To wonder why the older generation can't admit that things are harder for millennials?

[ExtraPineappleExtraHam]

So we just had our meeting with a mortgage advisor. They will lend my dp £45,000 (not even enough for a bedsit in this town) and so I'm not even bothering to do mine as I earn less. We work very hard (44 hours and 27 hours) we just have low paid jobs and pay childcare for two under 5's!
I talked to my stepdad who compared it to when he had to borrow £36,000 to buy his first house in the early eighties. That was 3 times his salary and his wife stayed at home. He paid it off in six years. It's not the same. He was given a mortgage which was enough to buy a nice house in an area close to family and where he worked. He didn't have to have a bank manager saying 'well if you move to Wales or up north?' He didn't have to rent forever and have nothing to pass down to his children. It's not the same!

I don't think I have it harder than the "older generation" I'm nearly 28 does that make me a millenial?
Dh and I married in 2012 in a very small intimate and cheap wedding opting instead to throw our savings to a deposit. 12 months later we had 10k and bought a house with help to buy. Low interest rates have meant that overpaying has been an option and now we have paid off 40k of our £130k mortgage in just over 4 years.
My parents were in debt the majority of the time because the cost of Hugh interest rates meant they struggled to make ends meet- my dad's job was not secure and he was made redundant a number of times growing up.

Comparatively I am much better off financially than my parents were at 27/28.

Expat
That’s because universities are now businesses and money making machines. They used to be exclusively institutions of learning. I totally disagree with building expensive ensuite purpose built housing, when as Andromeda pointed out, 20% of jobs in the U.K. command a graduation salary (and this percentage has not changed much since the 80’s) but 40% of Millenials are going to university. Therefore half of today’s graduates will have ordinary middle to low paying jobs like the OP. So no, I don’t think moving with the times is a good thing. At all. Offering such high spec accommodation as the norm is saddling students with more unnessary debt, which they will struggle to pay and make getting on the property ladder even more unattainable.

Agree. Students used to be trying to avoid building up debt. Better for Unis to offer cheap basic accommodation. But they are businesses, it is not about the best interests of students.

Right. Universities did not build a load of en suite accomodation because milleniums "expected" it. They built them because at one point having a certain amt of purpose built halls helped universities score higher in certain tables.

In many cases this was a DOWNGRADE for students. Certainly where I live the old digs and private halls that were replaced when the uni was climbing the tables were NICER and less of a fire hazard than the awful purpose built mulitfloor but admittedly en suite uni owned halls that fleece students dry.

FFS.

I know when students talk about the living expenses debt they have built up, that I spent less on real terms. Students should be being encouraged to keep their debt down. They are not being.

FYI the old (nicer, cheaper, low rise, but not necessarily en suit) private halls in my town dont exist any more so youre talking crap if you think milleniums are "turning their nose up at them"

Don't forget that students will graduate with debt. And quite often a useless degree that they were pushed into taking because it took them off the unemployment figures.
Up until the 1990s, you got paid to go to University. And you had to get good enough A' level grades - and also, if you didn't want to or your skills and interests lay in other directions, you could generally get an apprenticeship or a job where the idea of progress and promotion existed.
So many jobs nowadays are agency work, where the agency has no interest at all in helping people develop additional skills - they are all treated as expendable, interchangeable drones.

We still haven't got an ensuite. Don't want one.

Oh yes, it's my fault for 'choosing' a low paid job. Who the fuck chooses a low paid job?
I have a 2:1 degree in English Literature that qualifies me for admin work or teaching. I work in an office full of people with degrees, all on low pay. What am I supposed to do,

Ffs - there's loads of stuff you could do other than admin work or teaching.
And working more than 27 hours a week would be a start.

I'm in my 40s - just got first house at 41.
My 20s I was working full time with 2 kids, as was my husband. Neither of us had a degree - worked from leaving school & worked our way up to good wages.
Started saving as childcare costs decreased.

This generation are obsessed with owning a house at an early age - my parents didn't buy until they were in their 30s & most of my friends are still renting just like their parents did/are doing.

Millennials need to quit whining.

I find the suggestions up thread that posters of any generation are choosing a badly paid job over the responsible decision to ''choose'' a well paid job hilariously naive. There were times I couldn't get a job at all. Or any job offered wasn't compatible with single parenthood. Obviously any person of any generation would choose to be better paid but it's not that simple ...

It's harder for millennial s because they are lazy, pathetic and don't want to save or go without.

I find the suggestions up thread that posters of any generation are choosing a badly paid job over the responsible decision to ''choose'' a well paid job hilariously naive

Its a good'un innit.
Like the PP who claimed that BBs moved to where houses were cheapest and thats how they afforded to buy. Complete denial that house prices IN AREAS THAT HAD GOOD EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS were not many mutiples more of the average salary back then.

I never learn to read the whole bloody thread before I fire out outraged posts

Just seen that OP has been AS'd and has been telling fibs 🙄

Pancake
I was allocated a room in a portacabin when I had a place in halls of residence. There were no showers but rows of bath cubicles, ditto the toilet block. Not all halls were better in the past. Having to offer purpose built accommodation to climb up the league table is a business offering and has nothing to do with the standard of education and examination/degree results.

Must be harder for millenials they're offended by everything.

You're in a low paid part time job yet you've managed to scrimp together £100k?

Not all halls were better in the past.
True but the choice isnt there any more @ the posters who think students are "turning their noses up" at the non en suite accomodation

When my local uni pushed to increase its purpose built accomodation capacity and uptake it stopped handing out lists of private halls and digs to new starters, and told said digs they would be doing so, so some sold up, some switched to taking english language students etc... those options now dont exist any more

So to say that students are "too fussy" for a non existant option is plain stupid

The halls where I went to uni have been re built and now cost over twice what I paid in rent (and I went to uni for free) so if theyre now en suit well good! At over double the rent I bloody hope theyre getting something for their money!

I didnt mind sharing a bathroom but then again, I WAS paying peanuts. I wish people would remember the whole picture/context when harping back about how much we slummed it.....

But crunchy say a couple both earning around the average salary (say 26k) want to buy that average priced house with a 10% deposit. Well they couldn’t, because they aren’t able to borrow enough. But a first time buyer wouldn't be buying an average priced house.

SGB True about universities.But I was young in the 80's. Getting a job if you lived outside of London could be very tough. Lots of redundancies and decimation of industry and apprenticeships.

After reading multiple posts from the OP it's hard not to feel like she simply wants a pity party from her family to validate her feelings or life or something.

Affirmation that she is the clear winner in the hardest life competition in her family. Why? No idea. Reasonable? Err...

Pancake
Yes, I know only too well as it was a catastrophy locally to the large number of private landlords. But big business for the university near where I live. There are still basic rentals available for the more modest budget but because a fairly large proportion of students now want and expect ensuite facilities, the number of those properties available has dwindled. So to say that these properties are now completely unavailable is disingenuous.

What the hell are you talking about? Remembering the whole picture? Of course we were paying peanuts. That’s the whole bloody point about my posts. Students shouldn’t be being forced into luxury accommodation 🙄

So to say that these properties are now completely unavailable is disingenuous.

Its not at all where I live.

The digs and private halls are GONE. the uni told them their services would no longer be sign posted or required so they got on with their plan Bs (selling/converting/other markets)

Students who want to opt out of the uni let route can go to an estate agent or gumtree etc and pay market rent. The old private digs and halls have changed purpose or gone. Theyre not an option to the uni students in this town.