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!

What I struggle with is that until I was married I didn't expect to ever own a house. My DPs couldn't afford one, my DB eventually (8 years older than me) managed a tiny country cottage and big mortgage so would have been in his 30s. I worked for the NHS, no way did we think we'd (me and other single NHS workers) buy property, the wage wasn't enough.
So it's hard to be sympathetic when 20 somethings complain they can't afford a house.

I moved abroad for more pay (Middle East, no tax there) . Met DH and then we could afford a house when we came back several years later. So expecting a house in 20s seems presumptuous to me due to my own experience in the 70s.

I think two things are harder now - the lack of job security, there are no jobs for life anymore; and house prices.

They are two pretty important (and interconnected) things.

Oh and you have to pay ludicrously high tuition fees if you want to go to university.

But otherwise, everything is better. We can travel, have luxury goods which are not luxuries anymore for most people in the UK, we have a better appreciation of diversity, sexual harassment is no longer acceptable even if it still happens and healthcare is far better, if pressured. Women giving birth in the 1960s didn't have epidurals, for example. Cancer survival rates are much better.

I would rather live now than 40 years ago. But I am in the middle age group where I won't have an amazing pension, but I was able to get onto the property ladder for comparative buttons and am now mortgage free.

I remember 15% interest rates on mortgages in the past. Being a mortgage broker I saw the way things were heading and grabbed a 2 year fix at 11.75% which saved us as I was only working a few hours a week. Even at this level we could barely meet the repayments.

I paid off my mortgage 15 or more years ago but I don't recall ever paying less than 6 or 7%.

Rates as low as they are now were unthinkable.

That is the interesting sum - cost of a 25 year repayment mortgage at 12% interest rate on a £40k house salary £10k v cost of a perhaps 30 year repayment one at 2% on a £420k house salary 40k

Okay just did it 30 years ago £421 a month (half oine gross salary - we had two full time salaries so this is all just rough to see the ratios)
Now £1553 pcm.
Actually they are both about half the gross salary.
So that probably makes it the 5% deposit being the hardest thing now not that it was easy then (and the 2% is not fair as is you only have 5% deposit you probably pay more ilke 3%).

Perhaps stagnated lower earner pay is the bigger issue coupled with people buying alone not with a husband.
Comparing a head of dept teacher/lawyer as we were is not of course in any sense ordinary people. Teachers earn a lot more than people on the minimum wage these days.

Okay, let's see:

2017 average UK deposit: £32,899 (16% of purchase price)

2017 average house price: £207,693

In the past 5 years, the average house price has grown by 50% from £138,663 to £207,693 (an increase of 50% or £69,025).

But an IFS study shows average real wage is lower than it was 10 years ago.

Older generations moan that millennials should stop buying coffee and meal deals and then they'll be able to save enough for a deposit. But let's work that one out:

Meal deal = £3
260 days x 3 = £780
Years to save for a deposit by not eating = 123

My sister is 24, a graduate from a good university. She works in marketing, has changed jobs twice already in order to progress/get a pay rise, and her salary is still only £21,000. Even by the time she's 30, she realizes she won't be able to buy a house. Not with the cost of her rent, bills, her student debt - and she does everything she can to save money. She doesn't eat out, she doesn't drive, she walks everywhere. This is just the sad reality now.

(SOURCE: HALIFAX FIRST TIME BUYER REVIEW 2017)

But the expectation of being able to buy a house on your own at 30 is a fairly recent one. My parents definitely didn't expect that (born 1940s)
My older siblings (born 1960s) didn't expect that. I didn't expect that (born 1970s).

Sorry to point this out but the BabyBoomer Generation who are all (supposedly) rolling in "gold-plated pensions" have only ever existed in those twee adverts for pension plans/funeral plans/equity release schemes.......they're purely an advertising agency's fiction!

Piece in New Statesman last week discussing this: www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/02/uk-suffering-extreme-case-generational-inequality

Supply and demand that's all it is

Food for thought.

Should've added this, from the above link:

"even if we were to add 300k new houses per year (about 150k in excess of household formation, approaching 0.5 percent of current stock), this would only lower prices by about 1 percent per year. This is peanuts in the context of price rises over the past 20 years."

Such a difficult debate to have obviously when people have so many differing views from different demographics.

Home ownership has always been an issue in London - friends of mine in their late 30s have just bought an extremely run down semi detached house for £600k, they work as a banker and lawyer but still lived in shit accommodation for the last 5 years paying out a fortune in rent to save a mind blowing deposit.

However, I’m the north it is still more than possible to buy a flat or small house. The problems arise when you would like to buy a ‘nice’ or desirable house in a good school catchment so that your children can hopefully do well. In york these family homes in good areas exceed £3/400k. A huge jump from a small flat or House.

We did it the normal hard way, the same as our parents did - small dingy flat in a shit area, working hard (actually lost loads of equity in the 2008 crash). We’ve got a family house but for the cost of it, sure, we wish it was a bit nicer. We’ve worked just as hard as the baby boomer generation but our parents we’are both able to buy much nicer houses on slightly less well paying one income salaries.

I’m sure interest rates were very high but they still paid off their mortgages a good decade before retirement.

It is simply not a myth that baby boomers have on average across the country achieved more for the same amount of effort. I think many get defensive as they seem to think admitting this detracts from their hard work - it doesn’t.

Your step-dad doesn't seem to have been particularly helpful does he. Not only is housing clearly more difficult than it has ever been for a variety of reasons, but it's ridiculous to compare a salary of 12k in the early 80s with one of 15k or so now (assuming the 45k is also 3x income). FWIW the average salary in 1982 was about 7.5k www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/adhocs/006810newearningssurveynesagegroupgrossweeklyandhourlyexcludingovertimedata now its ~25k. People earning 50% more than average have always found it easy to get onto the housing ladder - those at the bottom haven't.

Your stepfather's comparison doesn't however mean that all older people are ignorant of this, just as not all young people are ignorant of the social changes their parents and grandparents have achieved for them. It doesn't really help to suggest either is true.

ExtraPineappleExtraHam I'm 68 - older generation - definitely NOT saying anything is easier for you youngsters. I am distraught and appalled at the difficulties facing you. The financial problems, which are led by Banksters' decisions, way at the top of the pecking order, are criminal. Then they ask you to pay off £40k for going to Uni, let alone trying to buy a home.

I really am so terribly sorry for you all and if I could do something I would. I honestly don't think anything the ordinary working folk of my age did brought this about apart from voting for Mrs Thatcher. I remember that moving speech of Neil Kinnock on the eve of the 1983 election: I will quote from GEORGE EAST as follows;
" It is hard to think of any other end to a speech that proved to be so prescient and which has such relevance to the economic destruction of ...(today)." Neil Kinnock said;
"I warn you not to be ordinary;
I warn you not to be young;
I warn you not to fall ill;
And I warn you not to grow old."

for full speech see www.owen.org/blog/326
remember it was APRIL 5 1983. How true is it now?

There is a deliberate regime in place to prevent people owning property, make them dependent upon the banks by being eternally in debt and generally make life so hard that eventually people will turn to an apparent solution for their suffering and agree to the new regime or New World Order, which will be run by that very small minority who own the banks. Thus just about all people will be under the control of a very few. Remember the fall of Iceland's economy? The World Bank was there straight away saying let us take over for you. But the Iceland Parliament, majority female, said no, they would be self-sufficient. They did not want to be eaten by that shark. What did they have the foresight to know?

If this sounds like "conspiracy theory" please learn about Central Banking, the initiation of the USA's Federal Reserve, which is a private bank despite its name. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 1913. Whereupon he said;
"And we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." - President Woodrow Wilson.

Your generation are feeling the true pain of the greed of these "dominant men". It will get worse, unless we wake up and say no. I am so terribly sorry.

Very good points made by Ellyess - I do think most of the ‘older’ generation do understand that younger people are facing issues which unlike the many many issues faced when they were young are intrinsically linked to generational inequality.

Woodrow Wilson said, on signing the act which gave the private bank, 'The Federal Reserve' the right to loan money to the government:

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.
Our system of credit is concentrated.
The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men.
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world — no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

The above may well be the USA, but our system is so similar it is nigh identical, as is the World Bank's attempts to control every country, and, crazy as I may sound, this is why you young people cannot get adequate mortgages. It is why you are accruing debt while at university. It is why our health-care is under-funded. It is why people with jobs need the help of food banks. It is why all you hard working young people are living in constant debt. Debt which you cannot get free of, debt which is splitting the vast majority away from those high-paid few.
A youtube which explains it is;
" Ian R Crane - Economic Slavery - Your Children's Future Explained" at

Ian Crane is no fool, he was with the oil industry in a very top position. He has lots of interesting things to say about that, especially the Bay of Mexico disaster.

clyd Thank you so much! I'm so impressed at how quickly you replied! But I am relieved to get your endorsement because I was scared that my explanations might be too overwhelming. People who have not thought this way or do not understand the credit system of banking etc might just think I am crazy. If only I were! Sadly the misery of debt and inability to get housing or a sensible mortgage is only too real.

We are heading into a recession. Things will get worse, and then in the future we will have a boom again.

There is so much that could be done if politicians weren’t so he’ll bent on maintaining the status quo or pandering to wealthy pensioners.

Means test benefits for pensioners - the winter fuel allowance is simply not needed by so many (and essential for others), my own parents don’t even live in the UK and still get it.

Bus passes for wealthy pensioners who could easily pay a small subsidised fee - I used to pay £4 for a 10 minute journey into york and I was frequently the only person paying. My mil gets the bus a lot, all for free when they could easily pay a bit and lower travel costs for others.

The joseph rowntree study shows that the ‘average’ pensioner is now more wealthy than working people. This is not sustainable - individuals and politicians need to be addressing what a mess they’re leaving for their children and grandchildren, even if that means being slightly less well off themselves.

I am NOT talking about poorer pensioners - they deserve all the help they are given and more. I’m talking about the middle society who are actually living a higher standard of living than they ever paid for.

Won't the money the rich pensioners have eventually return to the state, or their younger offspring.
It can be clawed back in inheritance tax. Off loaded to family. It won't disappear down a black hole.

Not many are wealthy landowners with everything in trust.

Yes the Millenial generation are predicted to inherit more than any other generation. Given when most people inherit, retirement will not be an issue for many.

clyd Mean testing costs more than it saves. So no it makes no sense to do so.

We’d have to really dig into the facts about means testing but giving every pensioner in the country £200 (?) for winter fuel cannot be considered economical. Equally if free travel was only available to those on very basic pensions with all other OAPs paying a discounted rate I’m sure that wouldn’t be hard to implement.

My pil just received what was left from her parents estate - her parents lived to be in their 90s, the house was long gone for care homes etc. My pil are 70 and there was no inheritance - I can’t imagine many millennials will benefit from inheritances given the state of social care.

My parents live abroad with very little thought of provision for their very elderly years - I don’t expect to inherit anything from them as they’re going to need it all.

The Government has said means testing will cost more than it will save.
I won't inherit anything either, my parents have nothing to leave. But few people live for long in residential care.

Buying a house is way harder now.

Only because prices have risen. That is NOT the fault of the older generation. I am sick and tired of the younger generation whining that older people have had it easy. That is far from the truth. Life is very different now. There is another perspective. My grown children are not 'on the property ladder' but don't blame my generation for the time in which they live. I sympathise if owning is a burning desire because it is extremely hard, if not impossible to find the deposit to buy a house.

Owning a house is not the norm in Europe. Why does it have to be here? We need a fair rental system and more social housing being built. Near me some really gorgeous properties for rent are being built in all shapes and sizes from small bungalows to larger semis. They look extremely smart, have all mod cons and parking and gardens and anyone lucky enough to rent one will have done very well for themselves. The houses are every bit as nice as ones being built on private estates which start at nearly £250,000. This has to be the way forward? We also need to think about fair private rental s and upping standards because renting has got to be the way forward.

Older people had many struggles, lived in cold homes with second hand furniture, had no cars, no holidays, couldn't afford to borrow and they learnt how to live within their means. Interest rates were at 15% at times. It is not their fault that bricks and mortar went up in value. It is refreshing to see so many mums here telling it like it is. Who is creating this old/young divide?

My oldest child earns more than I ever did at his age and has a much flashier lifestyle and lovely holidays. He rents and isn't interested in home ownership. he says he doesn't have to think about leaking roofs, broken boilers, insurance and bad neighbours or council tax. He'd rather have the money in his pocket and plans on seeing the world. He believes in having as little hassle in his life as possible. Its not for everyone I know but there are some positives to renting rather than buying. My house, the one that has been a complete money pit for 30+ years (I have had to take out loans at times to mend things) will be used to pay my care home fees I expect. If not my kids get it eventually. They are of the generation that inherits from parents.AND gets free childcare for children by grandparents. There are many perks to living in 2018. Its a different world.

Oh my goodness, no one blames to older generation! You weren’t all going along thinking of ways to screw over the next generation lol!

I do think the notion that we should all rent and be happy with it despite the older generations all owning nice houses is a bit strange though tbh.

We own our own home, we’ve worked hard etc and I don’t begrudge my parents generation their homes etc - my point is that surely, when being told by numerous studies and blatant facts, that the course of maintaining triple lock pensions etc is not sustainable that baby boomers would actually join in calling for reform rather than going on about how hard it was for them. I don’t doubt that growing up in the 40/50/60s etc was harder I’m talking about the wealth that was accrued in the 80/90s by so many and the pension benefit they now enjoy which will disappear for later generations.