Are things harder for millennials?

[squidwid]

Many of my friends don't own houses and they're in their 30s. They did everything that society asked of them and still they're not making headway.

I know so many elderly people that live in 4 bedroom homes worth £400k plus. Obviously there is nothing wrong with that but families should be able to afford those houses so things can move on. No one can afford to buy them...

I am one of the last of the boomers - I am 60.

When DH & I bought our first home , pre marriage, in the 1980s we were allowed to borrow up to 90% and 2.5 times his salary plus 1x mine - despite mine being the higher. That bought us a modest 2 bed semi. We did not have to pay stamp duty, and as first time buyers, our ( endowment) mortgage had a modest fee.

We moved around the world a lot and returned in 2005 . We were allowed to borrow 5x joint income , and that would just about buy us a 3 bed semi near our first home , plus we had to pay stamp duty, mortgage fees, and were only allowed 18 years mortgage due to our age.
In effect we started again, although we did have a decent deposit.

We have a modest chalet bungalow, 3 beds, and we will keep it as long as we are physically able, as moving and paying £££ stamp duty ( Scotland) makes no sense to me.

So I totally get that for someone starting now, it really is much harder to buy a property, and I totally get why people would resent paying for their landlords to get rich.

But as PPs have stated, we didn’t all vote for it, nor did we endorse the policies, and trust me, many of us are feeling the current col crisis too.

I'm just out of the boomer generation, 58, but I had it a lot easier than my kids do now. I bought my first house in 1992 for 50k, and the family home for £600k in 2003. My salary today is the same as it was then, the house is valued at £1.6 million.
When my kids are a bit older, I will sell and gift them a deposit for their first property - something my mother did not need to do for her children.
Without this gift, I doubt my children will every be able to buy with rent swallowing money for the eldest, and university debt and high COL for all. Saving is just not realistic - enough for a holiday yes - for a home, no. Starter flats here, which are tiny are around £300k ...

I bought in the early 80s, and it was a struggle, just a different sort of struggle.

I had a lodger for 8 years, because interest rates were high and I needed the income to help cover the costs. I had one holiday in that times, and that was paid for by my boyfriend. At one point, I was doing 3 jobs just to pay the bills. I didn't have a car for much of that time, because I simply couldn't afford it. Everything in my house was 2nd hand for the first 9 years, and most of my carpet had previously been on the floor in a department store and ripped up when the shop was refitted. (Me and a mate spent an amusing weekend spreading it out a bit at a time in the garden, so we could make sure we used the best bits). I didn't have a washing machine for the first 6 years, and got my first new cooker 11 years after I bought my first house.

But what was a lot easier was that prices were lower compared to earnings, and 100% mortgages were available. And I was lucky in having a boss who was prepared to lie about my income, there was no such thing as an affordability check back then, and if there had been, I'd probably still be renting now.

@Frabbits That is true. Mr Monkey is a gen Xer. He left school at 18 and got a job with a local authority. At 25 in the late 1990s he was able to buy a modest one bed ex council flat in Zone 2 London for £50K - with a £3k deposit comprised of savings.

He sold it in 2014 for £300k. A 25 year old working for a local authority could not afford it without substantial parental help.

The only boomer I know who's managed to get into BTL buys retirement flats and rents them out to people older than he is!

But boomers paid for the pensions for their parents' and grandparents' generation. That's how it works - for now, at least.

Smaller employers didn't have pension schemes, private pensions were regarded as something for rich people, so a lot of people had an extra deduction called SERPS in addition to NI & tax. My SERPS contributions give me a massive boost of £3 pw on my state pension.

And as for shedloads of tax, the basic rate of income tax when I started work was (iirc) 40%. I can definitely remember it coming down to a mere 30%.

Basic rate tax was 33% when I started my first job. I think we’re of a similar vintage @LakieLady.

Things are harder for everyone unless you are already established rich.

I think there is a shit show coming when millennials hit retirement - it's the perfect storm of low property ownership and falling birthrate. So as a generation we will need maximum support and there won't be enough younger workers to pay it.

The government knows this is coming, that's why our workplace pensions are mandated by default now. It won't save us though.

@Lavellan Sadly I think this is spot on.

But this is an anonymous forum where most peoples views are already entrenched and frankly I'm sick of boomers/Xers minimising the issues younger generations face while also point blank refusing to take any responsibility for their actions and constantly putting barriers in the way of progress.

Please don't tar all boomers with the same brush. That's just as much lazy thinking as millennials spending all their money on iphones, festival tickets and avo on toast and then moaning that they can't afford to buy a house. Older boomers are the ones who campaigned for equal pay for women, protection from sex discrimination and maternity rights.

No generation is all good or all bad.

I'm a boomer - just. I think the question of 'who had it harder' only serves to cause divisions between groups when really we should be challenging some of the drivers behind the massive rise in house prices.

There is no doubt that it is harder to get onto the property ladder now than it was in 1970s. But life has changed a lot, and I think that some of the day-to-day living challenges are easier now. Inflation was huge then, so having got a mortgage we lived in poverty for several years to keep our home. And there was no financial support for childcare, no funded hours, I had to pay all childcare costs until dc went to school.

My PILs benefitted (on paper) for many years but all their savings and the full cost of their house was taken into account when their care home costs were calculated. After 3 years the money will run out soon .

But at least the value of their house saved millenials from having to pay £450,000 towards their care. Swings and roundabouts.

I did - just. I started work 3 weeks before my 17th birthday, and am still working, albeit part-time, at 67.

I spent 2 years at uni in my late 20s, before the crippling interest rates meant I couldn't afford to complete my degree, but I worked p/time, and f/t in the vacs, even during those 2 years.

I agree that a lot more thought needs to go into uni choices.

My niece (21) opted not to go to uni, because she didn't want to be saddled with debt. She did 2 BTechs, one in business and one in construction studies, rather than A-levels, and is now training with a big housebuilding company to qualify as a quantity surveyor under some "modern apprenticeship" type thing.

She's very savvy and driven though. She's worked p/t all through college, taken on extra shifts whenever she can and saves really hard. She says she's not leaving home till she can buy her own place, and already has over £30k saved.

Im 60 and DH is 61
DH started work at 15 (august baby)
I started work at 16

We have both worked all out lives since then and will be retiring at 67, that is over 56 years each , very few of friends went onto 6th form let alone uni. Most of our generation will easily have 50 years under our belt by the time we retire. Todays youth dont start full time work until they are into their 20s. Both my DC has part time jobs from 16 onwards and through uni but they didnt earn enough to pay tax until they were 23/24

Blimey @Unphased , I had completely forgotten about endowment misselling. That shafted several of my friends. One had to use part of her pension lump sum to clear the last few grand of her mortgage.

I'm financially cautious, so never went for an endowment as there was no guarantee about the payout and I was cynical about investments growing indefinitely. That was more luck than judgment though, and lots of my friends thought I was mad.

It’s 51 years but you’re absolutely correct apart from that. As I pointed out earlier, if I live to be 80 I’ll have been a taxpayer for 62 years - I did A levels, obviously those who didn’t will have racked up 64 years by then.

@LakieLady yes … when I bought my first house I couldnt afford the endowment option as it cost more each month. But endowments were certainly seen and heavily promoted as the better option. There was little if no warnings of them failing at least to pay off the mortgage, I don’t recall sales literature spelling out the risks, and people’s attitudes to risk was not really a thing. So next house I did that and ended up with a shortfall of thousands, so switched to repayment and also had to extend the repayment period.

To posters questioning why I think my dad should help my brother out.

He has hoarded his money all his life and given us next to nothing, I've managed to get on the property ladder by marrying well and setting up a business with my DH. I don't think this is typical behaviour to be pretty well off and not help your children out, but it's normal in our family. I got married last year and he didn't contribute a penny, there was no offer.

For my brother, he has had some learning difficulties and spent the last 15 years in the navy. He just hasn't had the opportunities to be upwardly socially mobile. They have been on the council house list for over 5 years for an upgrade and are told it's unlikely to happen anytime soon (my SIL does not drive and they rely v heavily on her side of the family for childcare who all live close by)

My dad lives half the week with his girlfriend of the last 20 years, they have decided not to move into together for whatever reason. So the house sits empty for half the week. It is three times of the size of the house where my brother and his family live.

Yes I would fully hope for him to sell his house and downsize to one bedroom to unlock some equity for my brother and his family. He bought it for 50k and it's worth maybe 10 times that now. He has no friends or family in the area to speak of, he could move closer to his girlfriend to a much cheaper area.

None of this will ever happen because he is a selfish narcissist but hey ho. I am hoping in a few years I can help him out.

I personally would make a sacrifice like this for my children and their family. My MIL has done equity release so her other son can get onto the property ladder.

It is going to be tough for Xennials. Ours should get a soft landing, with a handout from BoMaD, followed by inheriting in 20 years or so, and will even have a pension thanks to some inspired financial planning we did in our 40s. But it's going to be intergenerational wealth transfer.

Mid-1950s born, we have been fortunate on many fronts. I went to university in 1974 without tuition fees, and received a grant for living costs as DPs were divorced. We have both worked steadily, in self-employment since the 1990s. We were immensely lucky that when DH had a heart attack at 50, he was in an ambulance so survived and made a full recovery, thanks to medical knowhow and advances that continue to keep him going, still working at 67.

We made our share of mistakes, and it often seemed hard at the time. I think every generation has its trials and tribulations; they change with the decades.

Interesting thread. I have wasted most of the morning (waiting in for an engineer to turn up) reading it all.

And because we did do all the pension planning, we'll be taxpayers until we shuffle off.

My MIL has done equity release so her other son can get onto the property ladder.

She’s a financially illiterate idiot then.

No she's just not a typical selfish boomer @Blossomtoes no doubt like you

I agree with you OP. Was desperately poor as a child, now ok due to nice pension and own house-but the young me now would never be able to access all that. Very sad.

Hoarding?
Selfish Narcissist?
I think there's a selfish narc here and it's not your DF!

If you are that bothered give your savings/ money to your DB?
Selfish not to-right??