Retired parents UPSIZING house

[toastlover100]

I’m pretty sure IABU.

My parter and I are late 20s, renting, good careers but still waiting for salaries to increase much.

We are engaged and trying to save for a very small wedding, we know we could just go the registry office but that’s not what we want.

We are also trying to save a house deposit, but it’ll take a long time on current earnings. Hoping to maybe get there by mid thirties.

We would love to have children in the next couple of years but the likelihood is we will still be in our rented flat.

My parents are retired from reasonable jobs but never high earning at all. Through some luck, paying off their mortgage, house price rises, they are about to buy a house worth around a million. This is a huge upsizing.

AIBU to begrudge them this?
We are struggling to make any headway financially, spending thousands a year on rent, wanting a family but not being in the right position etc, whilst my parents are about to spend a huge amount of savings I didn’t know they had to upsize to a large family home they really don’t need.

And plenty of people can't. I don't know why you refuse to see that.

I had to do the school run, sometimes more than one school, on my way to work.

I can't imagine it would have gone down well for me to walk 2+miles there and the same back to collect my car to go to work (a journey that could take up to an hour in heavy traffic!) for 9am!!!!!

That's pretty dramatic!!!

I don't think that's the case at all. I just think there's more awareness.

Neither do I. Which is why I sank my income into my children to equip them with an education and the ability to achieve a good career to enable them to stand on their own two feet!

You can't take the knickers off a bare arse. We invested in them as they were growing up; they can't have it twice.

I will absolutely not downsize now to allow them to buy a house. We are still supporting them. They still need to have their rooms at home.

We have a decent amount of equity in our home. We are still paying a mortgage, albeit small because we needed to remortgage a number of years ago. That sum is only ours if we sell, and if we sell, because house prices have risen so much, we would need all of it to buy a lesser house?! What would be the fucking sense in that?!!

What I am failing to understand is how the OP's parents can upsize from the proceeds of their previous property?

Of course also the OP has pissed off and isn't responding to posts, so we don't even know why her parents have decided to upsize in the first place!! For all we know they could be taking granny in!!

You wish

Renting for life is fine in countries where there is loads of social housing, or where there are really strict controls on how private renting works. In Singapore, I think the majority of the population rents in social housing; it works just fine for Singapore. In the UK, we have a different setup altogether, and people who are still renting when they retire are likely to be in an unstable position in old age.

Will the monthly amount also be enough to pay for added carers, home help and increased medical costs when you are elderly? If not, you'd be wiser to keep some money aside for that.

That is still the case in the country I grew up in and where my parents lived. Even elderly people are dependent on the private rental market. I'm not sure when 'renter' became a dirty word.

I help my children a lot but I don't feel I owe them help with a house deposit. I have no expectation that my children help me out with my home in old age. Why would I? I have no more right to expect that than they have to expect childcare and house deposits from me. I'd downsize to something manageable. I can't imagine wanting to upsize to a million dollar home but having a high value home doesn't seem like such a bad investment in older age. It would give me something to liquidate to pay for the help I need rather than putting that on my children who will ideally be busy living them own very full lives.

YABU. I know it’s really hard to save and purchase a house. I saved for over a decade before I bought mine. I saved longer than I technically had to because I wanted something nicer (still >50 years old, unit etc but in a nice location that works for my job, and a place I like and fits my needs looking forward the next 20 years). I did this on my own. No help from the parents, no inheritances etc., no dual income. Just me.

it’s been hard, and just as I’ve stopped saving and started paying - interest rates have tripled.

But I’d be so happy if my parents were able to upscale to have a nice place. Because I care about them as well. Do they need a nice place? Well no - but neither do I. It’s really hard to not a first home, much harder now than it used to be. But also, it’s true that many people are entering the property market a lot higher up it than their parents or grandparents did.

Instead of confronting your parents or asking them to give you money (I presume that’s your point, they shouldn’t have a nice house they should take a cheap one and give you the money), work on your own savings plan. Where can you save? Where can you earn? An expensive wedding seems like a great place to start. Can you house share now to cut your rent? Can you pick up a second job each to bring in a little money for your housing fund?

Then start looking at what can you buy that’s more achievable. Do you need to consider working/living in a cheaper city? Are you aiming too high with the property type?

That’s an excellent point. If you expect your parents to exchange their retirement savings for your house deposit, it’s reasonable for them to expect that you’ll use that house to care for them when they need help.

I think this sums up a common attitude. Most of this generation have had pretty sad and depressing lives. They worked hard but didn't enjoy their day to day lives or save much much but thanks to the property boom now it's their time to really live and live it up cruising, Florida, whatever.

I hope I'm secure and happy enough pass on something to my DC long before I kick it and they're already too old at 60 or so to really use it. Attitudes really seem to change as you age so who knows 😂

I think attitudes do change. For me, it's because I'm only just starting to see what is ahead with financially very poorly prepared for old age parents. I find this a scary prospect.

This also makes me think about my own eventual old age and not being like them. I don't want my children to be in the position I am now with my parents, so the ability to provide for my own care and help in old age is on my mind. Assets suddenly seem more important. Just not something I've thought about much until recently.

Sorry but is most certainly the case. I see it all the time as a healthcare professional.

@rainingsnoring but it isn't new. What IS new is a change in attitudes, which I think the current generation of people under 40 should be applauded for. People are encouraged to talk, to seek help. 40 years ago, you would have been more likely to have been shamed, told to get ove it etc. There was no workplace support at all. Mental illness was an embarrassment, a weakness. It was very certainly there, but for generations, we were taught the 'stiff upper lip' - you don't talk about it, you get on with it, you'll be mocked if you say anything.

Of course mental illness is not new and yes it has become more acceptable to talk about it. However, the rates have increased massively, especially in children/ young people. It is shocking. It has been getting worse but certainly increased even more as a result of the pandemic lockdowns.

It's more complicated than that, we lived pretty frugally to be able to afford a house, didn't have the holidays/beauty treatments/new kitchens/bathrooms/new cars etc and still don't, and less than 15 years later doing the same things would not get us to the same place as the cost of housing has soared in comparision to wages. So we could be just as careful, and we wouldn't be able to buy a house now and definitely wouldn't have been able to move into somewhere bigger.

It's because renting now is so expensive and insecure. When we were kids, there was a lot more social housing, it's cheaper than private rentals and back then came with lifetime tenancies. Now it's mostly private rentals as council housing is nearly impossible to get, and they are so expensive. The ones near me have gone up by 60% in 15 years. Wages haven't kept up with that. And with private landlords, you are at the mercy for rent rises and tenancies being terminated as they are selling the property. Their mortgages have gone up and they are having to pass the increase on.

Renting was more insecure in the past. At least there are tenant protections now. When I was a preschooler and they had a baby, my parents were given one week notice to leave. They were one day off being homeless and having to live in the car with us when they found a new place. You just can't do that now. There were no lifetime tenancies where we were then. It was all private rentals. Tenants have it much better now. They have rights at least, which is a good thing.

As far as I am aware, you still can get lifetime tenancies (secure) in social housing.

I'm sorry your parents had to go through that. I'm glad that there's more protection for tenants now. The main difference now is the expense and the lack of social housing. It's the social housing tenancies that are the most reasonably priced and secure.

Not everyone had access to social housing in the past.

There's an unrealistic view of the past in some younger people that just isn't reality, unless people were well off (like it sounds like a number of people's parents in this thread were). One day their kids will turn around the tell them how easy they had it.

Honestly I don't see what you are even trying to say here. The OP was about parents who have upsized to a million pound house while their kid can't afford to buy at all and is stuck in insecure rented accommodation which is obviously going to be way more expensive than a mortgage so now presumably can't afford to save a deposit. So will likely continue in insecure accomodation indefinitely. Are you saying that in this case because some people in the past got given 1 weeks notice that tough luck, young people today should have to suck up the same? What is your point? The OPs parents are hardly struggling themselves they have just bought a MILLION pound house.
In their position I would absolutely have bought a 950k house and helped out my child with 50k for a deposit. Im genuinely shocked so many wouldn't.

@rainingsnoring yes, understood but what I am trying to say is that whilst you can use that as a comparison with pre-Covid, you cannot realistically compare with a time period when people simply didn't acknowledge mental health issues, especially not in children. We weren't seeking advice from medical professionals about it. That isn't the same as 'there is more depression now'.

When I was a kid, the backdrop to my childhood was the IRA and the cold war. I had massive anxiety about the 4 minute warning, to the point where I had planned a route to a friend's house because she had a cellar. At the age of 14, we had a bomb scare at the shop where I worked on Saturdays. We were outsides for 3 hours, turned out it was a car with Irish number plates that broke down. The owner went to get help and came back to find his boot had been blown up by the bomb squad. I had nightmares about men in balaclavas for weeks. If it was today, I would have spoken to a teacher about my disproportionate anxiety, or my parents. I might have been referred for counselling. In the 80s, I was laughed at and told not to be silly when I mentioned it, so I kept my mouth shut and lived with it.

You didn't see kids in healthcare settings for MH unless it was attempted suicide or self harm and even then it was more usual for families to try to deal with it in private, because there was still a massive stigma around it. So you can't possibly say there are more instances of MH in children than at any time during the boomer/gen X years because we weren't the generations that understood how to respond to it. It's a bit like those people who say, 'we didn't have all this ADHD back in the day'. Yes. We did. We just branded the kids as naughty and shouted at them. One hell of a lot was just shoved under the rug.

Attitudes really seem to change as you age so who knows

Yes. When I had a young child and the chances of having another baby were slim, I thought that if my dd had a child, it would be wonderful to look after it. I was 33 at the time and my dgd was born when I was 60, with a lot less energy. I also found out that looking after someone else's baby was not as easy as looking after my own.

I think the same thing goes for all those people saying that they would give up lots of luxuries to help their children become home-owners.

Maybe after some twenty-years of never being able to leave the house spontaneously without having organised babysitters, perhaps working in jobs they hated and having limited holidays because the cost for a family of four is twice the cost for a couple and if you have small children or teenagers, you try to find somewhere they will like, which might not be so much to your own taste.

And then they reach retirement age and, to tell the truth, there is not much of a future in being over 60...

Everyone has a different reality, of course. I loved being a mother and have had the good fortune of jobs I really enjoy.