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 not far off 40 and have just managed to buy a one-bed flat in a not that nice part of South London. To do this, I've had to scrimp and save for several years and give up on the idea of kids. In another thread people are acting like I somehow have this amazing life and shouldn't aspire to more because it's greedy, despite the fact that I earn over £65K a year and can't ever afford to order takeaways or buy a nice bag if I also want a holiday or two every year. I'm on nearly twice the London average with no dependents!

I think some people are just in total denial about how hard it is to buy anything at all these days, even if you earn way over the average salary.

But that's the same in every generation. Your grandparents would have thought having an indoors toilet was incredibly posh. Everyone rented cassettes back then or recorded songs off the radio.

This kind of post comes off as so incredibly tone deaf. I was flat sharing until I was in my mid thirties. I'd have happily lived without a table and hung my clothes on hooks if it meant not having to share a kitchen with five other people who never washed their dishes and not being woken up by people bringing back one night stands from Tinder.

Most people just desperately want their own space much more than they need anything fancy. I could have cried with happiness the first time I was able to rent a one-bed flat on my own. Being able to go for a shower whenever I felt like it, without having to wait. Being able to cook in the kitchen without having to make small talk with near strangers. Having more than half a shelf of space in the fridge.

You just have no idea. Your idea of hardship is still an unattainable dream for so many people.

This. So utterly depressing.

Having a shelter or home is a fundamental human need. I'm not sure why it's so expensive. It's ridiculous.

You are talking about London property prices though. In my part of the country on your salary you would easily be able to afford a 2 bedroom flat in a nice area.

Why will she be dead then??? My parents lived to an average age of just over 100. She may have many decades yet!

The house she bought for £200k is presumably not in the same condition as the house she's selling for a mill. She'll have spent extortionate amounts of money on it over the years.

If you're all 15 years younger than her you're 35, so have you been renting for years? That's where the problem sits. Lots of people used to live at home until they could afford to buy.

Yep.. ignorance and twattery, beautifully illustrated.

I will be grateful when that generation starts to die off, they have been collectively abusive. Not much worse you can say about people than the world will be a better place when they are gone.

I’ve seen a lot of hateful remarks about people 60 and over but I think this comment tops them all, it must be awful to have so much hate inside you for a whole generation of people just getting on with their lives.

@SomethingFun is right. The working class experience in the last 30 years has been very different to the middle class one. I see that in my own family.

My relatives who were low waged in the 80s/90s are far better off today, through a combination of economic growth, better public sector pay, cheap credit, stable council house rents or house prices matching wages when they did buy.

The next generation of w/c kids won’t be so well off as their parents though, similar to how m/c twenty somethings are now faring. The only people we know who can manage comfortably are our relatives who live in a very cheap part of N Wales.

The house she bought for £200k is presumably not in the same condition as the house she's selling for a mill. She'll have spent extortionate amounts of money on it over the years.

how do you work that out?

Jesus Christ what a fucking awful ageist post. Well maybe after working so hard you’ll wear yourself out and die before the boomers do.

Shame on you, awful bloody post.

I was born in 1965 so about the same age as your colleague.

There are now 18 million more people living in the UK than there was the year I was born. This means the demand for housing will increase. It isn't because baby boomers did anything wrong.

If millenials and gen x want to make money to invest for retirement instead of looking at property they are going to have to look at other things such as stocks and shares, ISAs and pensions. You can make as much profit from them as you can from property. Focus on that. Focus on what you CAN do, rather than being bitter about something you can't do because being bitter won't achieve anything.

It's deliberate isn't it? Both Tory and Labour governments built up to 300k council houses per annum after WW2. I think MacMillans Tory government holds the record iirc. This has the effect of keeping price rises within the bounds of sanity.

Thatcher and succeeding administrations started selling them and stopped building. Now many MPs have nice fat property portfolios. Why would they want houses to be more affordable?

Property left empty should be taxed. Ditto land with planning permission deliberately left idle. Instead of which useful work is taxed.

It's true that the price of housing has increased far quicker than wages have increased so it is a lot harder to save the amounts needed for a deposit. But there is a lot of resentment and even hatred for 'boomers' who have benefited from the lower house prices.
Having said that when I cleared out my Dad's house after he passed away i found receipts he had kept from the 1970s. The price of some goods then are similar to what you could pay now or fairly recently: furniture, electrical appliances well over £100, second hand car £2000. There wasn't the choice of cheaper alternatives then and as tech has improved and expanded it has reduced in price . So whilst he died having owned a now expensive house- they weren't living the life of Riley that some people make out.

not necessarily. I’ll try and find the video on in.

but essentially there is the risk those with small businesses they may fold when the owners die/retire or they get sold off.

coupled with the cost of care towards end of life, those that are very well off will be fine, the middle may not have much left to transfer and those who are not home owners kids will likely be locked out of ownership all together.

Also there is the issue that wealth transfers will happen at the point when a lot of people are nearing retirement age, a point where the extra income wouldn’t help with Things like child care costs, education and providing a leg up on the job market, it’s to late.

this has economic consequences and will likely be an issue on its own.

it’s not going to be going 20 year olds getting a wad of cash to buy a house/take risks to improve their lot with

It's true that things were different. When we got our first house 1990 it was very strict about regs around who could get a mortgage, we bought in the high interest rates period and our mortgage for a 65 grand house was 850 to 1000 pm. We had furniture from family and the carpets in the house we bought. We didn't have functioning central heating and the only thing we got new was a kitchen ikea cutlery pack and a second hand washing machine. And we were young professionals had been working five years. We had to sell with negative equity as the prices came down three years later.
I say this as my daughter thinks we had everything abd had it so easy - it was normal then to rent a tv and not get new things. Electrical appliances and sofas etc were incredibly expensive abd we just had to wait or have second hand.
I sympathise with the poor rental options atm and the price of houses but at the same time expectations have changed and there does seem to be a sense of entitlement and hatred for boomers. I'm in the Gen X edge of boomer age 60.

Because generally people dont live in houses for 30 years and do nothing to them...

But properties cannot become more "affordable" without crashing the economy, most people can't afford a 200k house & in many areas of the country, a house cannot be built for that (land, materials and labour costs)

Its irrelevant how many are built if they are too expensive to either buy or rent.

What we need is more council housing (not housing associations) its the only solution, it is what we had to do in the past and its the way forward now, the tragedy is neither Tory or Labour are proposing this, Labour hasn't even criticised the recent Renters reform bill which still allows no fault evictions.

Nor are planning on dropping the ridiculous EPC rules the Tories have introduced, rents are going through the roof because of this, as LLs sell to avoid or pass costs on to renters.

I am 57 and have worked in London all of my life but I don't live there. I have got up at 5 am each day and got home at 8pm. I am female with grown up children.
We owned our first flat in 1988, and sold in negative equity. We had twenty good years then we lost our home in 2009. We spent 14 years in rentals paying more than our previous mortgage. The total was £412k in rent. We couldn't save enough to buy again until this year.
We inherited nothing. We are both graduates. Both council house kids.
Our children grew up not being able to put a poster up or paint their walls. Every spring we would be given notice to quit so the incidental landlord could 'try the market'. We had 8 weeks to find another home. With two disabled family members that was really hard. We also needed another deposit and forward rent. Out of 9 landlords only two were decent.
The problem the housing market is the sheer number of landlords BTL. A pp said the competition for houses is full of speculators. Now there are queues for rentals and the much discussed rent caps have never been actioned. Why would they when so many politicians are landlords? We even have BBC TV programmes telling you to become one!
Ex council houses are usually bought BTL ( over 50% I believe) They shouldn't have been sold and that's where the problem lays. You had a council house as a newly wed and saved up and moved out. It was a badge of honour to move on.
Real social housing (Peabody, Bournville etc) cannot be sold.
We also have great swathes of London empty as the houses are owned by non doms. I not talking pants, my friend has no neighbours on either side or opposite. She is one of the few millionaires I know who pays her taxes. Wtf are we doing about such wealth? nothing. The boys have another year and they don't give a shit.
My son and his girlfriend house share in London, they are coming home next month to save for a deposit. They will have a bigger commute but they can wfh. They also know any nursery place will cost them 50% of their salary for three years. I believe that is why the birth rate is dropping. That is what will make the difference to outside of London homes. It is a good thing for families because I never saw mine.
However my DD is gen Z and they have a different attitude. They are driving social change. They are super green, buy little luxuries unless secondhand and are very politically aware. They also seem to be more attuned to a level playing field for all. Perhaps that is when things will change? Mine will inherit a little but not a lot. However they both have good career paths and are bargain hunters. They will also have student debt and for doctors, nurses etc that is wrong (I've got a med student) .

In contrast, my parents born in the 50s left school at 18, worked their way up in Civil Service jobs. Bought their first house in 1979 for £20k.... now is worth £800k+ and they are definitely doing alright on their enormous pensions. No one now could afford the property they bought at the same age in the same job.

It’s absolutely crazy. My dad is in his 70s and bought his 4 bed detached house when he was 20 for £1000. He just had a cash offer for £350k on it. The house we live in has increased in value £80k since we bought it - how mad that I couldn’t afford to buy my own house at today’s prices!

Thing that gets me is that these people also have no compassion for younger people. My 20 something year old sister has paid £300k for a modest terraced house and my mum (who bought her much bigger house for 80k and harped on about having to pay total household bills of £800 a month 😂) had no shits to give when I said I feel a bit sorry for them paying all that… because back in the 80s she had the super high interest rates 😂😂

Comparison is the thief of joy.
Everything is hard, no one gets it easy, it's all relative. Parents now 70's own 2 homes, through blood sweat and tears. I wouldn't and don't begrudge them anything.
DH and I built a home and completely maxed ourselves to the maximum we could physically borrow. We had to borrow 4K from my parents to complete the sale. We took a massive risk which is now paying off.
It's not as easy as you think behind closed doors.