Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

[Ordree]

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?

Of course single people can buy a house, they just need to save up like everybody else. But of course a single person doesn't really need a whole house do they, a flat is more than adequate.

I bought a house as a single woman 5 years ago, as a professional at 25. But I also lived at home whilst I saved after I graduated and whilst I trained. I grew up in a village in the middle of nowhere and had to get in my car 🤔 I’m really not getting what’s so difficult Bubbles.

You have choices in life and sometimes you acknowledge that you have to make sacrifices to get what you want. You can’t have it all all the time.

well you were lucky there was the job you wanted near you. What would you have done if that was not possible? Not every job is commutable from a village and not every person can save if they have to rent somewhere. It’s very clear that the majority of younger people do find it a struggle and I assume your home was pretty inexpensive. Although you might be on £100k by age 25 of course!

So just after graduating you had a car too. Who paid for that? Did you save from your student loan?

There were compromises to me made. It’s not luck. I could earn double my salary in London but it’s not worth the living costs as I never would have been able to buy. So I made a choice. There’s no luck in rational decisions.

Bubbles if you’d like a breakdown, I’ve always worked PT started in a fast food place when I was 14 so was able to buy a car (which stunk of grease!!). I had a gap year and worked PT through uni. I then had a second gap year before doing my LPC to save for that.

I had a ten year old car that had done 160k miles when I was done with it.

Should people not be able to work through uni too? Was that lucky for me 🤔

Its called making sacrifices. Ive moved several times to new areas for work and lived in a homeless hostel and a bedsit until i could afford to move somewhere better. Its doable. No one says its nice but you cant have everything all the time without making sacrifices.

DH and I are eagerly awaiting the influx of properties on the market. We have been sat tight waiting for a price correction. The drop in prices might make us less dependent on an immediate sale

Don’t wait for a huge drop.

I think they are reckoning on a 5% drop. I think it might go down a little more but I think the divorce rate will go through the roof after this and instead on one house people will be looking for 2

The younger generation have grown up on a diet of get what you want pay later/never. They dont know the value of hard work. They want to be youtube 'influencers', instagramers, footballers, X factor, celebrities & 'reality' tv stars. Saving is not a word they understand, they want to self identify as rich.

This virus will melt a lot of snowflakes and hopefully teach the next generation how to knuckle down, value education & not expect something for nothing.

That’s a shocking thing to say @ZombieFan. Tell that to my stepdaughter who’s an ITU nurse working 12 hour shifts. Or at least was until she went down with C19 and is now agonising over her unit being a nurse down.

@ZombieFan And your generation have grown up on a heady cocktail of lack of education, chatting bulls**t “we survived the Blitz” stories (even though you never experienced it) and sheer luck making you idiotically think your “hard work” is what makes you successful. Don’t worry, if there’s one thing this virus is going to do is wipe that smug look off your face along with your asset prices

@ZombieFan - what’s the basis for your comment? My DT’s are almost 21, last year of Uni. Worked hard at school and out of school sports and music. They know that DH and I (Doctor and Accountant) have worked hard for what we have achieved and they realise you don’t get anything unless you put the work and effort in.

Equally unfair @plainsailing01.

Yes, that was unfair - I apologise.

I apologise if I upset anyone, I went over the top. Maybe a bit of cabin fever. I was not specifying anyone particularly.

I was talking generally about the topic of this conversation, 'younger' people who do seem to want something without having earned it.

I certainly DID NOT bring nurses into it, FFS. And I also know plenty of young people (outside of MN) that do work hard and end up buying their own homes. MN is a strange place.

But I stand by my earlier post that a young person can, with hard work and 2-5 years savings buy their own home, in their twenties.

I agree that education is key to earning more but what I don’t agree with is that education solely refers to academia which doesn’t really do most any good.

I would really like to see a shift away from funnelling pupils into university on the premise that without a degree their lives will be shit and they will end up on minimum wage.

Even on here you get people stating you need a degree to get any decent job

For a lot of jobs you really don’t need any qualifications at all.

Even if you do go down the route of learning a trade even then you have to have academic GCSEs to get on to a practical course.

Ds was put straight into the Level 2 of his course which he did for a year.
He ended up top of the class with near perfect or perfect scores on all tests and practical assignments.

He really wanted to go onto Level 3 to complete the training but as he doesn’t have his GCSE English (which means nothing in the grand scheme of the trade) or 3 other equally irrelevant GCSEs he can never complete his training and will never qualify.

Not one person from his course was actually allowed to do Level 3 as the ones with the relevant GCSEs didn’t pass the course and the ones that passed the course didn’t have the GCSEs

Then the government is wondering why we don’t have skilled carpenters/plumbers/electricians/plasterers and builders etc

And your generation have grown up on a heady cocktail of lack of education,

Aw, bless you kids with your grade inflation.

chatting bulls**t “we survived the Blitz” stories (even though you never experienced it)

Don’t think this is a thing, sorry.

and sheer luck making you idiotically think your “hard work” is what makes you successful.

Righty-ho.

Are you a bit cross with your parents? You sound very young.

I would really like to see a shift away from funnelling pupils into university on the premise that without a degree their lives will be shit and they will end up on minimum wage

Completely agree. But that needs societal shift, its not something government controls. Maybe the new T-levels will help?

Please, don't ever be tempted to enter into politics. We already have enough deranged politicians with a list of wonderful life changing ideas that are about as practical as a chocolate fireguard.

I will just respond to one of the 'the older generation had it easy' comments: 17% base rate. Now stop spending £800-£1000 on phones.

17% base rate is utter bollocks. Most people’s mortgages hit 14% for a matter of days. I know, I was there.

Do the maths of 17% times a three x your salary at 25 yrs old loan. V’s 5/6 times your salary loan at 3% .... I’ll take 17% all day long

@ZombieFan Let’s just leave it at you don’t know enough young people who live in real expensive cities like London etc.

@Oliversmumsarmy I understand where you are coming from but it’s near impossible to get a job in health sciences, consulting, finance etc (anything that pays over £23k as a graduate) without a university degree. While a lot of firms are formally dropping the requirement, the chances of you being beaten by the competition with a degree bare high.

@SomethingOnce and you sound positively ancient darling :)

@BurgerOnTheOrientExpress

That’s the historical peak for a single year - 1979. The average interest rates on either decade of that year were 10%. Interest rates have been below 10% since 1991, a time when house prices were between 3-4 times annual salary at that time compared to 12 - 20 time annual salary.

Thanks for the financial advice by the way but I get mine from people (just) slightly more qualified.

There was a consistent double figures inflation rate in the 70's (which is why interest rates were so high), with one year peaking at over 24%. Though some wages went up by a similar amount, many didn't. I remember my parents working out that the weekly shop had doubled in less than 5 years (DF's salary hadn't risen by anywhere near that).

By the way, I never got a response to my question on what people consider to be "rich" or "wealthy".

Wealth might be defined as those with assets that would attract CGT. Others would say it was assets that would attract IHT on death. However pension pots can be very large and these are also wealth.

The attached from The Independent today shows you who is “paying” for this virus. It’s as a result of research and polling. Guess what, it’s the young (under 35) and BAME citizens.

It is ludicrous to think that all people in their 20s can buy homes unless they live in cheap areas. People living at home are hugely subsidised by their parents. Training to be a solicitor is not available in every home town! Far from it. It’s also well paid. So cheap housing, and a good job that requires a degree, is a good position to be in when living at home and not having to pay the bills! Many students are not in this position after graduating. They must go and work elsewhere. This is why the average age for house buying is now in the 30s. Not everyone can live in cheaper areas and be a solicitor.

Oops. Forgot attachment.