Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

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As others have noted, young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others, mostly but not exclusively from much older age groups. They will be bequeathed a damaged planet, a ruined economy and they will have done further damage to their mental health by staying indoors for months on end. They are the ones paying older people's pensions when they won't have anything like the same financial security to look forward to themselves. Yes I know older people paid their elders pensions during their working lives, bit never has there been such an imbalance. As the economy is likely to be ruined short to medium term anyway, would it not be reasonable to start the biggest givernment-funded housebuilding programme ever, allow younger people who have just bought to write off negative equity losses against tax, and essentially redress some of the appalling imbalance between generations and classes?

No ones saying house prices are not extortionate now. What people are saying is it is very possible to save for a deposit which for most people is 5 to 10%. And yes many many young people now are splurging instead of saving. Look at the figures for people going on foreign holidays now vs any other time in the past. Look at young car drivers now. Its not rocket science to work out that cutting unecessary costs will leave more money in the long run.

Just looked up average income and house prices mid 70s and today. In the 1970s the average house price was about 4 times the average income in a time where most families had one wage earner (and indeed the cost of many thing was relatively a lot higher than today)

Today, bearing in mind most families have two wage earners, the average house is, yes 4x the combined annual average income of two wage earners.

Today people often want to live on their own, in 1975 most people lived with parents or lodged in a single room in someone’s house until they got married when their houses were furnished by wedding presents and great auntie maud’s old furniture.

Most people didn’t go to university, working straight out of school. There was constant economic uncertainty for 2 decades.

Op I suggest it’s you who doesn’t like hearing the truth.

If house prices do crash it will be young families being made homeless so you get a cheap house (that’s if you still had a job - recessions tend to disproportionately affect the young). Most baby boomers have probably paid off their mortgage.

young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others

Many really aren't OP.

Perhaps after this crisis there needs to be a long hard look at London property. Why are dubious unbelievably wealthy foreigners allowed to buy £100 million properties, why are developers building expensive flats aimed at foreigners, Nine Elms for example. This is why property in London is out of reach of locals.

Young people today won't do themselves any favours by wallowing in how unfair things are and how hard they have it. There are relative benefits and hardships for every generation. They change over time.

Those who put their heads down and work toward realistic goals will fare far better than anyone wasting time and energy on dwelling on their personal set of woes. And anyone of any age hoping for a "reward" for doing their simple civic duty will probably end up disappointed.

Why are fruit picking jobs for the young and not the middle age unemployed?

While I fail to see any relevance in this question, surely the answer’s obvious? Because it’s hard physical work, although I can’t see any reason why fruit pickers couldn’t be older.

I would think not dying is a bonus. As is your grandparents having a longer happier life and not dying alone. Maybe it's just me.

@Lifeisgenerallyfun so because both people now generally work that means you can just double the number? Really?

The person in question would not be able to get a job (if they could get one at all) in any other area of the UK with low house prices

Do people not work in these areas then?

@Theukisgreatt, well if there are two people splitting the costs in two, yes.

Even if people in their 20s were frittering money away on unnecessarily which in large part they are not

Where is the evidence for that statement or any of your 'statements'? It seems you are of the school of belief that thinks lots of anecdotes create a fact.

When I was younger and we got a hole in our clothes we would get the needle and thread out. Today the item will just be binned and a new one bought. I have yet to meet a young person who doesn't have the latest iphone, the latest Playstation, money for a takeaway coffee every day, a massive flat screen, a nice car, the app for regular deliveroo, the heating up full in the winter so they can relax in a t-shirt. And they still complain they cant afford anything.

Its simple, work hard get a second job, save your money and after ten years meet a partner and buy a starter home jointly. Live within your means and dont have children until you can afford them, dont expect special treatment no one else ever got.

Forgive my naivety - young-ish person here. What is 'Negative equity?'

Is it when your house is worth less than you paid? I daren't Google as I imagine it will bring all kinds of ads up rather than the answer in plain terms 😳

But people did get special treatment! Remember mortgage tax relief so
Mortgages were cheaper? Honestly, it really was easier 40 years ago.

Honestly, it really was easier 40 years ago

It wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t in the early 90s. I lost my job and then mortgage rates went up to 15%. I was nearly sick on my shoes and thought I was going to lose everything. The mortgage tax relief went nowhere with such high interest rates.

*Just looked up average income and house prices mid 70s and today. In the 1970s the average house price was about 4 times the average income in a time where most families had one wage earner (and indeed the cost of many thing was relatively a lot higher than today)

Today, bearing in mind most families have two wage earners, the average house is, yes 4x the combined annual average income of two wage earners*
In other words based on your own figures it takes double the income to buy the average house as it did in the 70s. There has been massive movement of jobs to London and the SE since the 70s, and there the wage to hisue price ratio has gone up way more. Even in the early 90s, colleagues were buying zone 5 flats for 3 times their £15k salaries. Those exact same flats are now around £280k while the salaries for comparable jobs are around £27k.
Plus your points don't take account of 1970s wage inflation massively reducing the real cost of mortgages even allowing for fluctuating interest rates.

Negative equity is when you are paying more in your mortgage than your house is worth. Very common a decade or so ago when interest rates were 15% or more. But apparently people never had it so good.

Well, you don't live in London if you can't afford to.
We could have moved there too, it would have been great for us as musician and entertainer, but we couldn't afford it like many others couldn't.
You need to decide your lifestyle for what you can afford, and cut your cloth accordingly.
Everyone has to do this whatever decade they were born into.

Hmm.. why do they need to be rewarded? I find the notion a bit ridiculous to be honest. As a member of the “younger generation” who is a front line worker, I can assure you that this is also to protect plenty of you get people with complicated health problems (more than you might think). And also- these people are your parents, your grandparents etc. You need a reward to justify measures to protect them? And me, and other front line workers, because if things are overwhelmed we run an even higher risk of becoming infected and unwell, the decisions we’d have to make and the things we’d have to deal with would be even worse. It’s just so childish to suggest people need to given a treat for being responsible.

I’m not against ways to provide affordable housing, but the idea that we need to “reward” a sector of society for something we’ve all had to endure problematic. And a bit infantile. I understand many people will lose out due to the impact of lockdown, but why do they need a reward for doing the right thing to keep people safe (themselves and members of their families quite possibly included)?

And who’s going to pay for it? Our national debt is rising fast, the economy is going to take a dive- possibly worse than the depression of the 1920’s. Our ability to just borrow indefinitely may but go on as it always has. What are you going to reduce funding for to pay for this “reward”? Or are we all going to pay more tax?

Who is the “younger generation” anyway? Do you mean under 25’s? under 40’s? Lots of people have been priced out of the housing market, especially in south east and rural tourism hotspots. Surely you would need to reward everyone, not just young people? Or you just create another factional divide.

How are you going to “reward” the nhs staff, other emergency service staff, carers and other front line staff/key workers for putting their lives on the line during this pandemic? Everyone will want their “share”.

What about the people with no pension at all or lost like our parents 30% or more over the years?
It doesn't matter how much you think they have it bad now. Shows ignorance.
We bought a flat for the first time when my husband was 40. We really struggled to get the deposit together. We lived in an empty flat for quite sometime. Only a bed and a fridge.

Thank you @bellinisurge

How are you going to “reward” the nhs staff, other emergency service staff, carers and other front line staff/key workers for putting their lives on the line during this pandemic? Everyone will want their “share”
Raab was asked this very question in a press conference last week and suggested they'd be looking closely at rewarding NHS workers.

As I said upthread, the state pays a huge whack towards state employees pensions. The under 30s will find it more expensive with two needing to work to get a mortgage and then what happens about child care costs. The attached shows we never had low interest rates for mortgages. They fluctuated and people were used to higher rates. We never had any problems paying but friends who went into negative equity just sat tight and waited! The prices bounced back fairly quickly.

Very common a decade or so ago when interest rates were 15% or more
10 years ago interest rates were below 1%. They haven't been at 15% since the ERM debacle in the early 90s, and have been below 6 % since the millennium.