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?

My Dad says things like this. He is rattling around a four-bed (S.E) on his own and crows about how much it's worth but refuses to move because he has released equity and is outraged that he can't have that money, the smaller house of his dreams and another five figure sum in the bank if he sells

"we had it hard too, we had second hand furniture in our OWN home"

Not fucking comparable. It's not. Scrimping and saving to do up your OWN HOME on the cheap, is not in any way comparable to the soul destroying state of the current rental culture most 20/30 year olds are trapped in nowadays

The babyboomers are in the majority, and vote.

The mortgage rate on our first flat went up to about 17% I think. We were lucky - sold 1st flat at a slight loss but doubled value on next house in 5 years, moved out of London. We paid £190k in 1998 for a house that Zoopla now values at £700k +. Started mortgage at 23 - all paid before I was 50, except we now have one on a 2nd property my dad lives in and contributes to. I had no student debt. I've never owed more than about £100 on my overdraft in my life. No credit cards. Not well off - I teach.

My children are already saddled with student debt - dd1 gets a loan for her MSc course fees but not for living. Career development loans are a rip off so I support her. The interest on the 9k a year student loan is ridiculous - she already had to make payments while doing a part time job but still it escalates. Dd2 has a loan but still needs top up from me. Both do very full on courses and work very hard term time - temp in holidays which is when dd1 had to make a payment towards her loan.

The older generation don't get it. It's hard and I really feel for the next generation. It really worries me.

rubybleu zone 3 sounds very central to me... at one point I made it into to zone 6, but am now way further out again. I work in W1, so commute for 3 hours a day or thereabouts. Luton, Milton Keynes - plenty of fast trains and they wouldn't need to share a bedroom.

I do think that it is more difficult these days to get on the property ladder, but I also think that expectations can be high for some.

I started out with a grotty little cottage on a tiny block. Spent my evenings and weekends doing DIY myself. Sold it, bought a slightly bigger grotty cottage and started all over again. Repeat for fifteen years. A workmate (new grad) was at lunch the other bemoaning the fact that her and her boyfriend couldn't afford to buy a house. But she wants a new build with four bedrooms (why, you've got no kids?) and a pool. The older of us among the group were trying to get her to understand that it might not be realistic, and she just couldn't get it. She and her boyfriend both have brand new cars, she wears designer clothes, buys a coffee every morning on the way to work, and is always telling us about her weekends away, concerts, festivals, and takes a four week overseas holiday every year during the school holidays. That's fine, they're her choices, but it's really boring hearing her moan about not being able to afford her dream home and telling those of us who do own a house how 'lucky' we are, without acknowledging that there may have been a lot of hard work involved in getting it.

Yeah, bear in mind that for the oldies like myself if your first house deposit was only a thousand or two then spending half of that on a phone each year will seem reckless!

Thinking about this more now, holidays stand out. We just did without or did a cheap one. I can think of one of my (young) relatives who has been to the carribbean and other long-haul destinations.

One thing many (not just your mum) are ignoring on this thread is that consumer goods are cheap these days, have a look online at a 1980 Argos catalogue, stuff was really expensive back then so no wonder people didn't buy it. Also complaining about high interest rates in the past, this was accompanied by high inflation with rapidly increased wages and shrank mortgages.

And yet the young people who work with me in the Hertfordshire cathedral town just south of that aren't willing to live there. They want to live in this town because it's prettier and they prefer the bars and restaurants etc. It would be a 20-30min drive for them from Luton but they react with horror st the very idea. It's up to them of course but without kids and with an opportunity to get on the ladder yet they won't because it's not the nicest so they continue to rent shared houses and spend all disposable income on holidays and entertainment.

I need new shoes my phone bill is £15 a month. Which is fine, I have my own home, my kids have a secure home, that in itself is gratifying/satisfying.

£400/year on phone bills is a lot, but what's the alternative? £400/year isnt' going to make much of a dent on the kinds of deposits required these days.

When people can't have the basics: a secure home to enjoy, even if they spent nothing on phones or holidays, why they heck wouldn't they have a few other more frivilous nice things? things they can enjoy. Things that they can move WITH them if their landlords make them move every 6 months?

holidays stand out

Longhand trave is also much cheaper now and can sometimes be comparable to a holiday in the UK.

I'm playing devil's advocate here but in 2011 you could buy a flat in London, Zone 2, next to a lovely park and less than half an hour's walk from Sloane Square for £120k.

There were affordable options even in London not so long ago but people looking to get on the property ladder then didn't seem to be willing to make the necessary compromises to get their foot on the first rung. I think had anyone anticipated the huge rise in prices even in just the last five years people would have possibly done more to get on the property ladder while they still could even if it meant big compromises.

Argh, people who bought a grotty/fixer upper: those cost a fortune now too!

Check your privilege!

Thinking about this more now, holidays stand out. We just did without or did a cheap one. I can think of one of my (young) relatives who has been to the carribbean and other long-haul destinations

People had HOMES though.
You didn't need to escape from your environment quite so much when you had a HOME. When all you have is a shitty temporary rental situation, being "at home" isn't quite so relaxing..

I've never taken my kids abroad, but we can really enjoy our HOME! because it's OURS, they can paint their bedroom walls, we can put up family photos, we can enjoy our every day lives. Some of their class mates are moving every 6 to 12 months because renting is in a bloody awful state - saving for a "HOME" is out of reach, so their parents save for holidays instead, to inject some of the enjoyment that they DON'T get from their "home" into their lives !

I was at an event the other day, OAPs get in half price (as they do in many places) they're the only people with any money these days though.

Dora I agree with that - you need to be prepared to suck up a bit of shittiness for the longer term good. Cant say really I wanted to buy and live in a 1930s maisonette in a pretty crap part of surrey (and spend 12 months wearing one pair of highly flammable £10 Tesco trousers to work...), but on the basis it was that or renting...!! Holiday highlights included a cheap trip with mates to a very non-picturesque part of France staying in horrible but free accommodation and all chipping in to rent a car :-)

I worked this through with my DF.

When he bought his house, it was 3x his sole salary (the equivalent of £72k in today's money).

It is now 6x that amount. Obviously house price rises have been much, much faster than wage inflation. Most people now can only afford a house on two wages.

This isn't even about the millenial yoofs though is it... DP and mine joint income is 70k and with our rent making up more than half of our outgoing we can't save. I can work thanks to the free childcare my Mum provides (completely selflessly) but we wouldn't have this if we moved away, out of the south east.

Our clothes are second hand or supermarket, our furniture has been collected from ebay/freecycle/streetcorners (yes, really!) over the years.

We went out to the harvester last night as our first family meal out since August together last night - it was brilliant and much needed after weeks of us both working FT and commuting in and out of London. Actually, I should have invited my dear baby boomer mother, who is essentially the third parent and allows us our apparent life of luxury.

We rely on the generosity of both our parents and I genuinely worry about what we'll have to offer our kids when they are in a similar or worse position than we are 15 years down the line.

If house buying wasn't the status quo and we could follow a European model of long term rentals at affordable prices, inner city or not, maybe I'd worry less.

Check your privilege!

What? Owning property has and will always required some sacrifice somewhere. Even baby boomers didn't just breeze on in.

Oh should have mentioned we are early 30s with 2 young kids, working for NHS/education sector.

Longhaul travel, or indeed foreign holidays were pretty much the domain of the super rich before the 60's. Now it is cheap and available - but again, when you look at the difference of house prices I posted upthread, are not the reason young people can't get on the housing ladder. A few hundred £ will get you to Tenerife, it'll get you an iphone, but it won't get you a mortgage. Well, not in the SE anyway.

Tinsel - sorry, I wasn't meaning to sound as though I was getting at you, just picking up on the mobile phone thing.

The phone thing alone won't make a difference, but I know plenty of people who eat out a couple of times a week, get takeaways a couple of times a week, get taxis rather than walking 2 miles or getting the bus, go on a couple of foreign holidays a year, every member of the family has their own laptop/iPad/screen of some sort, takeaway coffees on the way to work even though there is free coffee at work. If you add the unnecessary expenditure together it runs into thousands a year.

So no, a mobile phone won't make a difference, but as one of many things it does have an impact.

There is nothing wrong with people choosing to spend their money on the things I've listed, but if I had done that I never would have got on the property ladder, which I did on a low entry-level salary but by not having any money for any luxuries for quite some time. Its a choice.

And yet the young people who work with me in the Hertfordshire cathedral town just south of that aren't willing to live there. They want to live in this town because it's prettier and they prefer the bars and restaurants etc. It would be a 20-30min drive for them from Luton but they react with horror st the very idea. It's up to them of course but without kids and with an opportunity to get on the ladder yet they won't because it's not the nicest so they continue to rent shared houses and spend all disposable income on holidays and entertainment.

When you're renting (in the UK, where renting is shit!), Your area/outside activities matter more, because it's miserable sitting in a rental that you can't make your "home". So at least living in a nice town makes up for that a bit.

I'm a baby boomer and I do agree that house prices are ridiculously high particularly near London and no idea how people can afford to buy there.
Even in the early 70s we couldn't afford to buy in London and were lucky enough to be able to move to the NW.
We were living in one room in London in a bad area to save enough for a house deposit.
Bought a tiny house basically 2 rooms one on top of each other, no inside bathroom and toilet, and gradually did it up.
When our first child was born our only heating was one coal fire. No washing machine and no disposable nappies. Went to markets at closing time to buy cheap food. I was a SAHM with 2 part time jobs. DH had a full time job plus 2 part time jobs. Childcare was pretty much unavailable and no family nearby so I couldn't work full time.
We gradually worked our way up by buying houses that needed work; learning as we went along as no previous experience. Did everything, replacing windows, installing heating, rewiring, plastering (not so many restrictions in those days). Used a lot of salvaged materials.
DH managed to keep our old banger going and was often found lying in the road, underneath it, sometimes in the snow. Again something he learned by doing it.
Cost the state very little as we also spent over 20 years doing aid work overseas.
Now have an OK house. Not a dream house but having seen how some people live in other countries am quite happy with it. We're still working on this one.
Could have made more money as we're both highly qualified but very happy with the life we had as we feel life is more about living than possessions.
And we both voted remain.
Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

Yes, having enough wealth the opportunity to buy property was ans remains a privilege.

A graduate with shedloads of debt and high rent, or someone earning minimum wage, can't get there however much they "sacrifice".