To wonder how the next generation will afford houses?

[Ieatcake]

Around where I grew up in the south east many of my parents friends could afford a nice detached 4 bed house on one average wage and take early retirement.

Now even if you have a couple of doctors that work full time they can just about afford a 3 bed ex local authority house. Two people on average wages full time can just about afford a small flat, but thats at their peak earning power - how can they bring up a family?

I know it's cheaper up north, but there are less jobs there and it breaks familys and people apart if they have to move hundreds of miles away from where they have always lived. I've know people move and then regret leaving everyone behind and do want to move back.

I wonder this too.

It's part of the reason I moved to Australia with DH.

I will help my children buy a house as my parents helped me. And I expect others will do the same. I only live in a poky flat, but it'll be mortgage free before the children are adults and then I can help them.

Well looking around at my peers many of them are
A) living at home and/or
B) given the deposit by their parents

Yes I will hold my hands up and say I am jealous of people whose parents give them the deposit, because thats where the real issue lies. Its not paying a mortgage thats hard (just look at the rent prices we have to pay). Its paying your rent whilst also getting together the massive deposit.

As well as just making me feel jealous on a purely human level, I admit it pisses me off because with parents paying or "helping" with the deposit, it keeps prices inflated.

Maybe they'll realise that renting is, and always has been, a viable option and that insisting that only owning is a total red herring!

That way there will be more weight behind any movement to make rents fair, landlord and tenant expectations, rights and obligations more equitable and everyone will be happy/ier.

Then, after a generation or 2, buying will be more affordable, as the rent / buy wheel turns again!

Or is that just because I am of an age where my grandparents rented forever, my parents (baby boomers) rented for most of their adult lives, only owning in their 40s and 50s, now renting again as they didn't have the oodles of cash their generation are assumed to have! I became a home owner at 50, lived in rented homes for the whole of my life until then!

They'll do what previous generations did.
Get help from parents (whether that be parents using their house as a guarantee or a cash gift)
Move somewhere, within the country or out of it.
Live with family, etc.
it's worse now I grant you but the last generations luck of homeowning was a historical fluke. If you look further back pre 1940's most people owned, true, but several generations lived together. It wasn't uncommon for a young couple with a child to be living with one set of parents, a grandparent, a sibling and their child etc in a modest "normal" home.

Parts of the north are cheap and in the welsh valleys my sisters just bought a fairly liveable 2 bed (needs decorating, a new kitchen though the old is still useable and needed a new boiler) for £13,000 outright. I know that wouldn't buy much (probably a parking space) in se England.
When we bought our 3 bed in abertillery (and commuted 35 mins to work, because there isn't much about) it was £30,000, but we mortgaged. Our total upfront cost including deposit and other expenses was £7,000. Achieveable for loads of people.
Personally if I was a Londoner (Cardiff gal myself) I'd work my socks off live as cheaply as possible save what I could for a few years then go somewhere cheaper. Maybe even be mortgage free if you can get something under 15k (not impossible) sure your salary will be lower but it's pretty comfortable if you have no housing costs....

No longer live in the UK btw, but housing costs were not a factor in us moving

If everything goes to plan ds and dss will each get their house deposit from us. We live up north though and for us right now we can afford to put money away for them.

We don't feel we'll be able to afford to buy. We don't want to move from London/Surrey area as this is where our friends and family are. Understandably it's cheaper in other parts of the UK but it would be at a massive detriment which far outweighs the cost benefit.

Renting really isn't a viable option in the UK until renters have better rights like most of europe. Even then most European country's have more owners than renters even with these rights.

I agree that remortgaging to "help out" people is part of the problem. That's a ponzi scheme and people don't want to have to rely on parents, mine would have been very manipulative.. what about people with no parents or family wealth?

Can you link to a 15k Welsh home?

Lots of finger crossing for hefty inheritances?

I really hope that by the time my dd at the point of moving out we've sorted out the population/housing ratio. Looking at population age bulge graphs it may be an issue that sorts itself out anyway.

Inheritance comes to most people around age 60 and there might not be anything left with social care costs.

Property prices still rise, and people work up. Most people’s first property is a one-bed flat, not a three-bed house.

It does take a lot of sacrifice if you don’t have parents who can/will help, but it’s not impossible.

I’m in the south east, on 32k and have bought a flat without help. In a few years, I’m planning to trade up and move somewhere cheaper (south west, still a big city with plenty of opportunities) and buy a house. I’m doing this all without a partner.

YANBU, not a single one of my friends has bought without substantial help!

Next generation?

What about this one!

Merryshitmas I think you need to reread your figures! Is that from the 80s/70s?

You can’t even buy a garage for 15,000 in the SE! The cheapest places I’ve found, even going up north or poor coastal towns with no jobs, are around £50,000 for studio space.

It’s very easy to say ‘come live in wales for 15k’... but what if that’s not where your job is?

Our Tory Government is actively implementing contrary policy.

save every penny of money given to kids for birthday, Christmas, etc. My parents did this for us and it made a huge difference.

Intentionally.

I'm in the south west and bought my first flat by myself at 23 years old. No help, just saved up deposit which took about a year. Now have bought a house with my partner and rent out the flat. Took us less than a year to save a 5% deposit and now with house prices going up in 2 years we now have 15% equity in the property so can afford a 10% depsoit on the next property.

It can be done, but after bills etc we live on £50 a werk each 'fun money' and save around £350 each month each.

life I've seen loads like that. 3 bed houses near us go for auction at 30 grand. You're not looking hard enough.

Admittedly I am the only person I know who’s bought without parental help (did so aged 29).

Where I am, it’s the deposit that’s the tricky bit, not the mortgage payments. My mortgage is £500; a similar private rent would be £900.

I saved my deposit by living in shit houseshares for years, which I appreciated isn’t for everyone.

I expect in the future, there’ll be ways to get around the deposit, ie employers paying them in exchange for work contracts, government schemes offsetting against parents’ equity.

I also grew up in the South East but unlike the OP home ownership was unheard of in our social circle!!
Everybody rented - usually from the Council. Only the wealthy bought a home.
I assume either I'm quite a lot older than OP or we come from very different backgrounds.

It depends where you live if course, but I expect unless you inherit your home/money from your parents in certain areas then you won’t be able to buy unless you move to areas where housing is more affordable - but the caveat to that is there might not be as many job opportunities.

Getting priced out has a knock on effect, if earners can’t afford an area they will go to the next affordable one - raising prices and in turn forcing out lower earners into the next affordable area..and so forth.