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.

Why are avacados and costas are regarded as so expensive????

Meals as a child were often expensive ready meals.

Fwiw it's lidls basics here much of the time.

Dear Millennials, if this is how you think of your loving parents and grandparents who have done everything for you and given you all they could, then I dread to think what your children, similarly brought up and showered with love, will say about and do to you.

Dear Millennials, if this is how you think of your loving parents and grandparents who have done everything for you and given you all they could, then I dread to think what your children, similarly brought up and showered with love, will say about and do to you.

If they say “can you please not sneer and be smug about our inability to buy a house” I won’t hold it against them!

My parents are baby boomers. The equity that DH and I have in our current house is 2.5 the value of their house. When the mortgage is paid off it will be roughly five times the value. You can outperform baby boomers if you try hard enough.

Although I’m sure many people in my generation and following will do exactly the same with our own children. Houses will start at £20m for a one-bed flat in Hull and we’ll be sitting back going “well they should learn to save, we didn’t spend money on hoverboards back in MY day.”

Can millennials afford to buy the type of house, in the location they want in the condition they want without giving up all the niceties they've become accustomed to as part of standard lifestyles. Possibly not

That's exactly it. There no longer seems to be sacrifice, hard work, second job or being prepared to start in a small basic home.

Another thing many don't want to give up are their benefits so more couples are living apart or people working part time.

Too easy to blame others and make excuses than accept responsibility for their own actions.

Yellow, houses are more expensive now. Houses have gone up in value far, far more than wages have. I know this doesn’t have the same satisfying put-the-boot-into-the-lazy-youngsters feel that your explanation does, but it is actually true.

You need to be two doctors now to afford the same house that one boomer factory worker could get.

Boomers often believe their own hype and can never admit they just got lucky.

@brownliverspot I totally agree and I keep telling them but these are the standards they’re living by and it’s killing their finances. I work in marketing/creative, most are women. Everyone is insta dreaming.
One girl lost her job late last year and is in the Far East on a “thinking holiday” and will worry about finding a new job when she gets back.

I would be considered at the end of baby boomers and I do worry about young people having to pay to go to uni and struggle to save for deposit for 1st home. That is why my 2 adult sons live at home in loft conversion and shower room and can at same time save for deposit. We would also help out with lump sum if they needed it. We did not have it all easy though, no free nursery hours for our children. Also living in London is preference not necessity. Move up North and you will be able to buy 2 bed house for £60k. When we die our children will inherit so will be able to buy.

To be honest I'm completely shocked by the stuff spouted by some of my contemporaries here. My first house, bought in 1991 (I was a 38 year old single parent and late to the market) cost £60k, it sold in Feb last year for £307k. The next one cost £71k, according to Zoopla it's now worth £458k.

Now there's no way in the world I could ever have afforded to buy either of those houses on my own at today's prices and even at our earning peak, my OH and I would have been really pushed to afford them. Incidentally house 1 is a two up, two down terrace, house 2 is also a terrace with three bedrooms.

To say I feel sorry for people trying to buy their first house now is an understatement - how on earth can people save a deposit of £30-45k?

Part of the reason why millenials focus on buying a nice new (overinflated) house rather than a fixer-upper is because that's where the support is focused - shared ownership, help to buy, rent to buy etc.

My wife and I are finally in the position to seriously save for a house deposit which will take 3-4 years for 5% (entered the job market full-time just as the credit crunch started and we've been working our way up from temp-jobs since).

The crazy thing is that my calculations indicate that once we've finally got there we'll be able to overpay the mortgage enough to reduce the term by over 10 years - even if interest rates increased by 4%!

You just need to buy a property BEFORE you have have kids and pay stuipid amounts of private rent - it's not rocket science r

^^ most ridiculous, ignorant comment I have read today must be do nice to live in that bubble.

I hate all this "we didn't have the latest iPhones" bollocks.

Tvs were crazy expensive in the 70's! Probably a weeks wage. In fact about the same as an iPhone now....

About the same as a gramophone for the generation before

Everyone has always found the money for the latest tech!

Will people stop going on abojt fixer uppers. You sound so ignorant. It’s nigh on impossible to find one. They’re all snapped up by cash buyers!

Mairead
Different demographic perhaps?

Loving the “thinking holiday”. 🤪

I hate all this "we didn't have the latest iPhones" bollocks.

Exactly. You might not have had the latest iPhone but I’m willing to bet good money that you spent about the same money on fags and booze.
My parents both smoked 40 a day back in the 70s. It was very common.

A fixer upper is no good to a first time buyer. Where are they going to find the cash to fix it up?

I'm also interested to hear of people in the past buying near derelict houses, it wouldn't be possible to get a mortgage on a near derelict house, were things different 20/30/40 years ago?

Having done a quick bit of maths my parents both smoked 40 a day.
In the mid 70s 20 tabs were 20p. So 40p per parent per day.
That’s £292 over a year.
Which is about £2800 today.

Dear Millennials, if this is how you think of your loving parents and grandparents who have done everything for you and given you all they could, then I dread to think what your children, similarly brought up and showered with love, will say about and do to you.

I would thoroughly agree with them because banks WERE throwing credit at us in the early naughties, and properties hadn't yet peaked, and I had no student debt to worry about, and was really fucking lucky to get in on the market when we did because I can see how hopeless it became for people trying just 10/15 years later

I do work hard, AND I was really fucking lucky to buy when it was EASIER to do so. These two statements are not mutually exclusive, why do some BBers think they are?

@Teacher22 I do hope you’re not a teacher if you’re that hard of thinking. Sadly, many people were not brought up with love or support or care or any kind of nursing. Obviously this is not exclusive to one group of people but you directed it at them.

^^nurturing not nursing.

I hate it when generations form an alliance and throw thinly veiled insults at another. Every generation has experienced great hardship as well as great luck. The boomers did not work any harder than this generation nor indeed the one above them. The current generation also does not have the monopoly on financial woes.

Why is no-one considering how society has changed since the baby boomers were old enough to buy property. People used to stay with parents until they married usually mid twenties. That couple then required one property to live in. Population did not move about so much then living usually in home area rarely moving for work. In recent times population has exploded, single people want housing as marriage is less popular and single people have children which was rare in the 60s. Society has created a demand that has not been met, nothing to do with babyboomers. Wages were low, no bonuses, employment was constantly on lower level than today, people saved very reluctant to use hire purchase, credit cards almost non existent, no tv packages or mobile phone tarrifs and very few had cars. Eating out was a rare treat only takeaway was fish and chips. Living costs were high no deals in supermarkets and mortgage rates were sky high at times. Regular rate in early 70s was 8 or 9%.steadily creeping up year on year. Each generation thinks the younger has it easy and really baby boomers are more likely to be grandparents now or else most postiings had very old parents if they are baby boomers born in 40s or 50s.Forget baby boomers life was hard then too it's all of our own making the fact there is such a high demand for housing. Supply and demand, ever heard of it.

We bought our flat as students, with a 110% mortgage and zero income. Sub prime mortgages eh? No way would anybody be able to do that these days.

Our flat cost us £110,000 in 2001, and is worth £550,000 now (and it’s a rough area - famously dodgy part of Brixton). Our household income is £140,000 and we wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage for our flat if we were trying to buy it now. It has nothing to do with how many graze boxes people buy, houses which were perfectly affordable for first-time buyers fifteen years ago simply aren’t affordable any more.