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.

Employment rates are higher than London. Booming software, financial, biotechnology academic sectors. Huge opportunities.
Cosmopolitan city, massive arts festival, theatres and galleries galore.
Travel 20 minutes from the city centre and house prices are low.

I live in a 5 bedroomed semi surrounded by ancient woodland, I bought it 2 years ago for £210K, no work needed. I can be in the heart of the capital in 20 minutes or international airport in 15 minutes.

and what do you mean by “difficult marriages” or “paying attention to who they were marrying”

I moved to where the unemployment and study opportunities were when I was young. We bought our house in the early 90s for £75k, that was about 2.5 times our combined salaries at the time. Today similar houses in our area go for around £600k, that is almost a 9-fold increase. No first time buyers in our area now (and it is not an extremely affluent area) unless they are exceptionally high earners or have money from their families. When we bought it was just regular people moving in.

Yes it was a dump when we bought it and we had to live with that for a few years….but the difference was that we knew that we could aspire to something better and that short term sacrifices would lead to us being in a much better position further down the line.

So the situation as it is now kills aspiration. Why would you make lifestyle sacrifices when you know that realistically it makes no difference to your prospect of being a home owner, that it remains an impossible dream? If you are going to be in debt anyway, why not have a slightly larger debt and a good time having evenings out/clothes/cappucinos etc?

People consider a wedding, holiday, car, sky and coffee to be obligatory, rather than save money long term.

The amount most couples (and often their parents) spend on weddings is astounding. They would rather waste it all on a big party rather than just make their vows and invest in their future by putting the money towards a house.

Yes house prices are higher but so are people's expectations. House sharing, getting a good job, holding off having a family whilst a deposit is saved for is an alien concept for many.

I'm surprised lenders are still doing the 3 x salary thing. With interest rates so low mortgages must be affordable at a much higher multiplier. When we had our first mortgage, 1973, we could have 3x my husband's salary or 2.5 x our joint salary but interest rates were much higher.

We bought a house that was a wreck, rotten window frames, no central heating, the kitchen was a sink and a filthy cooker, we had to have it rewired and all the floors replaced due to rot. The building society gave us 6 months to get it sorted and they came and did an inspection to see that we had. I have no idea what they would have done if we hadn't done anything. We didn't get central heating for another 6 years and although the window frames got replaced it was 20 years till we got double glazing. With a baby and toddler I longed for a washing machine but that was out of the question. It was a very different world for most of us and not in a particularly good way but yes after 20 years of struggling things got alot better.

I don’t think this situation can go on much longer. It sometimes feels (when I’m feeling moody) that the older generation is having a party at the expense of the young. But don't you think they had it tough when they were young? I know it can vary alot but many of us in the 1970s had a really tough time and childcare was almost non existent not just expensive. You are looking at your parents at a stage when they have probably paid off the mortgage, don't have kids to clothe/feed etc. Life was probably harder when you were little (obviously some people had an easier time but many of us didn't.)

Yanbu. My parents are the same age and totally get it.

Both teachers - Dad worked FT secondary and mum PT primary, supply, short bursts of FT and bursts of SAHM.

Back in 1980's teachers aren't average 18-22k. Nowadays for same roll it's 25-32k.

But as my parents pointed out - the house they bought in 1991 is now worth 4 times what they paid. There is no way a family in the same income as mine was could afford property there.

You’ve been had.

The media are fuelling all this inter generational conflict. You’ll see plenty of references to generation rent in the guardian and to rich pensioners and blah blah. Why? Well it’s so much easier to blame those rich Surrey pensioners than it is to have all the generations take a hard look at how society is structured. Because the people you should be pissed off at are the tinybpercentage who own almost all the land. The corporations who cream off profit and hide it, while paying such shit wages that taxpayers money is needed to top it up in the form of tax credits. Who have flooded the country with low wage labour, and now want us out of Europe so that we can erode workers rights even more. THEY are the problem, not people in their 50s up.

The problem is not baby boomers. They just lived their lives and took advantage of what was available to them. And they often had much narrower worlds than us younger folk. Many jobs when my mum had us were stilll enforcing mandatory resignation for women on marriage. Women couldnt get mortgages. There was no widespread university. Life was smaller and more local. There was often massive poverty - both my parents grew up in real poverty. Tin bath in front of the fire type.

Younger people now have a different bet of concerns. They are neither overall better nor wore than previous generations. They compete in a global pool, they have the ever present social media telling them everyone else is doing great. They also have the ability to go to university, to travel, to work abroad and the internet and tech we dreamed of as kids.

Baby boomers had one set of circumstances. My gen x had another. Millenials still a different one. Neither is in absolute terms any better or worse.

You need to look up and think about who is structuring society so that it’s a corporate dominated distopia, not moaning about how People approaching retirement had it good.

I really think a lot of this depends on where you live. I grew up in the South East and saw rents go from reasonable to extortionate in the space of about 5-10 years. I moved north to be near where my parents’ retired to because I couldn’t afford to rent, let alone buy. But DP and I now have a two-bed house that cost 60k and we both earn just above minimum wage.

But a lot of people wouldn’t want to live where we do. It’s rural, has very few amenities, and you need a car to get anywhere beyond the village, especially at night or in winter. I commute 45 minutes to work on windy country roads, for example. There’s no cinema, one pub, one shop - that’s it.

But it’s cheap, it’s on the coast, we have some stunning scenery and most importantly, it means we can save bloody hard so we can move somewhere with more amenities in a few years. I love where we live, but I wouldn’t want to raise kids here as they’d just get bored (especially as teens) and I’m not prepared to be a taxi service!

I also agree that housing is a massive issue in the uk. But why? Well:

decades of underfunding.
A shit low wage low skill economy
Profiteering - selling off public housing to private owners
Profiteering - giving public taxpayer housing benefit to private landlords
Terrible regulations that allow any crook to be a landlord
Poor protection for tenants

These are all STRUCTURAL economic issues. They could all be solved, if the people creaming off the cash took less of it.

Social media is a massive problem imho - this explains it really nicely.

waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

Lest you think I’m an old commie, I’m really not. I think capitalism is the least worst option. I have no problem in people making a profit. They just need to do it fairly, without detriment to the public and to pay their bloody taxes. I think people should work hard. I as many others have indeed moved around the uk and abroad away from all family support - there’s no right to that I’m afraid. It’d be nice, but it’s not a right.
What I would like to see is a slight adjustment. Less top heavy power. Land reformation, closing these legal but immoral tax loopholes GLOBALLY. People can still make profits but not if they are fucking the planet and it’s inhabitants. Just capitalism with some checks and balances.

Sensible post Anatidae .

We drove back to London from the Midlands last night. Through Fulham, over the Thames last night. Talked about the changes we'd seen in the last 30 years. Dh was grumpy. I asked him what was up.

"All that fucking building. All along the Thames. That's billions of pound of profit. And where the fuck did it go?"

Yes, I guess the people who bought cheap(er) made a profit. But the big profits ... and the lack of a plan to share the wealth or create something more equitable ...

And, of course, not everyone could afford to buy during the gold rush years.

Your dh is right cat

However it’s much better to have us all squabbling about baby boomers/benefit scrounges/millenials and their avocado toast than have us all look upwards and realise we are in semi slavery to a corporate structure that exists for a tiny proportion of the population.

I watched the new blade runner the other week. One thing that struck me was the corporate dominance / distopia thing. In the original that was seen seen as some kind of hellish possible future.

Now it’s just taken for granted.

I am a politically moderate centrist. And even I think that the current structure is awful. It’s kind of Fall of Rome levels of inequality. We should be worried,

I am in that age group. I had to love out of London as I could not afford to buy. Mortgages used to cheaper, but they also used to be really hard to get.
My DP was also unable to buy where he grew up.
I think people should be able to live where they grew up, but both myself and DP who are in our 50's, had to love somewhere cheaper when young.

I'd also add that we're pretty much seeing a form of 'New Enclosures'. Say you're the generation/social group that has just about managed to buy an expensive property (probably in the SE - because the cost of property has spiralled as work and the economy has concentrated disproportionately in the UK).

You pay and pay and pay into that mortgage. You make sacrifices to cling on to that property. Your children can't afford to buy. You can't afford to help them - the cost of housing is way beyond that. Similarly, a lot of other things that used to be free no longer are. And the economy keeps concentrating, so choice to relocate is limited.

Then care in old age takes the lot.

Who gains, ultimately?

The very rich.

I think the 'generation thing' - the fantasy of a generation who bough property when it was semi-affordable - is a blip. I reckon, in the long-term, we're actually just paying over huge sums of money to watch property become even more concentrated in the hands of the few.

Basically, OP , you are absolutely right. It's a huge social problem. And none of it is going to be sorted out by eating less avocado on toast.

If British people were not so obsessed with owning property, then it wouldn't be something to worry about.

Rents should be more tightly managed though. A cap based on value would be a good start.

I'm a bit torn on this issue, because I know people right across the range of financial situations, and I know more than a few types who fit into the category they are talking about.

People who are simultaneously complaining about lack of funds, whilst being entirely resistant to reducing their lifestyle in any way. I absolutely agree that when you know the 'big' goal is unattainable, then there's no point inflicting miserable penury on yourself. However what counts as 'slumming it' seems to have shifted over the years.

I find it a bit insane that student halls almost as a standard come with ensuite bathrooms, and the 'pink tax' on women's products seems to be higher than ever, with extremely expensive brands and high-maintenance hair dos being fairly standard. Ditto for lease cars. I used to be very much in the minority with my 'banger' cars (and no, I'm not always in the garage, they're fairly reliable but highly un-flash - my first car in 2013 had a tape deck!), in spite of earning more than my friends.

It muddies the issue. There are far more people earning a pitiful wage and genuinely struggling with the costs of living, let alone saving.

The issue here is wage growth not cost of living. Our cost of living isn’t particularly high, but our wages are a lot lower than other countries. It’s gotten to the point that in some industries UK wages are lower even than Indian ones.

I had a conversation with my parents about this recently. They feel that if people didn't have mobile phones, etc that they would be able to afford a house

When they bought their house my dad was on £17k a year - the house was £21k my mum also worked cleaning and retail but I don't know how much she earned.

Fast forward 35 years and our house cost £169k on a 37k wage. my repayments are £900 a month. They can not get their heads around us paying that. They paid their mortgage off in 8 years. Apparently it's because they holidayed in the uk and didn't have a new car

They are both retired now with fabulous pensions and enjoying life. My dad was made redundant just before his retirement and had a huge redundancy package as he had been there 40 years. They are set up for the rest of their lives with no financial worries at all. Their 21k house is now worth over £350k

Don't even get me started on what they think of food banks and benefits

But how much is that house worth now grannytomine, even in the state it was in then? I'll make a bet a lot more than 3x an equivalent salary.

I do think this is an issue that only impacts pockets of the country though. Lots of options for three bed houses under 80k in Leeds where I'm from (obviously not in nice areas) and there's a decent amount of well paid work in Leeds!

No people shouldn't have to move but at the same time that has always happened. If you look back historically, most people didn't own - only the fairly well off.

I think one of the issues now is that the change in house prices between the north and south is driving massive capital inequality. I bought a house in 2005 for 110k in Leeds. It's still worth about that now 12 years later. If I'd bought elsewhere for a similar amount (which would have been possible outside of London) then I'd be sitting on at least 50% equity (plus whatever's paid off the mortgage). That means I basically cannot afford to move down south as I wouldn't be able to get anything. That said, I don't really want to so no stress :)

Karak I don't know, the houses round there all seem to have been done up. Looking on Rightmove a house in that road with central heating, double glazing and a lovely fitted kitchen is now about £120k, as a wreck I don't know maybe £80k? We struggled on our salaries to buy it but I would think a couple both working on NMW would get a mortgage for that amount now. I suppose they would have trouble finding that sort of wreck but even at £120k with a decent deposit it would be possible.

Believe me we were broke and some weeks my mother would buy us food. We had no car, no washing machine, no phone (obviously no mobile or computer as not available then.)

My husband wasn't on the equivalent of NMW, I was as I was working round childcare which was really hard to get then. Nurseries only seemed available if your child was at risk in some way, well that was how it was where I lived. Childminders really weren't what they are now so my SIL and I sort of helped each other with childcare, my mum did some too and I worked some hours at the weekend.

Final thought, I couldn't have afforded to live in London in the 1970s either. I lived in a large city, I couldn't afford to live in the area I wanted to live in but funnily enough the area I could afford seems to be becoming quite trendy now.

I never said that the older generation were the problem…although the complacency of some of them is. They haven't done anything 'wrong' through many of them being the beneficiaries of rising house prices, anyone would do the same in their place.

I started out with breeze block walls in rented accommodation (no plaster) and a shared bathroom down the landing. But that was doable at the time because I was in my early 20s and confident that my situation was temporary. I don't want to live like that now I have a demanding job and a DC with special needs.

I do agree that the roots of the problem go deeper and we should look at the way the country is governed and why all the wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. I think if it continues the problem will become massive; people will put up with quite a lot of inequality if overall they themselves feel really comfortable and secure, as that changes people will get angrier.

I bought a house in 2005 for 110k in Leeds. It's still worth about that now 12 years later

Interesting. In 2009 I bought a house for 190k in London (no longer own it). It's now worth over 400k! Our income certainly wouldn't have doubled in that time frame!