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.

When dh and 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 now earning 18-23k. People in their house are clueless about the difficulties faced to buy property these days.

RedForFilth that’s really shit, and not the norm at all. so that awful time is why your not in the property ladder.

We first bought 40 years ago. An absolute hole in a horrible area, hated every minute of living there & never got a full nights sleep.

At the time the idea of buying a house was something new for people like us - first generation buyers. Renting was cheaper than a mortgage, interest rates & inflation were in the high teens. We lived on basic food, never went out, never bought clothes unless needed for work, made do with furniture we were given. Our friends who were renters had a far better lifestyle. At the time I wasn’t sure we were doing the right thing, but figured we could always go back to renting if things got impossible.

After 2 years and 3 days (oh yes, I was counting) we sold for just a few hundred more than we’d paid, but we bought a better house - we were on our way.

It was 5 years before we were established enough to start a family.

That ability to plan ahead and have some vision seems to be missing in some parts of society today, they want it all and they want it now. It doesn’t help that we’ve become so consumerist - furniture for example was never a fashion item years ago.

I am in an area where house prices have doubled, but are still relatively cheap.
It is nothing to do with work why older people could buy houses and many younger people can't. But for working class baby boomers, they did work harder than millennials. They started full time work at 15 years old, and the normal working week for working class people then included Saturday morning. You got Saturday afternoon and Sunday off. Many lived through the Thatcher years which were very tough, with mass redundancies and devastation of whole communities. I realise that when MN talk about baby boomers, they are talking about middle class people, not working class people, but working class people did have it harder. Outside shared toilets, no hot running water, overcrowded houses,no central heating, were all fairly normal.

Hundredacrewoods
A bit of self awareness and acknowledgement that luck played a factor is all I want

OP, you are correct to say that the proportion of average income to house prices is far greater now than it was in previous generations (I believe this is the case in the UK, don't know about Australia). And you're therefore correct to say some should acknowledge the luck involved of being born into a generation where people on really basic low incomes could afford 3 bed houses in nice areas, something that is not possible now.

But likewise, millenials need to up their self awareness and acknowledgement of the luck of having parents who fork out money (via earnings, equity release, huge inheritances) on a plate for so many of them, go to university paid for by their parents or with 0% debt for years, have so many more university places, have easier exams, a school system that lays everything on a plate for them, have more opportunities than any other generation, etc etc. Even down to having the internet available to help with homework, and textbooks at home, whereas I was lucky to be able to refer to one general knowledge book my parents bought me for my entire education and we couldn't afford any textbooks at home.

Yes, every generation has luck.

Oh and I did jointly own a house with my ex but that's because he had family help and inheritance. My own sister got given a deposit for her house. I don't have help because of my situation. But I have just got a promotion so the future looks ok and I'm proud of myself for what I've achieved. Even if currently owning isn't on the list.

beyondthepage you did that in the 70s-80s? Really?! My mum couldn’t even get a mortgage alone until 1980. She wasn’t alllowed to return to work after having a baby as the bank didn’t employ mothers.

Buying a one bed flat with a friend? How did that work?

RedForFilth you should be proud! You’ve had a shit start in life. Owning a house isn’t the be all and end all. There are other things in life too xx

It's not too abnormal in the circles I move in tbh.
We had the house for about 4 months before we split due to him cheating and obviously the money in it was his so don't feel like I owned really!!

Yes women could not get mortgages alone. It was tougher for single, divorced and widowed women. You had to rent unless your dad could be a guarantor.

@Hundredacrewoods - My parents say the same, even after acknowledging that they bought their first house for £19,000 (largely on a mortgage) and sold it for £40,000 three years later. As far as I can tell, that means that their first house was free regardless of how hard they were working. They almost doubled their money when selling again six years later. Imagine achieving anything like that now!

Apparently millennials would all be better off if we stopped drinking Starbucks...

You can tell them that young people can't and won't be able to buy a property because houses are now over 10 times the average salary until your blue in the face.

It doesn't go in - they genuinely think they've got a lovely house because they 'worked harder' or had no i-phones.

These are people who don't understand the first thing about economics. It's shit.

Well I think people spend their money on other things now than they used to. Mobile phones, iPads, travelling, takeaways, eating out, daily coffees

You think, you don’t know. That’s a guess.

I know plenty of people who do nothing of the sort. or those that do, can afford it.

These sweeping generalisations are ignoring the fact that actually it isn’t easy to get a mortgage because of the need
to have massive deposits which are out of the reach of many people. They can’t save because they’re paying back loans for university- it isn’t free to attend any more! Even nurses have to pay to train which requires loans which they have to pay back.

My first job, I was paying back my student loan - that wiped out my options for saving. Compared to my (now) DH who didn’t have the student loan because he started uni before me - our disposal incomes were very different even though we had the same jobs.

Travel costs have gone up. People commute from further away. Food costs have gone up. Rent has gone up. Wages are stagnating.

Let someone not pretend it’s about people not saving enough.

The thing is it's not comparable circumstances really. Rents being high is a significant issue, before it was feasible to rent and save at the same time, whereas now, rent is more than a mortgage and therefore it's much harder to knuckle down and save.

Also, this generation want it all. And that costs. Mobile phones and internet use are now necessity, almost everyone has some sort of entertainment pack, either via sky type services or steaming services. Car ownership or/and public transport as huge costs now. Compared to previous costs, people didn't have direct debits, or very few, they didn't have debts, they didn't have all these extra costs, they lived really what we would describe as frugal. People going away abroad was much less rare.

Now people want all of that and a house ownership and it's getting more and more difficult. Most 20 year olds I know upgrade their phone every year or 2, as soon as the contract runs out they rush out to upgrade, often at additional cost, they drive around in newer cars. My phone is up for renewal and I went in to consider my opinions, I was being pressured into upgrading but wasn't sure, I said I would rather buy the phone and he thought that was stupid, why would I do that, he said no one owns cars anymore, he said that it's stupid it but a car, you should just upgrade every 3 years with those ballon payment things.

I think it's just different mentality and different ideas. My parents have almost always had older cars that they own outright, they would nerve consider leasing a car.

Being somewhere in the middle, we do a little of both, but I just think life is different now, we expect our lifestyles to be different. The invention of social media forces many to portray a certain lifestyle where before just a quiet weekend in was fine. Now, I feel guilty if I don't take the kids out because social media shows that everyone is doing all these wonderful things with their kids. There was none of that social pressure before, least not anything like it is now.

We met at 18, we didn't go to Uni we worked at our careers . We saved and saved to get a deposit. We didn't have DC until our 30s. We didn't drink,eat out, have Sky, cars or expensive anything. We worked hard. We didn't spend. We have just retired, me at 56 Dh at 60.We have a lovely house in a lovely part of the world and want for nothing. This is my point we don't crave anything. We never go on holiday. We lead a simple but very happy life.

Baby boomers didn’t suffer. They lived with their parents and saved until they were married then they bought a house together. Not sure where you've got this view from. Most were independent at a much younger age than happens these days.

You seem full of vitriol towards baby boomers - they had different battles to fight. BUT being careful with money worked to their advantage. And as others have commented they were prepared to live very modestly indeed to buy.

DP and I have that same approach because it's our parents' mentality and very much how we were brought up. A kind of post 'make do and mend' approach to life that has stayed with us from childhood. We don't buy into the having the lastest xyz mentality because it's so far removed from how we were brought up to think. It frustrates our DC enormously though, I know.

Most of my friends (London) bought easily with 100% or 110% mortgage

I think that's a fact that's often forgotten, I'm 36 and had friends who managed to get a house without any savings and then have done extremely well out of huge house price rises. They talk about the sacrifices they made to pay their mortgages that were 50% of their salaries in the early days. They seem to be totally unaware that it's just not possible these days, you can't choose to spend 50% of your salary on a mortgage so you're on the ladder as a bank wouldn't lend you the money.

I'm a boomer and I get very irritated with other boomers with this attitude - not that I have met it in family or anyone I know. I don't know whether it's stupidity or wilful ignorance not to understand how relatively so much less affordable house prices have become.

Mind you it's not just the boomer generation. Even long before prices became so ludicrous (at least in parts of the U.K.) I had to explain to my mother - she would have been 100 this year and had been complaining about women going to work instead of looking after their own children - that what she and my father had managed - a 4 bed house in a nice London commute area on just one very ordinary salary - would just not be possible any more.

Yes, they were permanently broke, but it just wouldn't be doable any more no matter how broke you were prepared to be.

I agree. My parents teacher salary was £18,000 each back then but their rent was only £15 per week. They then purchased their house for £40,000 in 1987. So just under their combined 1 year annual salary. That house is now worth £320,000

Compare that to now and even their equivalent salary today would be £60,000 to purchase the same house would be over 5 x their annual salary.

Well I think people spend their money on other things now than they used to. Mobile phones, iPads, travelling, takeaways, eating out, daily coffees. This all adds up

The economics have completely changed though. Things like travel and eating out are comparatively a lot less expensive than they used to be. Whereas house prices have comparatively rocketed. There are many for whom a deposit will never be possible, no matter what they give up.

My parents did work hugely much harder to get on the housing ladder than I did (shrug).

Oh yes op.ive the same with relatives...they worked so much harder than we ever gave to get where they are now...geeerrrr

rabbit True, but teachers were better paid then and had higher status. It is an example of a job that has went down the status scale.

If people my had to wait until they onwned a home to have kids, most people wouldn’t be able to have kids.

you can't choose to spend 50% of your salary on a mortgage so you're on the ladder as a bank wouldn't lend you the money.
Exactly.
A friend of mine was paying rent of £500 a month and saving to buy her house. Once she's bought it, her mortgage was £300 a month. (Cheap area of the country)
She could easily have afforded to pay a 100% mortgage on her salary but no bank will do that now.

It's a different situation, which although frustrating we just have to deal with.
It would be nice for some empathy instead of some boomers playing the 'our life was so tough you lot don't know suffering' card at any opportunity.