The reason young people can't afford to buy houses

[GrabtharsHammer]

Is because they all have iPhones and Sky telly.

So sayeth my mother.

Nothing at all to do with the ridiculous house prices then? They are baby boomers and bought their first house for a few thousand quid on my dads modest salary.

Apparently the youth of today just need to get rid of their gadgets and telly subscriptions and then they will easily afford a deposit and mortgage.

Are everyone's parents this judgemental and out of touch or am I just particularly lucky?

(Fairly lighthearted) AIBU?

I know in the North West a few areas that buses refuse to serve. I don't blame the bus companies but I do blame the police and our politicians for allowing this to continue.

The reason that estate is so bad is because it's ghetoised and children from that estate are kept contained there and are not made to feel like part of the town as a whole: it has it's own failing schools and chain outlets so kids from the estate grow up only mixing with other kids from the estate so social problems continue down the generations. The dominant families remain dominant and it's hard for children to break away. It's one of the only schools in the whole county where it's "easy" to get a TA job without a level 2, but they don't retain them. They mainly only offer applied subjects and aspirations are low.

The police are not to blame, due to budget cuts beyond their control, car patrols are now just with a driver not in pairs, nobody in their right mind would get out of their car alone to approach a group of young men weilding bricks etc.

If I was "in charge" I'ld close the "gheto" schools within the estate, and make the schools in the rest of the town take a % from the estate each, so that the next generation of kids from that estate are mixing with peers who have a variety of aspirations and come from a variety of backgrounds.

One of my daughters bought on a council estaet and the other is very near a lot of properties with council tenants - only way to buy in London in your 20s really if you want to be near the centre. Their neighbours are mostly lovely.

Anyway we all make choices in life. I know a lot of people in or near Halifax. They have all kinds of jobs in public and state sectors, from teachers to business people, some have to commute more than others. It is not a nasty wasteland up there. It's a perfectly decent area as are parts of the NE where I am.

We also did more than one job eg my children's father (teacher) worked also all day Saturdays teaching and then a few hours on Sundays. In school summer holiday he worked at play schemes. He also worked every Christmas eve for about 30 years. I agree however that getting work can be difficult as indeed it was in the early 80s and it depends where you are in the country whether there is work around and what type. It certainly helps to work at weekends as well as a week day job if you are trying to save up for a deposit and working for 10 years full time before having babies tends to make it easier to buy a property,.

user, I did at least 2 ohours commuting a day with small children which was more than 2 if there were delays. It's not fun but doable. I think 1.5 hours each way though is too far. Nor do I think all young people can afford to buy in all areas. However there may be more choices than some think for those people on reasonable levels of pay.

Hopefully user that million plus in assets is heading your way one day ? My parents have literally nothing other than private pensions which I pressume die with them ? They couldn't care less. I've gone down the life insurance route myself and damn well intend for it to pay out

Sadly not pissssssed off, she's selling things left right and centre, which I can only assume means she's going through it at an incredible rate (having retired at 50...)

She actually makes a point of 'yes there won't be anything left when I'm gone' - so I'm not expecting anything from her!

My parents are generally disinterested in our housing situation. They managed it, so why can't we?

She's welcome to enjoy her money, but should be able to understand that things are a little different now!

I hate that attitude. I brought mind into the world and they all 4 have pensions I've paid into since they were born to make sure the compounded interest will at least feed them when I'm gone. I'm trying to buy them all houses too

You sound like a very sensible parent Pissssedoff.

I will do the same for my own children, if I can.

She's welcome to enjoy her money, but should be able to understand that things are a little different now!
^ totally that! Nobody would begrudge the BBS anything if more of them showed some understanding. We're not asking for them to spend their money on us, just to not keep telling us how we're doing it wrong and if we just bought less boots and costas we too could plan to retire in our 60s with loads of equity.

re. teachers working second jobs, oh COME ON! Teaching has changed beyond recognition in recent years, most teachers are working weekends evenings and holidays just to keep up with their main job and all the guff they're now required to do

This is from last year: www.theguardian.com/money/2015/dec/20/uk-home-buyers-save-24-years-housing-ladder-deposit-study

Homebuyers now have to save for up to 24 years to set aside a deposit large enough to buy them a foot on Britain’s housing ladder, according to new research.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank has used the Bank of England’s latest survey of household finances to show that with house prices rising sharply, it would now take almost a quarter of a century for low- and middle-income households to accumulate a deposit on average, if they set aside 5% of their disposable income each year.

It is lower than the peak reached before the financial crisis, but dramatically higher than the three years that was the norm in the 1980s and 1990s – and comes despite interest rates remaining at the emergency level of 0.5% set by the Bank of England in the depths of recession.

Tinseltwins

My mum still tells me how my grandparents lived in ONE ROOM when they were first married. That they were both 21, while I am almost 30 and still in a house share, is apparently not a good enough excuse.

It's so odd, she keeps telling me about shared housing and how people had to do it to save... I've only ever lived in shared housing! I'm not sure what she's implying - I should rent out the other half of my bed?

Little anecdote about working extra jobs. My aunt and uncle both work in healthcare. They started saving for a mega deposit in after this been married about 3 years. So for the next 5 ish years try both worked their normal jobs but also out in extra work for agencies and my uncle also did door work when he could. They spent almost every spare moment working to grow the pot. They eventually bought a house with only a tiny mortgage due to the huge deposit. They started divorce proceedings a year later. My aunt 100% believed this is due to the fact that in the 5 years they saved for the deposit they just grew apart and didn't know each other anymore. Their plan to save so they could live an easier life after made them forget to live the life they had at that moment. Quite sad really.

So what I'm saying is it's all good and well getting the second job. And I myself do put in a lot of overtime on the staff bank but it's no good to do this at the expense of your home life.

User the criticisms are contradictory aren't they:
"well MY parents rented their whole lives, they never expected a brand new house of their own like people do these days " (never mind that they were able to rent a whole house on one salary on a secure tennancy so they never had to move and could make it their home..)
Then 5 mins later:
"So are you going to move to somewhere bigger, the girls really should have their own rooms, can't you buy somewhere bigger that needs a bit of work"

We're treated as both entitled and wanting he world on the stick, and also at the same time unambitious as if we're CHOSING to not have a bigger home.

Which is it, because those "criticisms" are actually contradictory/mutually exclusive

£40 per week is £2000 per year.

After 5 years that's £10000.

Your uni loan is finite when it is paid off that's it.

If working in an office means you don't know when you finish how on earth do you organise childcare.

If going to uni, running up debt, working all hours and then only earning enough to be able to afford a rented bedsit surely then a different approach is needed.

DD is not doing A levels, she is finishing college after 1 year and is picking up enough work to be able to support herself and save for her first place. ATM she has 4 jobs

It's an interesting issue. Am I awful because I am helping the rich/poor divide by cashing in my pension to allow the children to buy property or kind? Most of us want to help our children if we can. The movement of cash from older people to their children is not written about much but it is going on. If we parents jsut refused to hand over a penny may be house prices would reduce so we ave kicking ourselves in the foot by helping children?

I am just watching this about what people earn which is interesting and it does indeed contrast Huddersfield v London at one point - www.channel4.com/programmes/what-britain-earns-with-mary-portas/on-demand/64583-001 It is worth watching if you have a bit of spare time.

user, I think there is a level of You Kids Today Don't Know How Good You Have It that just seems to disregard basic observation as well as common sense.

My dad once gave me a furious lecture on how I didn't know what hard work was (at a time when I had four part time jobs, but they weren't 'proper' jobs apparently). "You know who works hard? Those girls in that care home where your brother did that painting work, they work hard! They work ten-hour shifts! And it's hard bloody work!"

" I know, Dad. I did that exact job for two years."

5 years of no weekends to save £10,000 - and if house prices have doubled again in that time? They are going up here by 10-20% a year; so that £10,000 won't make so much of a difference anyway.

Do you really think that's a good suggestion? Work 7 days a week - two days of which I'd take home less than minimum wage for a teenager - for 5 years?

Not sustainable.

where do you live Oliversmumsarmy? What are these 4 jobs your teenaged daughter does? One of my jobs is about 60 hours a week - I assume none of her 4 jobs is a full time professional career with responsibilities?

I won't be able to buy my kids a house but we save for them each month so when they turn 18 they will have a lump sum each
There will be no inheritances coming our way - I don't think people realise that people are
Living so much longer but with many more complex medical needs - any care bills will eat up most of the price of a house and any modest savings
Nursing home care is, what? £1k per week?
I am assuming my mum and my pils will need care at some point.
My own mum is going through what dad left at a pace
And she's right
I certainly don't begrudge her some
Comfort after a hard life

53rdandbird I agree, because of consumer goods being cheap, I suppose on the surface it looks like we live in the lap of luxury.

I also get lectures - I had one recently from a family member about moving to a cheaper area to buy a flat (as that's what they had done).

They were on a trainee nurses salary, and bought a two bed flat in zone 3. That would now cost £450k minimum, but more likely £550k+.

One of our babyboomer relatives who frequently tells us how hard they worked for their pension (we have NEVER asked them for money or brought it up) and how hard they had it, also criticises us for living modestly

e.g. we are very lucky we have a nice house, it doesn't have a spare room but it has a totally separate sitting room away form the main dining area, so if we have guests we make that "Their room" for the duration of their stay (have good a sofa bed) so they can settle in and arent disturbed.. it basically becomes a "spare room" for them because our kitchen/dining area is big enough that we don't really need the sitting room.
But every time they stay "Oh I just couldn't manage if I didn't have a spare room in my house, it's nice to leave it made up so anyone can stay at any time" (oh is it? see we specifically asked the estate agent for as FEW bedrooms as possible within our budget )
Also
"I prefer houses with a separate downstairs guest loo"
(as if we deliberately chose a smaller house just to make them less comfortable as a guess)

Yet at the same time, we're the grabby materialistic generation who don' know how to make do!

Shouldn't your daughter be focusing on her a levels rather than working four jobs?

If going to uni, running up debt, working all hours and then only earning enough to be able to afford a rented bedsit surely then a different approach is needed.

Societally, perhaps. Not especially useful on an individual level though.

Fundamentally, there's a huge problem which is that we have allowed some property to earn more than most people ever could by working. I left university a little over a decade ago, and am a reasonably successful professional in a job that is useful to society. I'm not a high earner, but comfortable. Financially speaking, however, I would have been infinitely better off irresponsibly getting a 100% IO mortgage on a shed in Central London as soon as I turned 18 back in the early noughties, without any thought of how I could afford it, paying nothing towards the capital, then flogging it now. There is something very, very wrong with that picture. It is no wonder we are so unproductive compared to other wealthy European countries.

I look at those who went to work rather university and therefore bought their houses earlier and I'll be honest I'm starting to think my kids shouldn't go ! Many ways to get a degree and working at the same time in an actual proper job related to the degree seems to be the way forward

And yet these days you're barely allowed to blow your own nose unless you have at least a HND in it.

My brother and I were saying just the other day, we've never once been asked to produce a certificate for a levels, degree etc. Professional quals yes but you could get those without the degree

There is no way I'ld be happy to think of my kids doing nothing (but working all-da-jobz) and seeing noone outside work from 18-25 just so that they could buy a god awful pit of a place in the hope that the "any property is good property" phenomonon of the turn of the century repeated itself!

That's a terribly sad waste of a life

When we were mid 20s and looking to the future, we saved but we had fun, e.g. for a "date night" we'ld eat a main course at home then go out to a restraunt just for desert. We did similar if invited for group meals - joined after for drinks. That's what "cutting back to save for a house" USED to mean.

We did things cheaply but we still LIVED because god! you could spend 5/10 years doing nothing but living for the future and then drop dead!

Enjoying life in the present tense is important because life is short, sure it's important to plan for the future but right now, I feel for young people because they can't do both! Either sacrifice the next 5-10 years of your life by living somewhere awful and commuting between multiple jobs and not doing anything, or appreciate the gift of life without a hope of saving for the future.

Exactly - all this holier than thou stuff is nonsense.

"You should consider having five jobs, no free time, commute three hours a day, want to live in a shed" stuff - argh!