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.

Smart phone doesn't have to be £1k though does it. Some good smart phones for not much over £200.

Quite a few people i know are using their house either as a pension or to boost their pension

That could cause them problems with a massive drop but hopefully be offset that their children would be more likely to be able to afford a house

No, see my point above

When I was young,most working class people started full time work at 15 years old. It was a different world.

It was. Young people can’t get apprenticeship anymore.

If you start working full time at 15 you’ve got 10 years or so to save before getting married and buying your own house. By then you’ve managed to work and earn.

We Babyboomers are quite capable of getting good deals on our phones. How patronizing.

Yes and there doesn't seem to be many schemes building 4/5 bed houses so the price of family homes rise even higher. Really? Where we are, we have a huge problem of builders wanting to build 5 bed homes on greenfield when what we need is 2/3 beds which are affordable by local people and on brownfield (because these are nearer to public transport and centres of employment). So our problems are the opposite of yours.

@Hundredacrewoods if you want what the boomers had you will have to work harder and sacrifice more (oh and enslave your children to make yourself artificially wealthy which is essentially what the boomers have done)

hundredacrewodds I agree with you totally. I do not in any way begrudge the baby boomers their success in housing and jobs. They had tougher starts to their early lives than we Millenials did. But we Millenials have it the other way round, a better start in life, thanks to our parents' success, but adulthood is much tougher for us.

I get so cross with the "if Millenials would spend less on iphones etc they could get a house etc" brigade. It reminds me of the "those people on benefits with their sky TV" brigade. Both drive me up the wall.

We Babyboomers are quite capable of getting good deals on our phones. How patronizing.

We'll then they'll know it's not necessarily a major expenditure and not the reason why millennials can't buy houses.

meredintofpandiculation

I'm in London, its all 2 bed apartments round here. The rare 4 beds that are built cost ££££. Where are you?

Given we live in a culture where the economy is powered by consumer spending, millennials buying coffees is what keeps the whole show on the road. SO best that they continue living with parents, don't save and max out the credit card. BUT because they don't build up capital in bricks and mortar, they won't be voting Tory any time soon (Thatcher's housing sell-off turned a generation into Tory voters), so I guess things might swing around. Either way, the old keep the bricks and mortar and vote Tory, the young are addicted to spending and vote Corbyn, and no one tackles the real issues which is rising debt and rising house prices with no money in the pot for communal services. TO achieve that people would have to spend less, pay more taxes and live through a period of falling house prices but that'll be harder than convincing a coke addict to come off coke.

Hi. Not sure what region you are in so house prices are different everywhere for the same size property. I bought my first house- a one bed terrace in 1989 for £53000 I earned £8000 at the time thats 6 1/2 times my wage and interest rates were about 13% then. Interest rates are at a an all time low and I think you can only get 4 1/2 times your wage ( not sure though!) for a mortgage now. I think its all relative really I guess . I was also in negative equity so not a great time and lost thousands when I sold. We didnt go out as our morgage was the whole of my wage and we had to rely on my husbands low wage just to eat and pay bills. We didnt go on holiday either as we didnt have the spare cash. If I bought the same house today it would cost about £130000 to £140000 and average wage now £25000 so it comes out arouns a similar percentage of wage to house price. I did help my son buy his 1st home and lent him the deposit as the area we now live in is more expensive than where we use to. I think today there is more materialism and people like to buy the latest gadgets/phones etc ( based on my sons spending habits!! anyway) We made do with second hand everything when we bought our 1st house, whilst my son bought a 52 inch smart TV and a huge suite from DFS and then got in debt.

So, yes, in this case, it is the luck of the draw as to whether you have caring or selfish parents but you can’t blame the good one s for what the splurgers do.

teacher22 are you saying that BB parents who splurge and spend their money frivolously in themselves are bad parents? Are think Ltd a good parent if you use all your spare cash to save towards a house deposit for your children?
No doubt those parents only have money to spend because they have worked hard and saved into a pension and I see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour in retirement.

*In the modern world it is not possible for most people to do all -
Go to university
Buy a house
Have children
Have a pension

And in reality it never was*

Not true. I bought a house in 2000 in SE London on an income of £16k. We have had 3 children, I started a pension when I bought my first house. I also went to university (I was first year of student loans- they were tiny- and a partial grant). It was possible. It isn't for someone in the position I was, now.

getsorted21 I'm in the NE. Shortage of well paid jobs, so what we're lacking is 2/3 bed houses. First-timers are competing with buy-to-let. Developers are happy to go for slow release of large houses (lower cost on greenfield land, large profit) but agitate for big housing targets because that triggers the release of a plentiful supply of greenfield land to meet the 5 year targets.

The entire housing system seems f*cked & not fit for purpose. If we had higher interest rates & more affordable houses we wouldn’t have such low productivity.

flytipper , that makes sense. Its a huge problem - i am sure that a lot of parents will be helping out their children and keeping it all going - i have heard of one colleague who , at 27, will receive some equity from her parents home towards a deposit.
I was so naive and really believed that my own children would be able to do the things we did ( although house prices have always been high in essex since the mid 80s and we had negative equity on our first home etc etc ) and it will be hard for us to give them much money as we still have 10 years left on our own property.
equity release isnt that cheap to do either, but i bet a lot of people will just do it to help out the kids. the ones that dont have parents with a home or, indeed, any parents at all, will lose out and make the inequality even bigger. Bank of mum and dad is a thing, but it shouldnt be that kids will be relying on it.

Smart phone doesn't have to be £1k though does it. Some good smart phones for not much over £200.

Oh do behave, the people who pay a grand for a smartphone are a seriously tiny minority. The apple shares have also dived because of lower than expected demand ......!

Anyway, doesnt matter that certain fruit is two for 1.80 or their phones are 30 or 40 a month, it still doesnt mean that money will go anywhere near the cost of a deposit in some areas. Not to mention the cost of getting into work in some areas ( the trains here to london are a huge expense) or the cost of running a modest car - they have to get to work somehow.
That is all a lot more money each year. No wonder so many are put off the whole idea. Not saying thats right, but there are other things they have to pay out for, not just phones or coffee , even if they did give up both for a few years. If your paying huge rents, how can you save for a deposit as well? One of my son's friends had to move back with parents for this very reason. they are both late 20's. Only one has a property and he is moving to Gloucester soon hoping to buy something there. the rest all live at home with parents and all work, but not highly paid jobs.

I also don't think it a great state of affairs when parents are expected to bailout their kids - it goes straight to the heart of our the current unfair capitalist world, where the-haves progressively have more leaving the have-nots to rot. That's how we've got to the stage where 96% of the world's wealth is in the hands of 4%. I expect I am personally piqued as my parents are sitting on a (modest) house and will pay nothing to their care or will pass anything on until they die. By which stage, I might be dead. I know it sounds selfish - perhaps it is - but where money is locked up in bricks and mortar it isn't doing any good. I am not greedy, I don't want much in life - I make do with less than my parents - but this intergenerational unfairness will lead to a major source of societal unrest. We're just seeing the start. And it'll make Brexit look like a piffling distraction.

How do you reckon your parents will pay nothing for their care? It f they need to go into a care home their house will have to be sold to pay for it.

Flytipper. They may well have to pay for care one day ( by selling the home) nobody knows what the future holds. My own dad doesn’t have a home - enough savings for maybe a year or so in residential ( mum died ) once SS know you have assests, it seems help isn’t available ( not immediately anyway) dementia is the worst disease to have as continuing health care isn’t easy to get if you have some savings. It’s derailing the thread , but you don’t know what may become law - the govt know some people are sitting on lots of equity. If the Tories brought in any laws that said you had to pay for all the care regardless a lot of people would be shocked ( homes are 950 to 1000 aweek here) health is a lottery though, so it wouldn’t effect everyone, but wouldn’t surprise me either.

If you have any care needs and have money or a house, you will pay towards it, unless family care for you. And apart from those who died very suddenly, everyone I know has needed some care at some point.

Care's a complete lottery and care homes are around £1k a week, that's over £100k a year for a couple. Get cancer your care costs nothing, get dementia and you pay for the lot.

Crunchy. It still shocks people though. The cost is enormous. I won’t inherit anything! A few people I know have trust funds. Not sure how that works but I bet a lot still won’t pay ( will get round it somehow)