To think these baby boomers are missing the point?

[Hundredacrewoods]

I grew up in an area where house prices have quadrupled since 2000. I consider this an intergenerational equity issue. Whenever the topic of house prices and 'millennials' comes up with my parents' generation, all I hear is how hard they worked and how much they sacrificed to get on the property ladder. AIBU to think that they're missing the point? No one is denying that they worked hard and sacrificed. The point is that if they worked just as hard today, and made the same sacrifices, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

It's about TACT curious

It is rude and tactless to whinge to people who cant own a house about how hard you worked to lovingly fix up your own house.

It's stupid and nasty to victim blame a while generation for the shitty housing situation that they didn't create because they have fucking phones!

You cannot apply for my job with a CV/letter. It's all online. You need to be able to receive interview notifications if sucessful. The Rota is solely online. All overtime alerts go online only.

I would lose probably 4k a year (I do a lot of overtime) if I "saved" by not having a £100 second hand smart phone that I spend £10-£15 a month on

So STFU with the silly false economies

So much bad maths on this thread!

I’ve been rewatching Friends now it’s on Netflix.
It’s in 1997 and almost no one has a mobile phone.
I was a student then and I only knew one person with a mobile.
I can see why you might need one as a head of three schools but not the average person.

Guffing on about people having mobiles now and how you didn’t need them when you were young is daft. I bet your great grandmother grew up without indoor plumbing but you wouldn’t tolerate that now.
It’s like when people harp on about ‘poor’ people spending money on ‘flat screen TVs’ like a flat screen tv is something unusually fancy. There have been nothing but flat screen TVs for the last 7 or 8 years.

I do wonder if the people who complain about young people spending money on coffee are the same people who complain that all the pubs are closing because people don’t drink in pubs like they used to.

Anyway, another thing that people forget is different is the opportunities for people who are not academic these days. My father left school at 14 and got an apprenticeship. He is functionally illiterate. He worked bloody hard and earned a good wage but I don’t think someone with his level of education could do that now.

Just checked and there is a v scruffy flat for sale, same town, for £108,000. If someone earned £30k that's doable
Just to put that into perspective a teacher would have to be qualified for about 6 years to earn enough to buy that very scruffy flat.

Pancake. Exactly. When I see the ‘ mobile phone flat screen’ argument on benefit threads I want to scream. It’s the same on here. It’s been conditioned that you need technology. You can’t get away from it. It’s another expense we didn’t have years ago. Even a cheap phone is a lot of money ( could buy a few dinners: put towards a deposit) but people need them for work etc. etc. Very vicious circle!

PancakeInMaBelly - it is also a bit rude (for my colleagues for instance) to whinge on about not being able to buy ANYTHING - when there are flats in a nicer state than those we started in available in the middle of town, within affordable range, close to where they work, so they wouldn't need a car etc.

And when that is pointed out "oh God I couldn't live THERE", "couldn't do without the car" etc etc...

And then you hear the pipedream - they want a 3 bed, in the suburbs, now. (like I have - now - 30 years after buying my first grotty flat jointly with a friend)

Pancakeinmybelly you can get a 3 bedroom terrace in this area about a hundred grand. It's NOT LONDON. My children and nearly all of their friends in their 20's are on the property ladder. So a starter home isn't always TWELVE TIMES a reasonable salary.

Just checked and there is a v scruffy flat for sale, same town, for £108,000. If someone earned £30k that's doable

A lot of "scruffy flats" that were mortgagable back when I was lucky enough to buy would not be mortgagable today. You actually have to be a rich cash investor to snap up a lot of these "scruffy flats" now

All this talk of younger people being fussy is nonsense
IF you can get a mortgage you are a lot more limited BY THE BANK with regards to what you can buy: this rules out a lot of fixer uppers (which don't stay in the market long anyway, they're bought for cash and flipped or rented)

Second hand cars can no longer be tinkered with in your garage (pmsl, what young buyers can afford garages now anyway) because cars have been computerised for a while now with built in obselesence so older second hand cars can be another false economy unless you go REALLY old

Beyond. I take your point there . People can’t be picky - it is complex - I wished that places that aren’t so nice could be made better maybe? That is a pipe dream too, but it might make areas more attractive to buy? People turned their nose up where we bought first time around ( I couldn’t live there , yuk etc etc) but it was all we could afford then.

People spend on "nonsense" because if they went without them they still wouldn't be able to buy

Although I don't deny the problems - which vary massively by area - I'm always fascinated by this one. It reminds me of a young acquaintance who insists that he never did a scrap of work at school because "there was no point - I knew there weren't any jobs to go to"

I once asked how he spends his days and whether he was able to get together with friends in the same situation

"I can't", he said, "they're all at work"

FlipperFlap
You get all that from my post. I’m not even a baby boomer. Wow. I have most certainly not once trivialised the difficulties young people face or . I said I didn’t understand your comment. More vitriol. I quote my first post on this thread:

When dh and I bought our first house, it was just under 50k. He was earning 13k, it went up to 16.5k 3 years later. Today. The house is worth 260k and people doing the same job are earning 18-23k. People in their house are clueless as to the difficulties faced to buy property these days.

What I failed to mention is the neighbours informed me that the house was bought by the previous owners for 74 k pre crash in the late 80’s and we sold it for 155k in 2013. So although that’s the two extremities of values and obviously prices have gone up massively since then it does equate to a doubling in price in circa 35 years. I obviously don’t know how that relates to incomes at that time of very high interest as I was not yet earning.

And when that is pointed out "oh God I couldn't live THERE", "couldn't do without the car" etc etc...

You do realise that that sort of flippant reply is easier when you want to end the conversation with someone who is determined to insist that they know more about your financial situation and prospects than you do right?

Puzzle. That made me laugh. One year 6 told me once ‘ I can earn loads on u tube , what’s the point in working’- some peoples attitudes need to change a bit. I say that as someone with a lot of sympathy for today’s problems with house buying asi know not everyone is like this!

Puzzledandpissedoff

Why is it so hard for you to empathise with long term renters, who aren't allowed to hang a picture, knock up some shelves or even out up family photos: all they can change is the "stuff" IN it, and when you don't feel your home is your home that's when you feel you "need" your holidays and outings and other things more

And with the huge gap between average local salaries, and average local MORTGAGABLE house prices, having NONE of those comforts wouldn't make enough of a dent in the sort of deposit they would need if they haven't inherited.

Maybe they're just better at maths than you are?

The boomers don't know how lucky they were and like to think they had it hard.

Jobs for life were plentiful and gave a ridiculously generous pension and a good house could be bought on one very average wage.

They are just very neive and want to believe that they are the product of hard work rather than luck.

Haven't read all the thread, but I will add this.

I had my first mortgage at the age of 28 (early 90's)

We bought a structurally sound house, but the decor was suspect to say the least.

My sibs said they envied me and that they were going to do the same, they went skiing, and a sun holiday every year, went out EVERY weekend.

We by contrast stayed in every weekend for about 100 years (well probably three ) went nowhere, did nothing, yada, yada.

Our "treat" was pizza from Safeway and a bottle of win on a Friday, we actually through a period of time where neither of us could face pizza.

Our mortgage finishes next February, we will please God be in a position to travel and eat out, etc.,

My siblings are quite a bit behind us in the finished with the mortgage stakes.

They do not begrudge us, we did not begrudge them.

It is just the way we chose to do things.

Bored being berated for the sacrifices we made.

Even a cheap phone is a lot of money ( could buy a few dinners: put towards a deposit) but people need them for work etc

That's perfectly true, but while I realise the cost of a phone isn't the be all and end all, why do they so often need to be the very latest thing?

The young man I just mentioned also insisted on the best possible phone, allegedly for the job search which never happened. I naturally used a phone for my own company - though a much cheaper one than his - so I once showed it to his sneering face, told him how much I'd done with it and asked why he still didn't think his good enough

The glassy, can't-think-of-an-answer stare I received was quite something to see

Agree. Before my mum met my dad she was a single mum and lived in (and owned) a house with my eldest brother. She was doing part time office work.
Now that same house has been divided up into 3 tiny flats that cost around £400-£600k each. She couldn't even afford to rent a bedroom in the basement flat in the same house if she was doing a part time administrative job now.
It's stuff like pensions too. Baby boomers final salary pensions are in a totally different league to what we will end up with.
It's depressing!

Puzzle. I see your point. Always people around like this. Makes it bad for the ones that are trying to do the right things and just want their own home!

I'm pretty sure the yoof of today aren't the first ones to like shiny new things.

Many I know have cheap Chinese phones that they keep for years and even if they spend 600 on a high end phone that is their phone, camera, computer games console all in one and as the technology has platured it lasts for 3-4 years. So is a couple of quid a month.

Bored being berated for the sacrifices we made.

It’s not that people are berating those who made sacrifices it’s thar young people are fed up with being told ‘you could afford a house if you saved and didn’t spend all your money on coffee and avocado on toast’ (conveniently forgetting that they spent money on alcohol and cigarettes but could still afford a house).

But we don't all say that. Some of us agree we were lucky to be born when we were - not that we had much say in it!

Why is it so hard for you to empathise with long term renters

Where on earth have I said anything about all renters? I've mentioned repeatedly, both here and elsewhere, that I recognise problems exist -but they're complex, and what might apply to one can't be assumed to apply to everyone else as well

Most certainly there are folk struggling with an almost impossible market situation, but that doesn't alter the fact that there are others who'd rather blame someone or something else for their own poor choices

As I also said before, people are various

"And when that is pointed out "oh God I couldn't live THERE", "couldn't do without the car" etc etc...

And then you hear the pipedream - they want a 3 bed, in the suburbs, now. (like I have - now - 30 years after buying my first grotty flat jointly with a friend) "

The other point here is that it is no longer savvy to buy a "starter home"
The property LADDER doesn't exist any more
If you buy now then that's what you're stuck with potentially
The days of owning for a few years and building equity passively through price increases are gone

You can no longer but a flat, give it a luck if paint, and upgrade in a few years to increasingly bigger houses....that system DOESN'T WORK today!

It would be foolish for your young colleagues to take your advice
They are RIGHT to not buy somewhere they can't see themselves living in indefinitely.

A house purchase is no longer a stepping stone purpose. The difference between a 1 bed flat and a small terrace 2 bed house with no parking where I live is about 80k here. From 2 bed terrace to ordinary 3 bed detached with parking is about a 50k jump

And you cannot count on your equity increasing. We've learnt that lesson

So you would be an idiot to buy a shut flat you hated in the hope it 'll springboard you to something better in 5 yrs time. Those days are gone.

But we don't all say that. Some of us agree we were lucky to be born when we were - not that we had much say in it!

This is because we are dealing in sweeping generalisations here.
All boomers had it easy.
All boomers are saying that millennials are wasting money on coffees and iPads.
All millennials are moaning about the cost of housing.
All millennials have to have the latest iPhone or other technology.

None of those statements is true.

an almost impossible market situation

Stoked and distorted by Government policy.

YANBU.

I absolutely hate this attitude, when realistically it came down to luck and timing. Yes hard work also, but implying that the young people today cannot afford to buy houses as they simply do not work hard enough (whilst many of them are working 70+ hour weeks) is ridiculous. Seemingly no acknowledgement that house prices compared to wages are bloody ridiculous today