Teenage reality hitting home

[Globules]

My teenagers will be voting their first GE.

We had a chat last night about it, and the conclusion they've come to is that their age group is screwed.

Uni loans, house prices, single life.

DS actually held his head in his hands recognising that his £30k house deposit is pointless until his salary is at a ridiculously high level to service a mortgage.

DD pointed out all of the parties are being silent on policies around their age group.

Whilst they have every right to feel negative about it all, they're optimistic beans. I was listening to them talking and feeling so despondent that life ahead looks so tough for them.

I was married aged 22. Bought our first house aged 24 on just my basic teacher salary (he was self employed, so he was a dependent). They just don't have the same outlook, do they?

I really feel for our under 25s. Just me?

Globules

What’s your DS’s career plan if buying is important to him? Retail management, something else, evening classes, university?

My own parents and I’m 55 couldn’t buy until I was seven and they both worked full time so why does he think he should be able to at 18 on minimum wage? It does seem quite entitled.

His age isn't relevant, minimum wage workers also deserve the opportunity to own a home.

I'm keeping my teenager at home until he's saved enough to get on the property ladder, it's pointless him moving out, I might chuck a caravan in the back garden for him or a summer house so he has his own place whilst saving here, then when he's buggered off just keep chucking the next in line one in. 🤣

Totally agree - our kids can't vote yet but I think a lot about how my mum said 'You'll become more right wing as you get older, you'll see' and the opposite has happened, largely as the future for our kids is such a mess. And we're the privileged ones, so how much worse must it be for others.

As I said, we're quite lucky, but we live in London and we'd need a spare 6-figure sum for each child in order to help them buy here already, which I can't see us having; right now the crappiest closet on the far edges of town costs a quarter of a million. Neither of our kids is the type to want a mega-paying City job, so they'll likely need some help. DH says, and sadly I agree, that we should advise the kids to leave the UK when they finish their education, as this country is heading into the bin on so many levels - not sure where I'd advise they go though.

It's unusual to be in a position to buy before 25 though isn't it and 30 seems more normal. I didn't know anyone in that position when young and I am in my 60s now. So hopefully your teens will be in careers and see salary rises by that age. My own kids are now in their 30s and both managed to buy neither with huge help or inheritance.

This is why we don't only vote for what benefits us personally. Young people should be politically aware and vote themselves if they can but also, and as far as I'm concerned, more importantly: we should all vote in what we consider to be the best interests of the majority, even if we don't fall into that category. But that just makes me a socialist..

Really....in some areas maybe....but in many areas?

Don’t encourage children to move abroad for good. They need to be encouraged to take responsibility for their country and lean in to improve it. That’s the whole point of having countries, a nationality, sovereign states.

Despite what some people might want we don’t live in a borderless world without belonging or obligations to nurture your environment.

People who say young people should just leave remind me of Margaret Thatcher, there’s no such thing as society. Kids and youth have to stay and work at improving this country so it gets better - for their sake and for their offspring.

What salary is acceptable for someone to be able to buy their own home?

And what salary is acceptable for a single person to buy their own home?

Do you think a single person should be able to buy their own home?

Hpuses cost so much in London (and some other areas) because people can afford them and buy them.

If people can't afford them, the prices come down.

And with council houses... People want them to be for life... but you need different housing at different times in your life.

I am in council housing and I've had the same property since I was 18, I'm now 34. You can swap properties with someone else if your needs change, it's pretty straightforward. Most of us just stay where we are and manage though.

Dd is 24 living in a house share working full time she seems unbothered about home ownership (I'm a lifelong renter) she works hard paying off her student loans has a social life and is generally content however she is voting and in the absence of policy that will benefit her she is voting on policy that will benefit me and her siblings

@Hereyoume By 'cheap dodgy flats' do you mean ones that are death traps? Dogdy electrics, converted garages with only one exit, boilers that are never serviced? So it's OK to allow human beings to live in these conditions so someone with an addiction to cash can get their fix?

Do you not realise how the cost of land is driving house price inflation? & guess who owns the land in the UK? A handful of people. But here we have the OP's son being asked to check HIS privilege.

NO OP it's not just you. I really feel for our younger generations. Those who spout that they just need to get used to renting will most definitely be home owners themselves. I will be looking very closely at the manifestos to see what they ARE doing for young generations but I suspect it will be very little. There will be money for the Triple Lock from all parties I guarantee. Climate change is here and it is disingenous to say the awareness has been consistent since the industrial revolution. The impact is cumulative; there is no way on earth someone living in 1890 would feel the same way as someone living in 2024, even for the simple fact of having an entirely different consumption relationship to news. Do you not also perchance think, the science was somewhat limited then?

What is it with the stupid comments on this thread today, is it something in the water addled their brains?

& no they absolutely do NOT have an obligation to fix the mess this country has become and stay. Children have been failed on a spectacular level in so many ways. We have collectively ignored their needs, think it's OK to let them learn in freezing, crumbling schools, deny them any mental health support because they are not deemed worthy of the investment, failed to protect them from the toxic developemental threat that is the mobile phone, SureStart gone, Youth clubs gone, opportunites to connect, dying, no personal accountability from the majority of authority figures they encounter. We expect children to put up with things that adults would not in a million years settle for. Like any bad relationship; if you are being ignored, then the wise thing to do is get the hell out of it. You reap what you sow. Let those who have voted for neo-liberal capitalism these last few decades now experience the consequence of that.

Your son is most definitely NOT alone and I am very hopeful that in the not too distant future his generation will mobilise and demand to be considered and will be heard. I'm definitely listening.

Agree with @CHIRIBAYA

The difference now for young people is whether or not they have family money behind them. Whether granny had a house and leaves them an inheritance, which i suspect the ops son has but still unsure.

Without family money, kids are fecked now.

It wouldn’t be so difficult to have a massive commitment to house building for the young and organise tons of building apprenticeships which then come with some soft of right to get a flat/house that you have indirectly or directly helped to build,
However, yes planning rights need to be relaxed and the nimbys shouldn’t have such a voice. Councils still have too much say over planning and they again pander to the old and middle aged who don’t want someone looking into their garden etc!

They have an obligation to fix it because of their age, this task will fall to them.

its increasingly unlikely older generations and especially those in leadership positions age 55, 60 upwards, can improve things. A small number of people but the odds are stacked against them. The young people sadly inherit the mess and will have to do as best as possible to fix it. If they all move abroad they’ll be nothing more than exiles in countries they have no belonging to, and nothing to go home to. And perhaps this won’t be unique to British youth.

'It's unlikely that those in leadership positiong can improve things'? What on earth are they doing in leardership positions then? So older generations are absolved from any responsibility for fixing things but perfectly happy to accrue the benefits that politically skewed agendas deliver to THEIR cohort? Sorry but it doesn't work like that. Societies fit for everyone to live in require responsibility from ALL its members, not disproporionate 'obligation' from Gen Z. How about this is a suggestion: all the pensioners who are going to benefit from the protection of the triple lock, at the very least ASK their election candidates what they are going to do for other generations? Collectively as a group they have clout so why not use it in service of interests other than their own? Wouldn't that be a simple way of improving things? & one can feel an exile in one's own country if you are ignored often enough.

While I agree with you - I think it's probably a bit unreasonable of you to be worried about a 17/18? year old not being able to afford to buy a house. He has 30k saved as a teenager, and has plenty of time to improve his salary. I think he'll be alright.

It's the kids who will never have this kind of money saved/given to them in their teen years, who will have to start saving as soon as they are earning, if they can afford to do that while renting, who are really going to struggle.

Kids who have parents who can afford to help them out (which is many of my peers in their late 40s, early 50s because they were able to buy a couple of extra properties) are going to be fine, but the wealth inequality will likely worsen.

The thing that I find so sad for our younger generation @fieldwindloop is that their salaries will take ages to get to a level to service a mortgage. Age 24, my basic teacher pay alone serviced our mortgage for my husband and I. Lovely 3 bed house with an ensuite.

My son, and his peers, just do not have that opportunity open to them.

And as time has rolled on since my first post, the kids have enjoyed discussing national service... That'll win the votes from the under 30s 🤦 along with securing the pension triple lock. 🤦🤦🤦

This generation are being sold out to win votes.

Globules

Are you a position to help your DS?

@Globules , who gave him the 30k deposit

1991 I bought my first flat age 20 on a secretary wage with a 8k deposit I had saved. I earned 9k from my main job and work evenings and weekends elsewhere. My flat was 32k. It was achievable then. Now my 27 year old son and his wife have had to save 45k to be able to afford a deposit for a house with a joint income of 50k. We are in a very expensive area.

£110 to £130 wouldn’t even buy you a mobile home in my area!

How did he save 30k at such a young age ?

I've seen Studio flats for sale under 100k, south

You can buy bigger properties further north

It would be easier to buy as a couple

So many replies catastrophically missing the point.

Work hard, graduate (with 60k of debt compounding at 6% that you will re pay @ 9% of salary and will never be repaid) to get a job where your salary goes backwards in real terms, and house prices are 15 x average income. Taxes keep rising to keep pace with increasing weight of public service & the welfare state (a significant proportion of which is the state pension). Can't leave the country due to Brexit. That and the planet's fucked. Where are they supposed to find optimism from?

The social contact is broken.

Not all of us 'older' people are to blame for social inequality and higher house prices nor are we all rich and owning several properties.