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!

YABU because it's cyclical. People went through 5+ years of negative equity in the 1990s (properties were worth less than their mortgage) and a further 10 years of stagnant, depressed prices after that. I was one of the thousands who lost their homes during that period. I was also one whose first mortgage, in the early 80s, was at 13.5% interest.

Yes, a lot of things are different now. But that's the point: things change, markets adjust. Think about how much has changed in the last 15 years. You've got that much change again to come before you're in a position to compare your position with your neighbour's!

Many 'boomers' bought when house prices were 3x Median Salary.... it's now closer to 9x Median Salary.

I note that the first few posts moaning about the costs of property were London and the SE, Bath, Solihull, ...
So houses in expensive areas are expensive? No shit, Sherlock.

May I remind you that the Boomer generation were told to "get on their bikes" (relocate to find work) by Norman Tebbit. We were the ones who had UB40 singing "One in Ten" (i.e. 10% of us were unemployed).
And as for SAHM, do you realise how difficult it was to find childcare back then - I don't mean how expensive, I mean it hardly existed.
It wasn't all sunshine back then.

We bought our first home in 1989. Interest rates were 15% (we negotiated a fixed interest rate at 13%). Big difference between now and then was the fact that we secured a 100% mortgage so no deposit required. We paid 110,000 for a Victorian 2 up 2 down terrace in South Wimbledon. We then went into negative equity for about 8 years. We finally sold in 1998 for 166,000. That same property sold for 750,000 in 2015 (they had a loft conversion for a 3rd bedroom, but still). Anyway, those are starter homes. I have no idea how a young couple could get a deposit together for that amount of money.

Btw, done let 'Wimbledon' fool you. South Wimbledon is not great at all. The only bonus is that it's walking distance to the Northern Line tube station.

It's bloody stupid.

We bought our house for 24k over 20 years ago. Dp worked in a supermarket, I was a SAHM. We've never had a huge income but have benefitted massively from an affordable home meaning weve always had a good amount of disposable income. Our kids have always had holidays and experiences, theyve never had to go without. That scenario would be impossible now, low paid workers are fucked and in an endless cycle of paying somebody else's mortgage and scraping by. Even more ridiculous that somebody who has paid rent for years still has to find a.deposit.

Also my mother bought her house in 78 in a goodish area for £5000......she was a low paid single mother with 4 dc but again the fact our Housing costs were low even when interest rates spiralled meant we benefitted. There wasn't a lot of money to go around but we always had holidays and days out.

Kids being born into my situation now are in much more dire circumstances, housing prices have been allowed to spiral when they should have been capped years ago.

@SunRainStorm

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!!!

Well, aren't you sounding like mardy cow! It's bugger all to do with you what houses people want to buy and if you're fed up being outbid constantly then go in higher in the first place.

And given the number of grandparents who are now full-time custodians of their grandkids during school holidays etc. there's probably more 'retired' people out there who now genuinely need the additional bedrooms. I know of some grandparents who retired, down-sized, had 4 grandchildren in succession and up-sized again to accommodate the sudden increase in family size.

Boomer basher, who wants us all dead within 20 years. I take your parents don't own. If you were my kid I'd tell you to stfu with your attitude and no you aren't in the will either.

Twaddle! I spent 6 months eeking out our minute budget feeding the 2 of us for 50p a meal! The interest rate was 15%. My DH was on £200 per month and I earnt £180 per month. Our mortgage payments were nearly £280 per month, the rest went on utilities and food.
We were lucky that on Sundays my DH's aunt and uncle fed us tea with their large family. We will always be grateful and pay that back to younger generations now.

I don’t think basic maths is ‘twaddle’.

What was the size of your mortgage? 15% on say £100k is lower than 6% on £300k. How long were you paying 15%?

I don’t disagree it will have been a hard few years, but right now young families can’t buy at all, so will be struggling all their lives with no retirement.

The poster was writing about how she lived there for 8 years, so I imagine she's aware of the location.

My parents' bought their first house for £16k back in 1980. It needed a lot of work and they spent a further £10k on it. It sold for £630k in 2019 so goodness knows what it would be worth now.

Whereas I've just been forced to sell my house (because my husband died, I couldn't secure a new fixed rate alone and I can no longer afford the variable rate mortgage) at a £55k loss.

🙃

I do feel for the older generations who missed the boat. My mum (born in 65 on the boomer-gen x border) never got on the property ladder and has rented all her life, and is in no better position now than she was 40 years ago except that now she can't buy and the rents are obscene. The ever ratcheting of house prices doesn't just hurt the younger generations.

I have a great deal of sympathy with those currently trying to get on the house-buying ladder these days. I have family who are both struggling even though both sets of parents work. One is on the ladder, but for a teeny weeny house and the other hasn't a hope.

I'm a baby-boomer, born in the early 50's and I do want to say though, that not every baby boomer has it all and are somehow 'lucky'. Yes, there were some advantages to being born when I was - but lots of disadvantages too.

For one thing when I got married in the early 70's, and if you were renting ( as we were), we didn't expect to have everything immediately, like people do today. Lots of people didn't have washing machines for example. I didn't have one until my first child came along. No telephone for years is another one. No tumble dryer....the list goes on. It was different times. We made do and had second hand things until we could afford to get the things we wanted. It's what many, many people did then and no-one thought anything of it. Especially if you were trying to get on the property ladder

I'm not suggesting for one second that people should go back to having to live like that ( although there are many who sadly, do have to live like that, still, nowadays), but there are so many more things nowadays which people, reasonably, consider are a must in their homes: Freezers, microwaves, Broadband, washing machines, tumble dryers... and again the list goes on. Life is different to back then and I wish people would stop trying to compare or compete as to who has/had it best.

We do now have a house. Cost us £97k in 2004 and now worth about £180k. It's a 3 bed semi with a very small garden. The previous house we had which we sold in 2004 was an end of terrace house for £75K. As baby boomers, we are absolutely not rolling in it and never will be.

My one piece of 'luck' was I got a reasonable Occupational pension by sticking to a Public Service job I absolutely hated for years. But although we are now retired, we are still quite hard up and do have to watch the pennies, as our pensions were nowhere near 'gold-plated' which people think they were.

Most people seem to think it was easy to buy a house back in the day. We bought a small terraced house in a pretty rough area for £9,000 on a 25 year mortgage in 1976, it was absolutely the maximum we could afford, and even then we borrowed some of the (10% I think it was) deposit and we were absolutely broke, every penny was spent at the end of the month, we didn't have a TV for about 5 years. I don't know where people were buying 4 bedroom houses on one modest salary at the time.

Why do people go on and on about boomers having it all and how lucky we were? It's not our fault!!

Sorry, hit send! We struggled too, maybe in different ways, but we did! What exactly do you want us to do, sell our houses for 1/4 of their worth just so someone else can get a bargain??

Really, what do you want us to do?

I was the 'poster'. I was emphasizing that 750,000 for that area is astonishing. 😉

Of course it's unfair and unless the Bank of Mum and Dad can help then it's very hard for the young. The combined salary requirement now makes it very hard to buy. Older generations did not have to face that issue and, and got inflation linked pay rises.

Also it's not a bunch of laughs getting old with a crumbling NHS and little social care. Older people will be selling to meet those care needs. Look after yourself.

Short list of things boomers could do (and many already do, to be fair):

• Stop voting for policies that make new house building harder or existing homes more expensive
• Not buy second or third homes
• Admit that while you undoubtedly had struggles, boomers collectively owning 75% of the housing wealth is a bit unfair

Many of us have acknowledged that it was circumstance rather than people 'taking advantage' as such. However, we also take umbrage at the attitude that is still held by many older people that we just need to 'work harder and stop buying avocados' and we will get the lifestyle that they have. It's not that people today aren't willing to work hard, it's that the fruit of their labour doesn't get you as much.

Another anecdote comes to mind - I worked in an insurance company a few years ago, we had a company day where some of the senior management talked about their career progression etc. One of the Managing Directors (who was a lovely guy in his 50's) spoke about how he had joined the company as an intern at 16 straight from school and worked his way up.
That kind of social mobility in jobs is just not possibly anymore - that same company still accepted interns, however they all had to have a degree to even get through the door.

I’m always annoyed by these threads - I know, why read them then?

This thread is like the one the other day asking why some people’s lives are just rosy and other’s shit.

I bought late 80s at the peak. So 2 years after, our home had lost 30% of its value and our mortgage rate had gone up to 15.75%. Friends around us were also in negative equity and a couple lost their homes. For us, two professional jobs with one income just paying the mortgage and the other paying the bills. After 11 years and an extension, we sold for the same price as we originally paid.

Yes, house prices have sky rocketed in previous years but we didn’t all get on the gravy train.

I truly feel sorry for our children. I can’t see them ever getting on the ladder during my life time. I guess I just have to be thankful that when I die (assuming I haven’t gone into a care home), there maybe a house to sell for their inheritance.

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.

This in a nutshell. It is just a massive blind spot for people in this position, isn't it? I see so many people retired on massive pensions, with loads of equity. Being late into the buying houses thing (single, took until 40s to save deposit), I know I will be working into my 70s.

attitude that is still held by many older people that we just need to 'work harder and stop buying avocados' and we will get the lifestyle that they have.

It's not 'many' it's 'some'. Not a single person I know holds those views. And the people I hear using the term 'snowflakes' are the late 20's to early 30's rather than older people.

I, and many of my peers, have released equity on our homes to give to our children. It still won't help them get a mortgage though if they are single on an average income.