To disagree with my work colleagues in thinking that the cost of living is a potentially serious social problem?

[Livingtothefull]

I was having a discussion with a few work colleagues, they were all 50-60 somethings and own their own properties, only small mortgages left etc. We are based in one of the major cities in the UK.

I said that it was a big problem that a lot of people, despite working hard & having good jobs and/or professional qualifications, couldn't afford to buy property and much of their salary went on rented accommodation which left them very little disposable income….also many jobs were insecure which left them worrying about being able to afford rent or to save.

I have previously talked to a few (mostly younger) people who are in this position. One person who is a police officer in his 30s complained that he had been a police offer for 12 years, been promoted but still couldn't get on the housing ladder.

I suggested to these colleagues that there was something intrinsically wrong when a police officer - doing a difficult, sometimes dangerous and necessary role - couldn't afford to buy himself even a small flat.
They all quite vehemently disagreed with me; their response was, that rather than complain about the cost of living, people should just go wherever the work and job security is and where housing is more affordable, and if that means moving away to a cheaper area then so be it (one or two of them pointed out that they had had to do this when they were starting out).

I was really quite surprised at their response: is it just me who thinks this way? How are people with personal/family ties to where they live supposed to just up & move? What about essential workers like nurses/police officers who are needed everywhere, not just in affordable areas?

I do feel that the 50-60s are a luckier generation (I belong to it btw) & I was surprised at their response, some of them have DCs? I do feel things are tougher for the younger generation & it can be difficult to get ahead, I think I have quite a lot of anecdotal evidence from them (no massive student loans in my day either). I just felt that the colleagues I spoke to weren't aware of how much the world has changed - but would be interested to know what others thought about this.

Your colleagues may have their heads up their arses in the sand, but not all people in that age range are so narrow minded. We lived through negative equity (no, not on our huge mansion, on our little terrace), we've always just about got by, and are now looking at our dc, some who can't afford to move out, one at uni and one in a min wage job with no hope of buying property and wondering how the fuck we are going to survive till retirement then how we will live when we do. You just happen to work with blinkered idiots.

Smileandnod

If you’ve only been offered 2x your salary, I think you’ve gone to the wrong lenders. Did you try speaking to an IFA? Dh was offered around 4.3 of his a year or so ago. We hadn’t filed a tax return for the income I’d generated so we couldn’t use that but they would have considered mine on top - idk what multiple though. It did take some time for the IFA to find a lender with a good rate for this multiple. I know things have been tightened up since 2008 as lending was easy to get at 5x the main earners salary.

I might 50s and we had to up sticks and move to different areas several times to ensure we could get on housing ladder/make enough money to raise our children and start saving enough to put us in a more secure position.
It was no easier then. We left family and friends and all we knew. On one move I hadn’t even seen the house I was moving in to and had to trust my husband to know what was best.
People don’t have to move away but if they aren’t willing to make changes they can’t except to reap the benefits of higher income/cheaper housing etc. Yes we need nurses but if those nurses want to move into higher paid nursing jobs, they may have to move.
It is tough now but same applies. Hard work, move to maximise your position and save, save, save so you have a deposit. It’s about the choices you make.

It’s as easy as realising... say you have a two partner household and both are in a classic job type - policewoman, management, healthcare, consultancy, legal - unless very top tier, it’s hard on even both salaries to get a mortgage

My son moved to a remote isolated village, rented until he felt the job was secure and then bought. Bought something that looks like a converted shed, horrible lot, it will take a while to fix but it’s his and it’s a start.

"I do feel that the 50-60s are a luckier generation"

Not so much the 50's, depending on where you grew up, our schools massively let us down. Employment was disappearing up North etc. There was a load of other social issues that have been almost removed.

"Moving to find work", that's caused the over population and housing crisis in the South and the poverty in the North, but some people don't get it.

As for Mortgage lending, my DD has just been approved on a Mortgage 3 times her income, which luckily is enough to buy in our city (Liverpool).

I totally agree that it's a "I'm alright Jack" attitude and a mindset that it's the failing of other people that is causing their problems.

Not everyone from that generation is sitting in a massive mortgage free house having stopped work at 50 and whinging at the younger generation who should just try a bit harder.

Not all uf us voted for Brexit either.

"Hard work, move to maximise your position and save, save, save so you have a deposit."

But it doesn't make sense that people have to move, when we could have a fairer distribution of employment.

Look at Scotland, people move because of jobs, so we repopulate it with Refuges, but what of the Refugees in five years time, do they have to move because of a lack of employment? What do we do with the large empty areas then?

I do think that the focus should be on affordable, secure rental property, as much as ownership. But that has ended under this Government, for the first time we have a housing crisis in the North.

No I am not saying all that generation are the same in their outlook ilovesooty or that they all had an easy time…..but when I look around and talk to people I know I see a lot of them that are. I am in my 50s myself and I didn't vote for Brexit but it is a fact that proportionally more of the older generation voted for it.

TBH I would be feeling really hard done by if I were younger. I am not saying many older people didn't have to struggle but when I look around I do think I had an easier time; but maybe I was just lucky? I got a grant at Uni and didn't have any significant debt when I left, I talk to people in colleagues in their 20s who owe five figure amounts after graduating; what sort of a way is that to start your adult life? How are you are supposed to build a life/family & contemplate having your own home?

Sorry Living I didn't mean you - it was more an observation about the rather predictable path this thread seems to be taking.

Birdsgottafly I don’t disagree a fairer distribution of employment, housing and wealth would be a good thing. I’m basing my view on the reality that if you want the traditional trappings of ‘success’ then you have to compromise, sacrifice and probably move to get the best jobs and climb the ladder. It’s no use complaining you’re only on a primary classroom teachers pay if you’re not prepared to travel/move to where the headships are. Prices are high. Housing is barely affordable but it is possible still - might mean deferring pregnancy, might mean only one car in the household and it might mean moving.

House ownership was never easy for single mothers with two babies children who cannot see beyond the boundaries of the place they grew up in. Those of the 50/60 age range tended to defer children until after marriage, bought houses with their husbands and a greater number stayed as a family unit. That made life cheaper.

They all quite vehemently disagreed with me; their response was, that rather than complain about the cost of living, people should just go wherever the work and job security is and where housing is more affordable, and if that means moving away to a cheaper area then so be it

I'm in my 50's. My home town had an unemployment rate of 25% when I was my late teens /early twenties (I remember the exact unemployment rate but nit the exact year) I left the area to go to a technical college hundreds of miles away. I lived in a really grim YMCA.

I know loads of family and friends who moved areas and worked really hard. I can't think many of my friends could have afforded houses or flats in expensive areas even then. I lived in a grotty shared rental for a while and had to share a kitchen and bathroom with strangers 🤷🏻‍♀️ I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy a house there for years and years. I know it's worse now but it's not like everyone in their 50's had everything easy. I think that's a naive to think that.

Having said that I know my DH and I will benefit from final salary pensions and we have benefitted to some extent from house price increases.

I am 53.
When me and DH started out, we were in a 50% shared ownership housing association flat which we took possession of a couple of weeks before the big crash - we were in negative equity for 13 years.

We decided to move from Hertfordshire to East Yorkshire, because we knew the area, and my Mum and stepdad retired to his hometown in North Yorks a few years earlier.
Housing was so much cheaper that with our 50%share we were able to have a tiny mortgage and buy a reasonable sized house with a nice garden for our 3 children. We would not have had a hope of that if we'd stayed in Hertfordshire.
Admittedly the work situation has not been great, but we get by, and our children have had a good education with 1 just graduated, one about to , and 1 just about to go to university. I think they have had better lives, on the whole, since our move than they could ever had down south. They are not afraid to move if they have to , to get what they want. Me and DH did not go to uni, so they have a better chance than we did of making something of themselves. Admittedly, they will have student debt, ( and the eldest two have both had full loans), but in the long run, I think they will be better off.

There is a bit of truth on both sides of this argument. I know too many people who could afford a home if they had started saving as soon as they were earning. Instead they took a gap year, paid for experiences and now aged 28-35 have insufficient savings to buy a home. DH and I started saving at 28 and lived well below our means. We lived off one income and saved the second income.

On the flip side, if your income is too low you won't be able to save. There has been at least a decade of wage compression and the minimum wage being as high as it is means employers are hesitant to hire additional people so getting a second job isn't easy.

Oh, and I didn't vote for Brexit at the time, but I would now.

Let's see how they feel when they are in their 70s and 80s, need care, the welfare state has collapsed and their children have all had to move hours away to find job security and affordable housing
indeed!

It’s no use complaining you’re only on a primary classroom teachers pay if you’re not prepared to travel/move to where the headships are.

Or some might actually love teaching itself You know, helping shape the next generation and all. I don't consider having a stable roof over your head a 'trapping of success' more of a human need really. But then I don't vote Tory

They all quite vehemently disagreed with me; their response was, that rather than complain about the cost of living, people should just go wherever the work and job security is and where housing is more affordable, and if that means moving away to a cheaper area then so be it

The logical outcome of this would be that all young people would move away from that area - can't they see that this in itself would be a disaster for the local economy?

YADNBU.

I'm comfortably off atm, thanks to my parents dying early ()

Although house prices are not rising (or falling in many places), wages are not rising, there are too many zero hours contracts and there is a distinct housing shortage where the jobs actually are.

There is a crisis brewing and it's going to be very hard for the people at the bottom.

Tenants of private landlords are going to be screwed for more cash as lenders raise interest rates.

Infuriatingly, a rise in interest rates is going to benefit the 'Baby Boomers' as they get interest on their savings.

#Blessed. Indeed.

Can we just please get rid of this straw man argument that 'What young people don't realise is that we boomers also had to struggle when we were young'. Just because you lived in a grotty bedsit at 19 before buying a fixer-upper house at 21 does not mean you're in the same position as a young person today, who will probably never get away from the grotty bedsit that costs over half their income in rent.

As for boomers deferring having kids - my parents did indeed defer child bearing until they had worked for nearly a decade and been home owners for several years, but they were still only 24 and 25 when I was born!

I live in a low-ish cost area.
But there are very few skilled jobs and NMW is the most you'll get for many jobs. My boss only earns 5p an hour more than me even though she only moved from the SE 10 years ago with qualifications and experience etc.
But at least it's a job and many round here don't even have that.
IME lower house prices = lower wages

YADNBU. We are lucky enough to own (albeit mortgaged!) home. Even then, the future with our pension pots as is is not a rosy one. I know so many of my parents' friends who go off on cruises and city breaks having had relatively average paying jobs but benefited from decent payoffs, pensions, and sales of their own parents' homes. That sort of lifestyle just isn't going to be available for my generation, and luxuries not an option.
So the cost of living issue will affect the younger generation long after mortgages are paid off.

My nearly 27year old daughter still lives with us, in our small flat. She cant afford a deposit or even rent. DH and I are in our 50s and will still be paying our mortgage off for many years. We bo th work and struggle to make ends meet.

Zero hours contracts….the work of the devil. There may be a (very) few people who like the flexibility of working every now & then but the vast majority need a secure income.

Minimum wage… my DS is mentally & physically disabled and the people who care for him at his school are on minimum wage. They work long hours just to earn enough to live on. IMO it is not a minimum wage job, just because there are no qualifications required there are essential 'soft' skills, the people who do it need to be of a certain calibre. And I would like to be confident that the people who care for my DS are sufficiently rewarded and motivated to do this work, at the moment I'm not.

I don't consider being able to afford a decent home as a 'trapping of success' rather as a basic human right especially in a wealthy country like this one. I think it is not too much to ask that a primary school teacher who is doing essential work, should be able to afford a home. Not all primary school teachers want to become head teachers and that's fine, I don't think they deserve to be put down and accused of lacking ambition.

And yes I lived in grotty accommodation when I was a student and a house share when I started working - but I wouldn't want to live like that still after decades of earning a salary. I worry about the future, not for myself (I am doing and will be OK) but for my DS and everyone else who is vulnerable.

@ Gingernaut, I'm prepared to be proved wrong but I don't think rents will go up with risong interest rates. That's because landlords already charge the maximum the market will bear and tenants are already overstretched, though I suppose overcrowding properties even more might permit rents to be raised.

If landlords were squeezed between static or falling rents and rising interest rates, they might sell up, leading to a glut of ex rental houses on the market and their former occupants living rough. Or the small amateur landlords might just get replaced by bigger, more solvent ones. It will be interesting to see how it pans out.