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?

The kinds of 'sacrifices' familiar to my parents' generation seem amazing to me. And my parents mostly agree on this one.

For them, 'sacrifice to get a home' meant things like not buying a posh car (or maybe, not buying a car), not having fancy clothes, not eating out.

My mum really can't understand that for most of my adult life, I've not had a freezer, sometimes no central heating, sometimes no oven. And it is foreign to her to think of adults in their 20s and 30s living in shared houses.

It's not that my generation don't also have luxuries that are strange to her, too - but the whole balance of what's expensive and what's cheap has shifted. It's nonsensical not to remember that.

But they could buy-just in Luton rather than St Albans. Then they would own their own home.

£400 isn't going to make much of a dent in the kind of deposits needed these days

No, not on its own, but the point the oldies are trying to make is that it wasn't just no mobile phone, it was in all areas of life that they lived frugally and once you add that £400 to £2 here and £10 there it is amazing how much it adds up. There is a lot of truth in that saying about looking after the pennies.

They also didn't use to move out into rented. People often lived at home until they could afford to marry and set up home as a result there were far fewer 'surprise' pregnancies and people had much more motivation to save save save to gain their independence. Attending any wedding fair will show that the norm now is move in with partner- have baby -wedding -then think about saving to buy a house by which time this has become a much tougher task

While I agree generally with the statistics re the increase in house prices, does every discusion on this subject have to be so bloody London-centric?

Sold my roomy 3-bed, quite nice house in Wrexham 3 years ago and had to accept 90K after 9 months on the market. That's 90, not 900.
Not so unfeasible to save for a deposit then.

There is as well a complete lack of house building - homes are getting smaller as they take every inch into account - then there's investment buyers from overseas leaving property empty just to make a profit

Plus an ever increasing population - something has to give -

We were living in one room in London in a bad area to save enough for a house deposit. "bad" areas in commutable distance to employment hubs are very rarely cheap enough to allow you to save nowadays.

Bought a tiny house basically 2 rooms one on top of each other, no inside bathroom and toilet, and gradually did it up. Cheap fixer uppers rarely exist nowadays either. They are so rare & usually snapped up by cash buying property developers, occassionally there'll be one not snapped up immediately, but it'll have a 60 year lease, so you can't get it on a mortgage

^ this is exactly what this thread is about

Ha! Reminds me of my father. His conversational gambit; "Have you got a job yet? (I'm signed off sick, don't claim a penny in benefits, which is by the by anyway) Me; "No father, anyway, you weren't much older than me when you retired."

To elder sibling; "Have you got a job yet?" Her response, "No father, anyway, you retired when you were younger than me." Elder sibling owns 2 rental properties, has ££££s in the bank, all through her own hard work. She was a student nurse, living off tinned tomatoes and instant mashed potato at 17 years of age.

People did not afford houses by being more frugal! House prices were much much lower relative to wages.

People now can't buy houses by being more frugal.

Material things way back when, as well as not being as good as those available today, were proportionately really expensive so older people always associate having a lot of "stuff" with profligacy.

A car I bought 20 years ago costs the same (updated model) today! Global economies of scale have brought absolute luxury to people on normal incomes. Food is almost ludicrously cheap, as is evident.

Also agree with PP that single income mortgages - male breadwinner naturally - kept house prices lower. That and the fact that living in the SE of England wasn't the ambition of everyone else in the world.

Plus those bad old boomers and their "free" education? Only 2-5% of people went on to third level education. A few of these, thanks to grammar schools, were even working class. Grants were means-tested against parental income, unless you had worked for three years first.

So give the oldies a break. They surfed a lucky wave, true, but only because two wars had wiped out previous generations and they were the great hope for the future. They got you all your freedoms, at least be grateful for that.

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..

But this is where your mentality is all off. You don't need to be able to paint a wall to make your house your own. You can get second hand furniture, spend a bit of time with a paintbrush and have some really funky furniture for next to nothing. Those stick on hooks mean that any wall can be covered in pictures without leaving a mark. Throw rugs cost very little to cover worn carpet. Living in a "home" has never been about whether I can paint the walls or not, it's about how I make the space my own, whether it has been in rentals or in my own. Some of my much cooler homes where in the early years when I needed to be creative (no pintrest back then!) and would get old furniture from friends and family, or even off hard rubbish.

phalenops, how did you afford to live at home, if back in the day everyone was careful about the 'pennies'?

Surely your parents (like parents now) were charging you rent ... or is it possible you were (shock, horror), in the fortunate situation of being subsidised by your parents?

The baby boomers did not "get our freedoms".

My parents scrimped and saved in ways that are beyond my generations belief, let alone the 20 year olds of today

I'm 23, have scrimped and saved and own my own house. But thanks for the ageist generalisation there.

Where I live (not London), my house has gone up in value by £20k in 2 years. That's over £800 a month. At a 20% deposit, assuming you've got the multiplyer for the rest, the first £166 saved a month is just treading water on your deposit. Sadly house prices are rising much faster than a lot of people can save.

Yes, we bought a 'cheap fixer upper'. No central heating, no connection to the mains gas supply, no fully functioning bathroom, no hob, asbestos everywhere. 440k.

Before that we rented a two bed flat (55 m2) which had black mould on the ceilings. Great for my asthmatic daughter. £900 per month.

My mobile phone bill is £15 per month. No new clothes, meals out, foreign holidays or any of the above. Wedding cost £500. DH and I both higher rate tax payers as well

Midnite

1. no, you cannot renovate furniture in a small flat with hardly any windows where your children sleep. My parents upcycled hand-me-down furniture, but like most people those days, had a garden and a garage in which to sand them and apply oil based paint

1. So you upcycle some hand-me-down furniture, a labour of love, put your heart and soul into it.. a week later get notice, you have to leave your rented home, next place is furnished, place after that unfurnished, next place furnished - it makes no sense to lovingly restore furniture to make your place "homely" when you've got to get rid of it all in 6 months time because all that's available at that time is somewhere furnished.

1. There's more to feeling "at home" than some fucking rugs and throws - feeling like you are secure and can stay there for more than the8 weeks notice period for one!

What Dozer said.

And ones life may well be London centric, if that's where your entire family, support network and job are based. We could uproot and perhaps afford elsewhere in the UK... Perhaps... But without everything we know and love that make life worth living! (And those things aren't phones, sky, long-haul flight holidays, designer clothes (probably wouldnt even if i could afford to) takeaways, make up (?!?!) or posh cars)

*...oh, and the parents bought their first house for around £10,000, and don't think anything of spending a couple of grand on a new telly. Yet thought the amount I spent on my dead DH's urn unreasonable.

They told me and DH (deceased ) had spent too much money on our home. It's value has increased by over 30% in 2 years. Sadly their holiday home abroad is now worth a tiny fraction of what they paid for it.

Some people are just completely out of touch with reality.

Vent over.

Blimey, not all Babyboomers live in 5 bedroom houses. Quite a few of us know how lucky we are (luck which is thanks to the decisions made by the 2 generations who came before us). And as a PP said, many of us are wracking our brains as to how to help our grown DC and doing what we can, subsidising them with whatever little we can spare. And those who are better off are wondering how to balance their own future care needs with the current and ongoing needs of their DCs and their families.

Peace, love and

It.is.FUN. and romantic. and a labour of love…… to make do and mend when you're in a secure home that you can build a life in

but milenials are supposed to

Really Wayfare?
I agree the BBs have no idea how lucky they had things but I'm stunned you cannot afford anything within 75miles of work with a 30k deposit. shock
If you live in London You can get at least 1bed, sometimes 2bed in Luton for under 100k. Fast train into Town.

Oh, it's the move to Luton brigade! I've encountered you on many threads like this before. I have a young family, I'm 38 and no I don't live in London, so there is no fast train to Luton here; in fact I'm more than an hour and a half's drive from bloody Luton. No, a one bed in Luton is not the answer, thank you, but ODFOD, there's a love

Oh, and while you're at it, you can also stuff your second jobs comment - I'm mid-career in a professional job and I'm expected to work up to 60 or more hours a week just for my one job. This is similar for pretty any professional or aspirational job for a young person these days. Showing your age rather, love, if you think we can all earn a good wage in a 9-5 job and can fit another one in at the evenings and weekends. That goes too for all the people saying that it's excessive to spend £40 a month on a smartphone contract - - you clearly haven't been near the job market in a decade or two; anyone with a professional or desk-based job will largely be expected to be contactable constantly, including on the move and out of the office, and to be working on email etc. and doing project work out of working hours and during weekends. Not possible unless you have a smartphone and broadband/decent computer access at home as well. I'm expected to be contactable 24-7 and my work doesn't pay for my phone!

Tinsel I love your posts on this thread, and how passionate you are about the unfairness of it all, even though you yourself have your own home.

LittleWing, but that's exactly what we did. Lots of people could move away from London/SE especially just after college or university when they don't have kids. Because we've been there and gone that I cannot get on board with people complaining that moving away would mean leaving the community they grew up in and their family and friends. Well, yes, but surely getting on a secure footing financially before having kids is more of a priority?

I appreciate that some jobs simply don't exist outside the capital. But a great many more people are not tied in that way yet still insist on living there.

"I have certainly met people who claim to be desperate to buy but not willing to forgoe holidays, tech, cars and stuff in order to do it."

Because it wouldn't be enough. You need many thousands for a deposit.