to want to literally throttle people saying "5% is nothing, interest rates used to be 13%" etc etc

[XCTX]

Yes, yes they did. But there is NO context here and also no comparison

interest rates were 13% at a time when the average house price was 60k and cost 4.5x the average salary.

The average house price is now 284k or so, and is c.7.6x the average salary.

People are coming off fixes and suddenly seeing their mortgages increase by 40, 50% and it is infuriating me that some are minimising this problem by comparing one finite moment in time with no context.

saying it's harder now doesn't mean it wasn't hard in the past though?

And people WILL manage. Experience shows that people will cut back on EVERYTHING they possibly can before they stop paying their mortgage.

Oh good. So everything I've worked so hard to achieve - financial security, being able to treat my sons, buying food that we as a family enjoy, being able to take my kids on holiday (UK admittedly!)..........all those little big things that make my long hours at work meaningful and life bearable - nay enjoyable, will fly out the fucking window but it'll be alright because I will cope when they do.

Excellent. So exciting.

Usually the same idiots who say ''in my days we did not have heating and we survived'', ''in my days we were smacked all the time and it did not do us any harm'' or ''People today are too woke/sensitive/expect too much...''

Basically the type that loves feeling superior and kicking everybody else down or the type who have convinced themselves life should be an endless litany of misery.

It's lack of empathy, nothing more and nothing less. It's not comparable to the current situation so it isn't particularly useful. You do see posts talking about how difficult it was, but use the opportunity to give advice on how they coped or commiseration that it is indeed a scary situation - those posts are great, but the "We had it so much worse" nonsense is just toxic and you have to just ignore it.

Some people are also very pissed off at the easy ride they think mortgage owners have gotten over the last 14 years and are loving the opportunity to put the boot in. Don't get bitter folks, or you will end up that pensioner with a massive grin on their face at the thought of families losing their home. I know one of these people (not by choice believe me!)

You see it throughout mumsnet, this lack of empathy. You aren't allowed to feel bad about anything that a poster feels they have had a worse time with. You just have to ignore it. You can't teach empathy on a forum.

People have enjoyed tiny tiny interest rates for many years. Not an option ever enjoyed in the 13% era Swings and roundabouts

Tories brought in financial deregulation to encourage borrowing. Lots of people actively encouraged to view debt as benign particularly student debt. Indebtedness is Tory policy in action!

House prices in many parts of the country are CRAZY - that's the main issue.

Interest rates were comparable to now just 10 years ago - we were paying something between 4-5% in 2012 when housing prices where I live definitely required 2 x salaries taken into account, we borrowed 3.5 x our joint salary even with a very decent deposit.

I don't know if it was a blip or something as rates did drop after that but we were stuck on a 5 year deal and it was the best we could get at the time. We've just fixed on just below.

In many parts of the country you could still buy a similar house at the price we paid 10 years ago, but if you happen to live in one of the places where prices have gone up the most, it's tough.

@ThatsNotMyMuffin

"100% this. My MIL loves to remind us how they nearly got repossesed in the 80s when the rates went up but they got through. Their mortgage was £300pm on their starter home. Ours was £900. The rates are incomparable."

Preposterous response!!

According to the B of E, £300 in the 80's is the equivalent of £830+ today.

Ridiculous of you to downplay the fact that so many ended up in negative equity, had their houses repossessed, couldn't get on the property ladder, couldn't start a family as they couldn't afford it.

Your generation don't own the right to hardship, I was late teens at that time and can remember all too well the hardship that so many families were going through and families having their houses repossessed. FFS - thinking that £300 back then is still worth £300 today, ignorant!

Is there a comparison between the typical 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s 10s and current FTB:
Age
Salary
Amount borrowed
Interest rate

It's impossible to compare sensibly without understanding how the housing market has become the investment of choice and the impact that has had on people buying a home too.

FIL in his 6 bedroom house and benefitting from retiring at 50 on his final salary pension scheme from a very ordinary (non essential worker, private sector) job loves to say this.

According to him, nothing was ever as bad as a brief period of paying high interest rates on his tiny mortgage.

He just can't understand why we won't be able to retire at 50, no matter how many times you explain to him that the rules are that you can't even start drawing most private pensions until you reach 55 or older.

Some people are also very pissed off at the easy ride they think mortgage owners have gotten over the last 14 years and are loving the opportunity to put the boot in. Don't get bitter folks, or you will end up that pensioner with a massive grin on their face at the thought of families losing their home. I know one of these people (not by choice believe me!)

it's a very odd thing plus of course FTBs haven't benefited from low interest rates

It was terrifying back then to come perilously close to losing your home or actually lose it and it terrifying now for those in that position. Almost all of us had no control then and none of us have any control now. Save the anger for the unelected lunatics in charge today and for some of the historic manoeuvres that rewarded a few and annihilated many more.

Yep.

"Well, did you stress test for affordability if rates rose to 10%?"

"Well, did you stress test for affordability if rates rose to 10% AND energy bills went through the roof AND your shopping was more expensive week on week AND a global pandemic AND your wages have shrunk in real terms for more than a decade?"

... even if the answer to all of this is yes, if your choice is between gambling on the most affordable property vs continuing to pour money down the drain of expensive and insecure renting, wtf are you supposed to do? Presumably like many of those who lost their homes in the early 90s, I don't actually feel able to regret buying this home at this price because even in this shitstorm and with 20/20 hindsight, it's still better than the alternative.

It depends what it pays for Bogoff. If it's £300 to pay for suitable accommodation in a convenient location, then that's one thing. We (the 'young' generation in our families) have inadequate accommodation or in inconvenient locations, and yet we pay the £300 equivalent nowadays (around£900).

It's true that every generation has it's unique hardships though. None of us have an easy ride, financial stability hits everyone at some point or points in their lives, and it comes in many forms. I do, on the whole however think that comparatively, quality of housing stock is going down, particularly for first-time buyers. Times were tough for my parent's generation as much as they are for us now, but if I compare the first house they bought (on one salary too) with the first house my husband and I bought, and use that as a measure of asset-based wealth, then they were certainly wealthier than us! Nowadays young couples starting out need two fairly good salaries to buy a one-bedroom flat. My parents got married, in their mid-twenties, and they bought a four-bedroom semi-detached house. On my dad's salary. Mum then stayed at home and raised the kids. Yes they were poor in that they lived very modestly - no central heating, didn't spend on luxuries and food was basic ingredients that mum batch-cooked meals with for the week. We went on holiday every year but it again was very unambitious, a week camping in Wales or the Lakes.

But despite this humble lifestyle, they lived in a decent-sized house, with a nice garden and so the quality of the housing they experienced is nothing like the quality of housing couples experience nowadays. And that's with both individuals working full-time, earning fairly decent salaries.

So in terms of lifestyle and the ability to make good-quality lifestyle choices - that's where I think the real poverty now lies.

As opposed to the 'morons' who can't live within their income? Not pleased? Good!

I agree op
I understand why they say it, but it doesn't help anything.

YANBU
I remember how stressed my parents were when the interest rates hit 15%. My dad doesn't have huge amounts of money, but he sent me money (unprompted) because he remembers how awful it was. And yes I know MN will say I should send it back, but I'm not going to, I really appreciate it and it's brought some breathing space. I'm hopefully starting a night shift job that will fit in with DH's hours. (4 Kids with SEN makes things tricky).

My In-laws have inherited a huge amount of money but put their very comfortable situation down to their good decisions and hard work. I just smile and nod!

Every generation, unless you're wealthy, has its hard times.

I'm a Boomer - my parents had hard times in the 50's, I had hard times in the 80's, my age 45+ year kids had it hard in the Noughties, and now my adult grandchildren are finding it tough with housing etc.

There's nothing much exceptional about todays hardships - although it's horrible when you're having to "live the dream" of financial worry/stress/shortage.🙁

Well from what I remember people sitting in unpaid off houses were enjoying the same thing - right up until the point the mortgage market started going tits up.

Certainly a lot of the "ever rising house prices are stupid" posts on here were met with a lot of viteriol from the usual VI crowd until recently.

Now though the penny is finally starting to drop ... there's been a huge change in sentiment over the last few days.

I think that people losing their homes is what they want. I'm not saying it's engineered but the government must know what will happen. My dd said it's all about the "great reset".

Calm down with your swearing. I didn't downplay anything, I don't know what you're reading from my post? I'm referring to what my MIL said, they were both on £20k+ salaries at the time so yeah I think her comparing their situation with a £65k mortgage to ours is ridiculous.

Of course it was hard, as it is now. There are probably more people right now that are unable to get on the property ladder than there were back then really. Also my generation doesn't have any hope for selling their house for 20x the value they brought it at like my in-laws did.

Yeah and I’m sure the houses were much more expensive back then as well. Seems like there is never enough threads where we make younger generation feel even more shit. Thank you

I agree it’s part of a masterplan.

People have short memories, especially when it comes to painful situations.

If the conservative government crash the economy now when there’s various things they can shift the blame to (whether those have any bearing or not, there will be people who believe it), they have 2 years till the GE. If the pound hits the floor, interest rates spiral, the chances are the economic situation will change for the better even if only a little, regardless of whatever interventions they make. At which point they start taking credit for green shoots or whatever and the turkeys who voted for Christmas last GE will suck up their lies and rhetoric and vote for it again.

Make no mistake. This is exactly

i can’t believe boomers actually believe that our generation is having it equally as hard as they had it. It’s actually shocking and so tiring at this point.