Aibu to think that "suspended adulthood" is going to lead to large problems?

[BlancheBlue]

www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/22/young-people-living-in-a-suspended-adulthood-finds-research

Just this really. There was a telling comment about this article with the ever increasing age profile of parents the chance of children knowing grandparents is going to be remote.

I think lots of the boomer generation really fail to understand this. Whenever it is said it is tough for young people que loads of "well I worked my arse off and owned a house by the time I was 21" type comments.

[Stillwishihadabs]

It was soo much easier ( bought in 2001 aged 25) 3 bed flat zone 2 172K 100% mortgage. We spent our savings doing it up. We have never spent more than 1/4 to 1/3 of our take home pay on housing and are now sitting on a 600K 4 bedder in zone 3. Or dh's brother bought a flat on Clapham Common for 150k in 1998 he is now mortgage free, the flats worth 0.5 million he is 43. The 20 somethings I work with now just can't do this-so unfair.

[Me2017]

Yes schools complicated. In fact I say to everyone if you possibly can buy before you have a baby you have such a much better chance. My grandfather had my father at nearly 50 in order to afford to buy a house first. My parents were married and both working full time for 10 years before having children so they could afford to buy a house first. We bought our first proeprty together before our daughter was born. It can mean putting off gorgeous babies for ages and working hard as a couple in 2 full time jobs but it does making buying easier particuarly now your spending on things like childcare, meals out and all the rest of poured over item by item by the lenders.

[WhiteDraig]

Getting a mortgage approved is another issue of top of being able to afford repayments.

We had to have 40K and 5 k for fees saved before we could get a lender - despite no debt and good credit rating.

Last move looked like we could borrow 60 K more than we'd need. Came to properly apply we were going to be about £400 - £450 better of a month after move -( we'd fixed first mortgage at high rate of interest, local bills were lower, and transport and no weekly away accommodation needed) - kept getting turned down. Went back to old lender who did accept us.

I'd take the calculator as a guide and be a bit more conservative than it suggests and it once you start looking at areas when you factor in schools and catchments/distances you can find your choice even further restricted.

[Me2017]

Very good calculator. I put in £10,000 deposit (not unreasonable for a couple yet to have children who both work full time to save £5k each) and can afford 1200 mortgage a month and going for the cheaper 2 bed places - children can share until they are 10+ as mine have.
That gives 78% of the UK affordable and just exclusives a bit around London.

Prices of entry level 1 - 3 bed places have risen in places where there are jobs on the whole. They have also risen because base rate is very very low and many mortgages only 3% interest rather than the 12% some of us used to pay. My mortgage was £90k a year interest a year at one point (not fun).

If you wanted no passing of mnoey between parent and child you would need to stop transfers during life times. I am giving the children what I can now in my 50s as I would much rather they had help now in their 20s then in 30 years' time when otherwise the state might take 40% in inheritance tax. There is no tax on life time gifts although we used to have it I think decades ago - capital transfer tax. If you could not make a gift to anyone without paying 40% iof the gift to the state that would be a bit complicated to enforce.

Also you could say those parents rich enough to have a spare bedroom could be penalised eg I don't charge my adult son rent so he is probably saving about £12,000 a year. You could change the law to say those who house adult children or their parents should pay 40% tax on a nominal rent from them even though no rent is paid. That would remove the unfairness of some parents housing children and others not.

You could also limit spending my parents on things like tutors for the children to get rid of that kind of advantage as that also tends to ensure the children get better paid jobs which is unfair on those children whose parents put no effort into them at all.

It is very hard to iron out disadvantage in practice.

[MuffyTheUmpireSlayer]

Wow whitedraig that's a really good calculator, thank you for sharing. I still can't afford to live locally but according to that I wouldn't have to move as far up north as I thought. (I still feel like I shouldn't have to leave London though!)

[WhiteDraig]

The link is to a calculator about where you can afford to buy or rent based on deposit and amount you can pay a month.

[WhiteDraig]

I'm very nearly 40 - even as a teenager we all knew that we'd be priced out of the rural village we grew up in - (though I never wanted to live rurally again if I could help it).

All people I grew up with left to live in towns and cities - we are now all worrying about how our children are going to afford anywhere to buy as everywhere is expensive. Many of us have moved north - and it's still hard.

Took 8 hard years saving and paying rent to save a deposit obviously I was earning a decent wage at the time as well.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23234033

We have wage rises since I actually last used this but at one point we could only afford to buy in 35 % of the UK now it's 62% but unfortunately not near DH work so he has a long commute.

[EastMidsMummy]

Is it the parents who give their children deposits etc, who are causing the problem? Most of my friends have had university, big fat wedding & house deposit paid for by their parents. And help with the kids (cost of childcare / school).

Ultimately, it's inheritance that causes the problem. Parents with property assets give their children huge advantages. Much higher inheritance taxes would be hugely egalitarian.

[EastMidsMummy]

gwenneh, you say The jobs out of London pay less, proportionally. It would leave us with the same percentage of disposable income at the end of the month. It isn't going to change our position in any way other than geographically

But it would change your position. You'd be able to afford to buy your house...

I work amongst people doing trends forecasting, consumer insight, user interaction etc etc here in the Midlands. Yes, we would all earn (much) more in London. But overall lifestyles we enjoy here are better than the lifestyles we would enjoy in London and, because we work in an industry concentrated down there we get to visit a lot as well!

[MuffyTheUmpireSlayer]

The 'just move' thing makes no sense. Its a lazy response and only seems to be applied to Londoners for some reason.

I couldn't agree more. It's actually really upsetting when people make these comments. I am 25 and have a family of my own. DP and I both have a nationally average income but not London average. We moved back in with my mum a few years ago while we "save". We have been saving for years but still can't afford to live locally, where house prices are looking at £500k and tiny flats at least £300k.

It's so frustrating (and yes this is probably overshadowed by jealousy) to meet so many young couples from wealthy families moving into the area that I have spent my entire life in because their parents have given them £60k towards their deposit, whilst being told to "just move up North" to some town I've never heard of.

[MissHooliesCardigan]

Blanche Totally agree with the 'city knob' comment. I think some people honestly believe that London is populated entirely by bankers, journalists/media types and hipsters. There is some real vitriol on here towards Londoners. We all apparently think that there is no civilisation outside London and that we're better than everyone else. And then there's all the tedious remarks about how unfriendly we all are and how it's tantamount to abuse to raise children here.

[YelloDraw]

i think it is very worrying that the current generation are the first one in decades to be worse off.

if we look back in history war generally follows a period of economic depression.

[puglife15]

The suggestion everyone should move north to solve this issue is hilarious.

I live in a city, not in the south east, which has become popular among ex Londoners looking to downshift and upgrade from a poky flat to a nice terraced or semi 3 bed house.

As a result there has been an insane price hike in housing - 3 bed period terraces/semis in half decent but not posh areas going for £500 - 700K.

A friend just sold her house at 50% more than she bought it for 3 years ago.

Rent is INSANE - £1000+ for a very average 2 bed in a slightly grim area.

Competition for professional jobs has increased too.

[Me2017]

There are about 1m refugees many from Africa who would be very keen on this idea of a right to live in the city. Some have been sent to a scottish island (a wonderful one of course) and plenty to the areas of towns where those of us in full time work have to slum it.

It is a very difficult compromise as to where to live and always has been. If you are escaping death abroad (my family 1800s) then it can be a fairly easy decision - die or live. If it's can you endure 50 minutes on a packed tube at rush hours because you want the children to have a garden and not share a bed room that's the more typical decision today and 30 years ago when I was pregnant and we bought.

[Ciutadella]

I have total sympathy with people who don't want to move - I think it must be very difficult. I am not sure I understand how the 'right to the city' concept would work though. Who has the right - for example, would everyone who wants to live in London (or insert other city) have the right to do so, or would it just be those who are already living here and do not want to move out? That seems unfair to those who want to move here.

[Me2017]

A right to the city... interesting. In fact my ancestors ruined their health by moving frmo farm life to Victorian cities. Then loads of people fought very hard in the 30s to move out of London slums to all those suburbs an hour out for quality of life away from smog which was so thick in London you could hardly see your hand in front of your face at times. It is certainly something that comes and goes. In parts of the 90s London's population was falling. We sold our last house then for less than we paid for it.

[SallyR0se]

Is it the parents who give their children deposits etc, who are causing the problem?
Most of my friends have had university, big fat wedding & house deposit paid for by their parents. And help with the kids (cost of childcare / school).
If folk paid what they could afford (ie. relative to earnings) without help from home, then surely prices would level (especially property)?
Everything is being propped up by all this extra money coming from the baby boomers' pockets. My dad is wealthy (and generous) but I've never put my hand out. I paid my way through college & for my wedding. I don't want to buy a house. I'm happy & live within my means.
I do think my parents generation got good breaks but they worked hard. Mine (I'm 40) were fairly pampered but are far less well-off in their own right. Kids coming of age now... It's going to be very difficult but I think if they're allowed to make their own way then things will change. I'd love to see a youth revolution! We have to stand back...

[Cherylene]

I graduated on the 1980s and couldn't get a job so got one on the Community Programme. So did my brother. Nothing like that now.

[HyacinthFuckit]

The 'just move' thing makes no sense. Its a lazy response and only seems to be applied to Londoners for some reason.

Hardly. Get a look at today's thread on Wales.

[shovetheholly]

Article by David Harvey on the right to the city, with more background: newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city

[shovetheholly]

No, people (of all generations) have a right to the city.

Firstly, just because you had a miserable time does not make it right that everyone should have to have one!! Especially not when it is preventable with decent policy. Otherwise it's just a race to the bottom. (For the record, I have done the same thing - I now live hundreds of miles away from my family and many friends, and I have done jobs that require a 2 hour commute each way. Just because I had to does not make it right that everyone else should struggle. I think a more generous attitude is to say "That was shit, and I don't want other people to have to do it").

Secondly, the economic situation for young people is demonstrably worse now than it was in the 80s. The Institute of Fiscal Studies just produced a report suggesting that people your age were TWICE as wealthy in their 30s as people a decade younger than you and that the situation has been getting worse since the 60s. Unless you have some evidence that disproves this report beyond the merely anecdotal, you surely have to accept that and the fact that it is objectively more difficult for very many young people now than it was for your generation? Otherwise, you're just being evidence resistant?

I don't really understand your point about student loans, since students are now heavily dependent on parents to make up the money they receive in families where the income is £25k or more. If parents don't contribute they can't just 'make it up' out of the loan?? There was a case on here recently of a parent whose child couldn't really go because the parent couldn't pay.

[Me2017]

SO I had to move for work hundreds of miles away from all family and that was fine and I'm lucky but young people today should not be required to? I had to commute at least 2 hours a day for full time work but those today should not be expected to? Are we really saying that? It was absolutely dire in 1960s NE. It really was. No jobs, no central heating, a massive generatino of graduates when I graduated in the arly 80s unable to get jobs at graduate level. Yes I agree it is currently a bit harder for young people (although more of them can get to university in my day when only 15% went and nowadays you can get student loans for accommodation as well as fees - in my day if your parents would not make your payments up to the full grant you were stuffed as the banks weren't interested in the lending to the only 15% of us who got grade high enough to get to university).

Parents have always tried to help their children. It's a natural instinct. Plenty will let the children live at home and feed them whilst they are at university. Yes it increases inequality to breastfeed your baby or feed your toddler good foods or read to your child a bed time story but it is not morally wrong to do right by your child. If others do not have the same advantage that is a shame but it is how life is.

[EllyMayClampett]

It's about saying: 1. Things are worse for young people than they have been in a while and 2. While these historical forces are outside of any one person's control, they could be brought under control via government policy that prioritises the needs of the young more strongly (there will be a cost to the older generations).

Very well put. I am GenX and have a house. I agree the situation isn't right.

[olderthanyouthink]

tfoot what's your point?