To think we simply can’t compete?

[Molehillminnie]

Mid 50s colleague selling house. On the market for close to £1M. Bought for 1/5 of that 30 years ago. Always going on about how the younger generation should save and be like her.

We’re 15 years younger, have pretty decent jobs etc but there is no way we’ll be able to benefit from property price increases in the same way. The huge jumps between 2000-2008 will never be replicated. Nothing more to say really, just having a rant!

I’m in a similar or better situation to her and she’s a twat. Having said that in our area there are many, many young families buying and renovating their houses but we would never have been able to raise that amount of finance at that stage of life.

My parents house was bought on one low-mid level civil servant salary 40 years ago. Just a normal London suburban 3 bed semi, nice enough area, nothing special. Its worth half a million now...

But they have been through a lot of shit financial times too. Their interest payments at times were a lot higher than now for example!

It's unfair.

I'm trying to buy a family home in a good school district. I keep getting outbid by cash buyers who are retired.

Their children are grown, they don't need to WFH. What they are planning to do with four bedrooms- I have no fucking idea. I wish they would fuck off out of the market and stop buying houses they don't need!!!

Agree OP.

All those saying ‘interest rates were higher’ yes they were, but 12% on a much lower amount is still cheaper than 6% on the huge loans today. They will also have benefitted from the next to nothing interest from 2008 when I was graduating into a recession.

I look at colleagues who have the exact same job as me, just a decade or so older and the disparity in lifestyle is huge.

Glad it’s not just me. Colleague didn’t work when her DC were small either. Seems to think I’m mad putting mine in holiday clubs and working full time but it’s the only way we can afford a decent home. If only I could get across to her that there is nothing about her situation that she has created!!! She’s simply been in the right place at the right time.

In another 20 years boomer deaths will peak and we might expect the house prices to come down a bit. But that's too late to really be of any use for everyone wanting a house now. There needs to be more house building, but anything that might lower house prices is a vote loser among the people who already have them.

@Mushroo

I look at colleagues who have the exact same job as me, just a decade or so older and the disparity in lifestyle is huge.

That just about sums it up!

My comment about interest rates was more about them struggling when my brother and I were young, even though they are extremely comfortable now.

But especially in London, starter homes have completely outstripped starter wages.

Absolutely.
looking at dh’s parents, they bought a house outside Bath back in the early 80s with one parent working in an average role in civil service. The house now would cost around £800k and would be completely unaffordable for a one salary household.

Yes I live in Solihull and it's full of houses which have been bought years ago and done up and now really expensive. I rent and my landlord has several other houses. I think ours sold for around 300k and that's one of the cheaper ones. It's a bit outdated. I was looking at house prices here about 10-15 years ago and they were much cheaper

YANBU. My dad used to like to go on about high interest rates until I pointed out that my friends would have loved to buy a house on their street but couldn't afford their 3 bed semi. My parents bought it for cash on one income - 30 years later and two solicitors couldn't afford it with a mortgage.

I don't resent individuals for their fortune in being born at the right time, but I do resent an unwillingness to acknowledge that aspect of luck, as well as the changes that mean our generation won't have the same comfort.

I’ve noticed this as well. In the SE, unless you got on the property ladder by about 2000 or have inheritance you pretty much have no chance of buying anything decent on a normal salary.

There will be an unprecedented inter generational transfer of wealth - that generation holds so much wealth.

Anyone from the next generation who doesn't receive an inheritance will have no chance of catching up through hard work alone.

If your parents didn't own a property, your chances of buying one are slim.

I am late 50s and agree that yes my generation were/are bloody lucky .Myself and our friends all live in decent houses all worth a ridiculous amount of money and we all sympathise with our children who will really struggle to get on the housing market!Myvthree have all done so well academically, all have decent jobs but they still cannot imagine ever getting on the property ladder in our part of the UK .I 100% sympathise and please don't imagine that all my generation are selfish unsympathetic twats!

Our first house cost us £28k in1986. It's now valued at between 495k and 547K on Zoopla. Wages just haven't grown at anything like the same rate.

My inlaws have never had a mortgage. Bought their current large, 4 bed, detached house in 1970 for 5k and borrowed the money from a well off family member. Paid it off in 3 years on one average wage (MIL never worked after marrying at 19). They've lived a very enviable lifestyle on a modest income. Young people just don't stand a chance unless they get a big financial leg-up by family.

I said this to MIL a few weeks ago, she was saying that we can't continue to rent forever, but as quickly as we're saving, the house prices are going up by the amount we've got.

We're not poor, we do ok financially but for us to afford a basic family home, we're looking at circa £400k, that's sort of equal to what they purchased in 81 for £25k.

That purchase is over ten fold what they paid.

Our wages haven't kept up with what houses cost.

We have a deposit, that is more than the amount they mortgaged over a 25 year period but we are still quite far from being able to afford a home.
We do earn fairly well, but it doesn't seem we meet affordability for a mortgage of a 3 bedroom house purchase in our area.

I already work overnight and go without sleep 3/4 times a week, DH already works 5/6/7 days a week.

They didn't do anything that we don't. Our jobs are more skilled (DH and I both work jobs that would have been a few steps up from what FIL did (that sounds awful, I'm not being a dick, but its not a case of him having been an accountant and us expecting to keep up without a career) and MIL has only ever worked 10 or so hours per week)

1/5 of that 30 years ago was way beyond what most people could do.
As an example, small 3 bed terrace in London suburbs cost me 87k. 2 of us working full time in professional jobs, mortgage cost over 1k pm over 30 years ago. We had no money for anything else, no outings, clothes, nothing. No carpets for years.
200k would have bought a mansion! So either your colleague is talking rubbish, or she was given a big helping hand.
I was fortunate in that I was able to live at home and save for a deposit, and you could buy with a 5% deposit. DH was not able to pay rent and save at the same time, much like now.
The issue now is that bigger deposits are required, which take longer to save, fair rents disappeared decades ago, transport and energy are increasingly expensive and the supply of housing outstrips demand. Mortgage rates going up are scary when you have a mortgage of 200k or so..I recall rates going up to 16% and feeling sick. Having to let out rooms in the house to cover the mortgage. Cutting short maternity leave.
I still think it's harder now, I look at my sons and their contemporaries and wonder how they will ever have their own homes unless they disperse around the country to cheaper areas.
And then how will cities function if no one can afford to live in them?

Us oldies really were the lucky generation. Though I grew up in absolutely grim poverty, I got a free university education, was paid to do an MA, have had a good professional career and excellent pension. We have renovated several houses and now sitting on a small fortune. I know my DC and their peers can't have anything like this - all we can do is help our DC buy property.

Here we go again. But not just common or garden boomer bashing this time, now we're looking forward to them all dying 🙄

@DelphiniumBlue - I don’t think she’s bluffing. According to Zoopla, a neighbour with a similar house bought theirs for around the same price in the early 2000s. I have no idea about the condition of either property at the time of sale. Either way, whether she actually paid £180K or £200K or £220K then, to be making a profit of £800K now is still huge and not to be repeated by anyone 10+ years younger!

Come on. It's not a matter of personal blame, just a dispassionate look at how housing is in this country. As you can see, I'm not counting on the boomers dying to make things better, we need to be proactive before then.

Anyone who bought a house in the 70s or 80s paid through the nose in terms of mortgage repayments. Our cost of living was sky high, we just had to suck it up and do without the extras. I don't agree we were the lucky generation, we simply had different problems. The biggest issue just now seems to be the large deposits that are required: how is anyone supposed to save 10-15k or more for a house deposit, while still paying rent and other living expenses.

200k in 93 is the same as over 520k in todays money. Take into account the huge interest rates folks lived through and the cost of maintenance, I think you’re off in your assessment.

This is similar for my parents who bought in South Dublin in the early 80's - a 4 bed detached house for less than £40k (old Irish pounds), these houses are now selling for about €750k - €800k 😱

My mother stayed at home with us, so it was just based on my dad's wage, he had a good job but he wasn't senior management or anything. Yes the interest rates were higher, but the capital amount was much lower, and my parents were able to buy the house on one salary, we had two cars, foreign holidays abroad etc.

Also, both my parents both left school at 14, had no further education. Me and my siblings have degrees etc. but will never be able to afford the kind of lifestyle that my parents had. It's a bit depressing.

These threads are so middle class. Hardly anyone one owned a home where I grew up, they lived in council houses. When it became a bit easier to buy something in the late 80s/ early 90s they bought 2 up 2 down terrace houses or if doing well, a 3 bed semi. This was up north in an unfashionable area. Millions of boomers worked in jobs that ceased to exist in the 80s in areas where those industries weren’t replaced. I don’t hear anyone enviously eyeing up their lives.

I’ve managed to get a better education, better work and a better home than the generations before me because of the opportunities that became available to working class people in the 90s/00s.