- to be fed-up of people thinking that my generation had it easy regarding housing?

[PUER125]

I often read comments on Mumsnet, saying that housing was affordable in a way that it isn't now.
If we take todays mortgage of £200,000 at 3% interest, a repayment mortgage would cost £11,376 per year. This equates to 42% of the average UK wage of £27,000.
In 1990, having left my husband whilst pregnant with my second child, and buying him out of the marital home, my mortgage was £40,000 and the interest rate 15%. Repayments were £6144 per year and the average wage was £13,760. This equated to 44.65% in mortgage costs.
And whilst I am having a rant, I am also fed-up of young people complaining that they will have to work until they are 67 before they can claim their pension.
With the majority of young people going to university, they don't enter the work force until they're 21, giving them a working life of 46 years.
My generation left school at 16/18, and we too shall work until we are 67. A work life of 49 years.
Earlier generations started work at 14/15 and retired at 65, a working life of 50 years, many of them worked in manual labour.
Each generation has their own difficulties and hardships. I shouldn't like to be starting out now; nor should I have liked to belong to an older generation.
Whilst being a single-parent, working full-time, was not easy, I coped; just as countless women before and after me have.
Can we please have a little more understanding of generations other than our own, instead of the resentment so often found on these pages?

Agreed Puer!

And many people I knew worked in the evening as well as during the day to afford the 15% interest rate. It was definitely not as easy as some today would have you believe

I agree that everyone has different challenges. Its not just the mortgage payment though, it's also the deposit. So based on your figures...

A 10% deposit on your £40k house would be 29% of average wage of £13760.

A 10% deposit on your £200k house would be 74% of average wage of £27k.

The lending rules also require stress testing to higher interest rates in affordability.

There's a fairly fundamental flaw in your reasoning, which is that for a mortgage of 200000, you now couldn't buy so much as a studio flat in vast swathes of the south east, let alone a house. And also that on a salary of 27k you couldn't get a mortgage of 200k, even if you could buy a house with it! Yes each generation has its hardships, but home ownership was not one of them for yours! And for that you are lucky. Its better for the soul to consider in what ways you had it good - personally I'm bloody happy I'm not 20 today, at 40 I've lived the life of Riley by comparison - free education, full employment market on graduating, bought a house in my early 30s. Yes, shafted on pensions, but you can't have it all.

It wasn't easy but it was relatively easier.

I managed to buy with no deposit on a single salary in 1990. I needed a lodger for a few years. I don't think that would be possible today, even with a lodger.

I feel sorry for the youngsters of today.

You're asking for understanding but not giving any yourself. No-one is saying you had it easy, but it is a fact that housing is more unaffordable now than it was then, and that milennials will be the first modern generation to have a lower quality of life than their parents. Don't you think that it's worth considering whether these issues need to be addressed?

young people today will be retiring much much later than 67. I reckon they'll be lucky to retire before 75 at this rate.

15% only lasted about a year. In fact any form of double digit interest rate only lasted about 3 years.

For the current generation the interest rates are only going to go up.

I don’t have a horse in this race - I bought my first house in 2001 and have been mortgage free since 2014 and am neither a baby boomer nor a millennial.

But I dislike the way that baby boomers use the 15% interest rate as though they lasted for years.

I’m 30 have worked since I was 16. (Prior to that babysitting jobs etc so haven’t been lazy)
Supposedly I’m going to retire at 67. Do you really think the goal posts aren’t going to move in the next 37 years?

That house you bought for £40,000, how much isi t worth now?

Anyone who buys a house now and can only just pay the mortgage is in a very precarious position as soon as their interest rate goes up. Yes, they're low, but that means the only way is up. Also as wages increased in the past it eroded the debt. That's not happening to the same extent any more.
No, it wasn't easy in the past, but a huge chunk of the population who would have been able to buy 25 years ago simply can't any more. And that's a problem, especially with the selling off of council housing.

I'm 32... other than people from very well off families I don't know a single person my age who hasn't worked since they were 15/16 as well as going to university.
I started working Saturday jobs at 14 and since the age of 18 have never worked less than 16 hours a week except when I was studying to be a nurse when I was on placement full time or when I was on maternity leave. By the time I retire I will have put in at least 50 years the majority of those years will be full time because I doubt I'll ever be able to afford part time. But it's not a competition is it.

I am pretty sure it's not just this generation who went to university. Pretty sure

We bought our first home in London (2 up 2 down) in 1997 for a 5k deposit.

It’s going to be much harder for our kids (currently teens).

My parents had it easier than us in terms of housing (they have a much bigger house than we will ever afford on a lower salary in real terms - if that makes sense)

Just a simple maths question: let's say you earned throughout your working life and on average earned 20k per year in all that time. Divide the price of the house you bought, with 20k now.
Now imagine how much that job pays now. Then divide the average house price in UK with that.
Do you come to the same number or is it at least 3-5 times lower?

the average wage was £13,760

So, in nearly 30 years the average wage had roughly doubled...I believe it's 26k now. House prices have more than doubled. That's the problem.

I have Dd 19 and DS 22, and I despair what's ahead for them. DESPAIR!! Rents are extortionate, deposits? How can they get a deposit when rents are extortionate. DS just finished uni - excellent useful degree - a professional degree. Yet most jobs are through agencies now who are asking for 2 years experience plus the degree. He can't even get beyond them to the employer on the other side to put himself forward.

Dd waiting to hear if she's got into nursing degree course here in our part of the UK where we still have the bursaries. So UK nursing applicants are applying here for the 400 places places. Her chances are slashed.

This generation face a whole new range of difficulties that we never had in the 80s and 90s - imo they have things much much harder. The high 90s interest rates were very difficult yes, but what you got for £40k in 1991 is £220,000 now. Paying a £40k mortgage after the rates settled still left plenty over at the end of the month. Not now.

I'm glad to be mid 40s and not trying to start out. Also in the 1990s you could get good jobs and apprenticeships etc without having to go to uni. Now if you don't have a degree you don't even get the offer of an interview for Tesco never mind anywhere else!

devil
5k is the deposit for rented properties in London now.
hollow laugh

I bought it for £26,750 in 1985, and the mortgage increased to £40,000 when I had to buy the ex-husband's share. I sold it for £57,500 in 1999, and it was sold again in 2015 for £175,495.

I think the previous generation did have it a bit easier in spite of the high interest rates. Because of the larger deposit required these days. And buying in London has been out of reach for a lot of people for a very very long time.

Yeah I know SantaClauseMightWork we no longer live in London. Middle son want to move to London at some stage (wants to go to drama school and be an actor darling) - I have no idea how he will afford it. It’s almost unbelievable that it was possible to buy a house in London for 5k that recently. (I suppose it’s not that recent & I am old - but the change has been massive very quickly).

About to make the same point as mumoftwo, interest rates never stayed that high so the OP's argument is moot. I'm not a baby boomer but I wouldn't be able to buy my house today as even though we now have more in the way of salary, 10 years ago it was about x4 income now it's x6.5

My parents bought their 4 bed detached at £30k in 1980. If it's value had risen with inflation then it would be worth approx £137k now whereas it is now valued at around £450k so all the years (13 years before they enjoyed much lower rates for the remainder of their mortgage) at the higher interest pales into insignificance against the massive profit it has made them.

I suspect we are a similar age but I am not sure I agree with you.

I graduated in 1984 at the age of 22 and bought my first house in 1985 at the age of 23. The house cost £18,250 and by the time of completion I was earning about £9,000 pa. I had a mortgage of £17,500 so my mortgage was less than twice my salary.

My DD is now 22, graduated last summer and has just started her first job. She is on £20k pa. No way in the world she could buy anywhere for even five times her salary let alone twice.

And what is with this My generation left school at 16/18
Universities were invented quite a long time ago you know!
I am 55 and from a working class background and I went to University so you are not speaking for my generation.

Anyway, in conclusion, YABU our generation had it much easier