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?

Of course I understand the difference. I did say 60-75 but simply because that was the range we saw when we were looking and now it seems to be 90-110 for the same thing. I was trying to say that many jobs exist outside of London and many people could take the same job in Manchester or Glasgow and be able to escape the rental trap. It wouldn't need to be the very bottom of the market. A quick look shows that for 150k you can get an ok 3bed in a reasonable family area. And whilst a lot of people certainly would struggle to get that level of mortgage, it's certainly affordable for some and certainly far more affordable than being in the SE.

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It's a family area and in catchment for an outstanding primary and an outstanding secondary.

Did you not realise that house prices rose, dora?

That's sort of the whole point of this thread.

My parents bought their first house for 14k, but amazingly, I am actually aware that houses cost more than that now.

NotCaryl thank you for pointing out the train ticket price! I live far from London and don't have £6k lying about so have to pay monthly. It's was worse on apprentice wages though.

But if I got a job more locally it would pay about £6k less and have worse prospects.

BUT I can totally see why people would rather spend a little money to have a bit of joy in their life when they know that even if they saved that money it would still take them years to have enough for a deposit and by that point chances are the goal posts will have moved again meaning they'd need to carry on saving for another few years - and so the cycle continues.'

But this is where I think a lot of people have the wrong attitude. Of course house prices are going to go up. That's why, if home ownership is something you aspire to, then you need to start early. You can't say 'stuff it' and keep buying 'luxuries' and then turn around a few years down the track and say 'oh woe is me, it's now going to cost me even more to buy a house'. Well duh! It's the instant gratification that people can't see the long term benefits of saving early, because they don't look that maybe it will take them five or more years to get their deposit, but if they don't, then in that five or ten years they're going to have an even harder time getting a foot in the door.

Actually, some areas, the NW being one of them, have seen very little rise in recent years. Areas of the NW and NE are still not back to 2007 prices.

I am single and live in the South east and cannot move for family reasons. No matter how much I cut back I won't be able to get on the property ladder. Saving twenty quid a month and having a shitty phone won't add up to a deposit.

Midnite house prices certainly don't always go up. They're way beyond normal levels right now, and over ten times income for most young people.

Who is going to buy all the houses at these prices when the boomers want to sell up or drop off their perches? The argument used to be that immigration would keep house prices high even if our own young people couldn't afford them....but the boomers have scuppered that one by voting for Brexit. Young people will now be leaving university with debts as high as the houses Dora think are plentiful in Manchester; and most non-graduate young people are looking at insecure minimum wage jobs.

Where's the money going to come from to afford the boomers' 400k+ houses? Just think about what the logical consequences of the housing bubble will be in 15-20 years' time.

Haven't read the whole thread so apologise but this made me think.
If I cancelled my sky subscription (TV and Internet) and phone contracts for me and ds1 I could save a deposit for a 200k house in approximately 8 years. I'll be 40 by then so assume I could only get a 25 year mortgage. The mortgage on said 200k house would be more than I currently pay in rent (and I can only afford that with hb topups)
BTW 200k would buy me a 1bed flat here. I can't move as my mum provides free childcare while I work.

Although in 8 years time ds1 will be 20 and ds2 18 so I guess they might have left home and 1 bed would be enough.

Ok, so I just did some sums and me and DP had a proper good chortle...

So we have nothing left at the end of the month, generally, because as I pp our rent is 1500, plus bills, food and travel. BUT. If we managed to curtail our crazy spending and saved £50 a month we could save £600 a year. So in 25 years we'd have a £30,000 deposit for our first home, and we'd also be in our 50s. Daily Fail, do what you will with that. We are officially JAMS.

there are lots of reason's why people don't buy a house.
blaming those born in the 50's for all the wrong in the market is ridiculous.
the generation that actually did the best was the silent generation born between 1925-1942.
they were a very frugal group and helped their children along the way.
most of the people I know born in the 50's are doing the same, helping their children as best they can.
living a frugal lifestyle can and does help with both small and larger purchases, small purchases that can be seen as an asset (like a paid off car or small investments) certainly do help when you apply for a mortgage.
in our case to save and afford a home we moved to the middle of nowhere, left family and friends. unpleasant but necessary during the 80's recession. and we stuck together as a couple through thick and thin, being in a long term stable relationship does help.

LittleWing wouldn't it take nearly 50 years to save £30,000 at £600 a year?

Plus current interest rate seeing what they are, you'd actually lose money in real terms.

Anyone want to comment on why more young people don't save at interest rates that are well below inflation? (So your money is actually losing real value year on year?)

I just got a letter from my bank saying that the interest rate on my savings account is being cut to 0.01%, I kid you not (HSBC). So no matter how much people save, it's being eroded faster than they can manage to do so. All part of the central bank strategy to prop up house prices (by encouraging pensioners to put pension lump sums into housing rather than savings to get a return), keep our banks from having to mark down housing assets, and make people spend in the economy rather than save.

for those of you that say it would take 20 years i'll be 50 etc. what's wrong with saving LONG TERM for a retirement one bed flat? honestly is that not a reasonable goal and so what if it takes 20 years?
one of my long term goals took 30 years to develop.

...I certainly don't blame those born in the 50s. I dont believe they were greedy or entitled or anything like that. There is obviously a wider social issue. Especially when so many of that generation end up in unpaid employment caring for their grandkids in their their retirement (my parents do this - I am very lucky).

Perhaps I can only hope for a pension that will allow me to provide for my children the same way... Or Better still, it won't have to be this way at all!

Don't blame the baby boomers, or the millenials, or the JAMs, or the anywhere inbetweens... blame The man!

wayfare yup, probably, my maths is bad. Maybe that's what got me into this predicament to begin with though

Oh yeah wow... 50 years. Not sure how I managed to halve that haha.

LittleWing your brain probably just rejected the idea that it might take that long

Because obviously that'd be INSANE older...! But on the bright side maybe we could shoot for a £100 saving a month over 25 years. I don't know. Maybe it would be doable, if everything ran a straight course and there were no unforseen outgoings and we stopped celebrating life - birthdays, Xmas presents, car prangs, school uniform suddenly getting too small, estate agents fees, sickness, rental increases, food cost increases etc etc etc.

The basic thing is, when young people are looking at it taking their entire working lives just to save a deposit on a house at current prices (which is just nonsensical), how can anyone think that this kind of economy is normal? It isn't normal. No matter what the cost of record players versus iPhones, it just wasn't the case that normal average houses were 10+ times normal incomes for boomers. It just wasn't.

There is no district in the area where I live where house prices are below 12 times average income. In the really nice bits it's 20+ times. We have the statistics which show this, it isn't in dispute. It isn't in dispute that house prices in the UK have more than trebled in real terms since 2000. But for some reason, these threads always draw a bunch of people who want to overlook the sheer facts of this is favour of some completely unsubstantiated fantasy about how things were 'ard in the days of yore. Well, home ownership in the UK increased massively between 1960 and 1990; so the majority of boomers bought houses. And they didn't do it with average prices at more than 10 times average incomes. If they just accepted that the housing market is in an epic bubble that makes it near impossible for young people to afford houses it would be a courtesy for a start. Telling me that I could get a 1-bed flat in Luton so all's tickety boo with the world today is like pissing on my leg and telling me it's raining, as they say in the City.

What is the point in all of this blame and bitterness directed at baby boomers? Wouldn't most of us in our 20s, 30s and 40s have been the same? I'm nearly 39 and scraping by, without much chance of getting a mortgage, as I haven't managed to find a permanent job yet, but I don't blame the baby boomers. It is what it is and I try to make the best of it.

Out2pasture

for those of you that say it would take 20 years i'll be 50 etc. what's wrong with saving LONG TERM for a retirement one bed flat?

Would you be able to get a mortgage once you start nearing retirement age?
Genuine qs btw I've only looked at mortgages briefly, realised I'll never be able to afford anything and not looked again.

There is a simple problem here... it is the housing shortage.. For various reasons, the country has not building anywhere near enough houses for thirty or more years...

Many people will try and argue it is more complex, but we live in a market economy and when there is a shortage facing demand... prices rise. The country needs to build a hell of a lot more housing.. But they need to be supported by roads, schools, hospitals, sewage works, And whenever anyone tries to build these things, the NIMBYS, get in the way...

Never mind the NIMBYS have already got everything they want. Of course the best of irpt is that the NIMBY's have crapped on their own children. Sadly they have also crapped on everyone elses children at the same time.

I'm a homeowner and a LL. Buying my first place wasn't easy as I worked 3 jobs but two of those jobs paid really well. Those same jobs today pay minimum wage.

I'm actually in favour of house prices coming down. The current market doesn't benefit anyone except the government who don't want to deal with an imploding housing market.

I find the greenbelt and planning rules to be absolutely crazy. Where I live, farmland on a main road can't be built on because it's green belt. There is a bus stop right next to it plus an outstanding primary school around the corner that has capacity. That land sits idle via the set aside scheme yet we have hundreds and thousands of people who can't afford to buy a home. I own land which I am able to build on but for some dumb reason it's far easier for me to get permission to build a single family home than a semi or terraces. If I could build terraces I could fit 4 homes, each with space for 3 parking spots, yet I've given up because the rules make it easier to just do a single family home. It's no wonder the average home in my village is over £250k. The average price should be about £150-180k based on two incomes.

It's their generational entitlement that irks me: "I've paid all my life, why SHOULD I have to sell up my now-inappropriate home, the council should come and oldie proof it for me, I want grab rails and a stair lift. I want a fuel allowance to heat the 4 bed house I live alone in, paid £5k for and is worth £1.5m pre-refurb and I want my state pension to increase by the triple lock, despite the fact I've also got a private pension that pays so much I'm a 40% tax payer" entitled old buggers.

Whilst I don't disagree, the baby boomer generation were told that if they paid into the system, they would be looked after "cradle to grave". Instead, my Uncles private pension that he paid into for 30 years collapsed 5 years before retirement and my mum birthday means that she loses out on bus passes and state pension as she suddenly has to be older before she can claim these.....not quite the promise they were made.

I am about to turn 40. I own my own house. I didn't go to university (though I was the last year that got a grant) no debts to repay, so I was able to put a very small amount of money in savings each month. In the 5 years it took to save a deposit, I had a couple of weekends away, other trips were to stay with friends and relatives. I also lived at home so though I paid rent it was far less than renting. I didn't run a car. My partner wasn't a job that overtime was available so he took on extra shifts, between us this meant we could save up a £12k deposit and extra for moving expenses....no where near enough to buy now in most/all of the country.