squeeze supply in a way that Red Ed didn't contemplate.

Snow, yes absolutely crucial. It is why my siblings and I 30 y ears ago did law, medicine etc. It is why my daughters are lawyers. It is why in the 1920s some of my grandfather's brothers tried to be lawyers. It is has been known in the uk for generations that vocational or professional courses/options always pay better. By all means go to university and mess around doing some art but don't expect to be able to feed yourself. This is not news and it was not news 30 years ago when I graduated and a whole generation in an earlier recession could not get graduates jobs at all.

So you spend your precious spare time writing copy for a website run by bunch of rich over 30s for nothing? Bringing lots of people to it with your creative writing and inflammatory thread titles so they can sell more advertising revenue? Will you see any of that money? Why would you do something so daft as to spend your time making someone else's profits for them?

If you are so concerned about your generation being done over why not get on to your MP or your local council housing committee and demand they represent you properly. Or add your voices to the people campaigning on this issue at Shelter. england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/fixing_private_renting
There are plenty of people pissed off about the housing situation and you won't be alone or ignored for long.

I suspect 1914 and 1939 were pretty rough times to be young in Britain and most of Europe, well all of Europe I suppose.

I moved into a road 11 years ago that was almost totally owned by young couples who hadn't had children yet or had just started families. It is now overwhelmingly buy to let properties. Any time a family has moved out it has been bought up by a buy to let investor. It's very depressing. These are entry level terraced homes, band A council tax, and they are just not affordable any more. And this is a northern city.