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 bought a house for my son with the view that he buys it off me in the future when Ive paid down the mortgage and its increased in value so it has even more equity which I will “gift” to him and when he earns enough to get the equivalent mortgage. 5-10 year plan

My other son bought a shared ownership place which has worked out very well. I gifted him the deposit.

Far more help than my parents ever gave me.

Council tax already assigns bands depending on the property’s value so that’s being done.

Valuations from when?

@Densol57 - just don’t get caught out by CGT when you gift the house.

RosaGallica
You've got no justification for your hateful vitriol. You are literally deluded.

This gets to me too. I have a higher salary than both my parents did and it gets me about a quarter (if that) as far.

How do you mean out of curiosity?

Just had a look on rightmove. Most of the houses in 3 miles are new or old over 1m. Big though 4 or 5 bed detached. Semi are about 650k plus. 1 bed houses or apartments about 250k. Loads of building but they are high end.

Out of interest, so have I.

In my village, there is a 1-bed maisonette for £147K, a 2-bed apartment for £165K, and a 2-bed end-of-terrace with garden and carport for £195K.

In the local town there are over 30 1- and 2-bed flats, maisonettes, and apartments currently for sale for £100K and under.

this is in Southern England and just about commutable to London. People do.

I bought my house around 2008. It’s now worth less than it was when I bought it. The only upside is I’m now mortgage free due to an inheritance. I’d love to upgrade to a house with better facilities - like an extra bathroom/toilet - but on our town to do that it would cost about 3 times what my house is worth and my part time salary and being a single parent there’s no chance. I bought an older property - 1906 terrace - so no space for adding any more space to it. Small 3 bed. Some on the street are 2 bed but basically the same house. But we are in the older original part of the town which has expanded massively with new builds. They’re ridiculously priced compared to ours and don’t actually look massively bigger except for them all having at least 2 toilets!!

This was my 3rd house purchase since graduating. First one o did make some money off but paid off student loans with the profit as didn’t want to invest in a joint property as the only investor. Should never have paid off those loans though as they’d probably have been written off by now due to low income. Second house purchase made zero profit as we didn’t stay long and relocated. Basically we sold it for pretty much what we bought it for - a few quod more which paid solicitors etc.

My parents divorced and both own/ed property. When my DF died my half has laid off my mortgage. My DM currently lives in a bungalow bigger than what she needs but can’t really downsize as there are no smaller properties suitable - she’s disabled so needs a bungalow. She even has people knocking and putting messages through asking if she would want to sell as her priority is so desirable. It’s worth a decent amount but we are in the NE so no where near worth as much as the same property down south.

Interestingly the property I sold in the NW to relocate was an identical property to one a relative recently sold in the NE but in a really desirable city centre location and was worth a good 3 times what I paid.

@celticprincess It sucks, doesn’t it. Our house is worth slightly more than when we bought it, because we’ve sunk huge amounts of money into it-new roof, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new patio, etc. We’ve spent far more on it in 15-off years than we’ll recoup. We were lucky to be able to buy it, of course, but it’s certainly not our pension pot.

House prices have kept going up and up far exceeding wage increases since we have been looking to buy. Just before we were serious about it (probably around 2000) we could have afforded something but by the time we saved a deposit the prices had gone up. My parents said they would come back down again (they ended up with negative equity on their first house as the housing market crashed) but they never did. We are lucky enough to live in a council house but in the 10 years we have lived there it's value has gone up by over 65% so we couldn't even afford to buy that.
You hear a lot about childcare being too expensive but the real problem is housing is too expensive which doesn't really get talked about.

Hey at @Molehillminnie and @DelphiniumBlue - actually I think that is example is a relatively poor one. If you want to be really horrified: I bought my first property in 1998 for £140k, sold it 2005 for £250k, bought next house 2005 for £500k, sold 2013 for 1.25mil. That’s where my luck ended as I now own a proper money pit but I know that I am/was very very lucky. In 15 ish years I’ll be selling my house to free up cash to provide my kids with deposits - can’t see any other way of them getting on the ladder.

Why is WFH only for people with younger kids? Surely someone couldn’t look after their kids while working from home anyway, because they wouldn’t be able to fully engage with their job? Obviously emergencies happen so on the odd occasion I assume would be ok

That's exactly why a lot of customer service quality has nose dived.

I've had the misfortune to need to call insurance companies, HMRC, the local council, etc., on numerous occasions over the past couple of years, and most times, the service is abysmal, whether it's dogs barking in the background or kids crying (with the obligatory "shut up" shouts from the customer service assistant!), or the doorbell ringing, etc. It's a nightmare because they're clearly not listening/concentrating, so you have to keep repeating yourself, and even when you think you've got the message across and they agree to do something, a few days later, it's not been done and you have to go through it all again with yet another "WFH" shouting at their dog/kids!

I don't know who wfh with young dc, it would be impossible for most.

Oh I dunno I'm a random stranger and I can't say I'm very keen.

How were boomers who got lucky supposed to know how the economy would pan out 50 years down the line?

I don't think anyone is criticising boomers for getting lucky. The criticism I read tends to be over their voting tendencies*

*this does not mean every boomer votes the same way.

I’m a boomer as is DH and we’ve never voted anything but Labour, and voted remain. We shouldn’t all be tarred with the same brush, but we definitely are being from some quarters.

I knew that even if I put in a caveat that would be the response 🤣🤣🤣

Saying that older voters were more likely to vote for Brexit & the Tories does not equal every older person votes that way 🙄

@watersprites - you are dead right. We spend more on pensions than on education. That is what people should be enraged about because, having a good education is essential to a good life. People who are on the verge of retirement have had those opportunities to make money, particularly via property prices.

Inflation linked pensions but nothing for teachers and cuts to education budgets. We are a gerentocracy. Societies that prioritize the old over the young start to fail and stagnate. We don't spend money publicly on children enough, and it shows. Look at our society after COVID. Still preserving old conservatives and inflation linked pensions. Mad.

Societies that prioritize the old over the young start to fail and stagnate.

yep and education doesn't just benefit the individual but wider society!! And then you have constant articles about the UKs productive issue 🤔

30 years ago £200k was a lot of money in respective terms, 27 years ago my friends parents bought a house roughly for that and it’s now worth about 1M.

i bought my first house 20 years ago and took me and my husband 3 years of living with parents and living like a hermit to save a 15% deposit. I declined a cheap holiday of a lifetime which I partly regret still.

However, I agree she’s overall talking rubbish it is nigh impossible now unless you have a huge injection of cash from somewhere. The multiples are way off and first time purchases are ridiculous and it’s hard to pay off any of the capital.

If someone goes to Uni or has an average salary I don’t know how they do it. It would be impossible for me now to do it with what my salary would have been and what I could have saved.

i really feel if people cannot afford to buy where are their dreams, aspirations and a feel of a stake in society.

Build more decent bungalows, let the house prices drop (yes even mine), and decent family homes.

I find it really quite sad because it seems such a waste.
Why should housing be just such a huge proportion of outgoings. Think what we could all do with extra money not wasted on mortgages or rent.
Could invest in more sustainable technology, greener food production, more free time to care for family and enjoy sports and life.

I guess times just change.
Decades ago, the ratio of salary to mortgage was much smaller. And it was likely to afford a house off one person's salary.

The issue is the ratio of average salary to house price. And amount people are able to save vs necc outgoings for bills and food.

Tough times atm.