To worry how my children will buy a house

[Biggiebiggiecantuc]

I’ve been working in the head office of a large retail bank for the past 10 years.

I’ve worked with a bunch of slightly older colleagues who will blush when we discuss house prices. They mostly started working in the mid/ late 80s, after leaving school at 16/18, and were able to buy a property within 2-3 years of starting work.

Many have multiple BTLs and will head off into retirement in their late 50s with large final salary pensions.

I look at them with envy. I will need to find away to earn till I am in my 60s

However, I am terrified of what future my children will have. I jut don’t see how the will get into the property ladder. They, like me, are average. They won’t get into top city firms and earn £100k 2 years out of uni. Hopefully they will prove me wrong but I just see a future of misery, running just to stand still.

I have managed to save around £10k for them. A housing deposit. Is there anything else I should be doing to help them?

We will be mortgage free by the time I’m 50 (took a 25 year mortgage at 30, but overpaid when we could so will be cleared early).

many members of my family have had to use care homes, generally at some point in their mid to late 70s, so I’ll have 25+ years of not paying rent or mortgage before that hits. For the first 10-15 of those, dh and I will still be working.

And not everyone needs to use a care home.

@ViciousCurrentBun

Educate them about relationships. People talk about broken hearts but it often means a broken purse as well

100% agree. People don’t like it when you talk about marriage as a financial contract but it is, alongside being a pairing of hearts & minds. It’s so so important to find a partner who will be by your side financially to match you and support your children alongside you when they most need it. Too many people don’t take this seriously enough - marriage is a binding contract in many ways & you both need to work at making it work (financially as well as emotionally.) The financial benefits long term are absolutely massive comparatively

My son did this
he paid really cheap rent 850 as opposed to 1400 for 18 months
he was guaranteed the cheap rent for 5 years but then there was an issue with the ground rent so the flat wasn’t actually mortgageable so he couldn’t buy it anyway

Then my parents passed away and left him a huge deposit so he bought a house

I agree. In a world which seems to be turning into a planet where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, owning your own home in my opinion is a basic necessity for emotional stability-crucial for young children growing up.

I think that outside of working in a bank people are paid a lot more. I too worked in a bank in the early 80s and it goes down as the crappest paying job I have ever done

Err, wages haven’t grown much in real terms and obviously people should get paid more then in the past….

I think this is something that everyone should be stressed about and something needs to change very very quickly.

What is the incentive to go to work if you have nothing to look forward to and that job doesn't even give you basic living expenses? Many young people are in situations where they see their lives going nowhere. There is no hard days work for a fair days pay anymore. There is a massive issue with 16-24 not working, I believe this is because they believe that it will lead nowhere. The ones that do get a reasonable job/pay are still living day to day and, unless they own, have no security, cannot afford a pension etc.

We need to ensure people feel safe. They have a secure tenure in good quality flats/houses. The European model seems to work - why has this not been adopted here?

Lastly I think anyone with property should be nervous of this Labour government. There current grabs won't raise as much as they think and they'll need other revenue streams. The equity in our houses is on their list.

The things that used to be a basic necessity for the UK but weren't for the rest of the world- children having their own rooms for instance, nuclear families- will no longer be available.

I feel similarly. Our kids are teens now and I don't know how they will stay in London (if they want to) when they finish education - neither is the type to do a big bucks City job, nor would I expect or want them to.

Right now even a broom cupboard in outer London starts at quarter of a million quid, and anywhere commutable isn't that much better. We're not badly off and own our own place (and yes, thanks to inheritance ourselves) but we're not going to find a 6-figure sum stuffed behind the sofa for a deposit for each child; please God, our parents will be with us for a long time yet, so there wouldn't be inheritence from them in the foreseeable future (I'm assuming they'll leave property to grandkids, we won't need it).

The other issue with the cost of property is that more and more people will always rent at a high % of their income, will never be able to put by much in a pension and will get to a point where they can no longer work but will not have enough pension to cover rent anywhere. No one seems to be talking about this.

Well exactly- the situation for them is precarious. But they mostly have eviction protection as long as they continue to pay the rent. The problem in the UK would be rising rents and landlords evicting retired people who then would struggle to rent. What will likely happen is that England will become somewhere where a few % own all the homes and everyone else is very poor. Unless we build a load of social housing starting very soon and then continue for a long time. The problem is the property wealth is exaggerated compared to what you can earn; and therefore it’s in the interests of landlords and property owners to hang on tight to what they have. Needs huge policy shift and for a very long time. I doubt this will happen.

Yes but about community?

What is wrong with wanting to live where you grew up and have roots?

Why have we become conditioned into thinking the 'average' family does not deserve this?

I have 3 DCs ( 34,31 and 23). Only.the middle one has a mortgage as she bought with her partner. The other 2 still live at home in our small flat. DH and I are in our 60s. It's far from ideal to put it mildly.

I’ve a friend who lives in Europe (not British, she grew up there). Her rent amount is really low even though it’s a big city. It’s around £300-400 per month. That is the way everyone there lives, hardly anyone buys property in her city. She is a teacher and has WAY more disposable income than I do on a similar salary. So she is saving up loads of cash every month and able to invest it.

So while she won’t own a property when she retires, she will be able to afford the rent easily. Or buy somewhere outright if she really wants to. Whereas I’m paying a mortgage where it’s gone up £500 per month in the last year and feels like I’m hardly paying any of it off now.

I’m in my late 50’s. Grew up in the north of England in a mining town that was badly affected by the strikes and subsequent pit closures. No family inheritance when my parents died and met DH after both had failed relationships and sod all equity between us. We moved abroad to somewhere cheaper and bought here.

I expect our DC to live their lives within their incomes and to be happy with what they’ve got, rather than living life feeling envious of others.

That is simply not true.

But, they will have it very difficult, unless they are millionaires.

My parents sold their house on retiral & although they could have downsized & bought a small bungalow outright,instead they decided to invest their savings & rent a lovely unfurnished property that came up in the location they wanted. It would have been outwith their budget if up for sale. They lived happily there for many years with everything looked after (repairs etc) until health issues qualified them for sheltered housing. It's wrong to suggest everyone who rents property has a bad experience.

I know, that’s why I said ‘if someone needs to go into a care home.’ If being the key word.

Not everyone will be mortgage free by the time their 50.

@SureLight one works as a lifeguard on £9 an hour and one is in a cafe on £12 an hour - they do up to 20 hours a week round their school work, mostly weekends and a couple of after school shifts and school holidays (which bumps up the average a lot) It's quite a lot so they will cut down during exams but this time of year they're taking all the shifts they can get!

Some of us can't afford to save a thing. All money spoken for before the money has even come in. So to be able to put aside £20,000 is huge!!

@LadyGabriella who do you think has 'shafted ' young people?

The government…to name one.

Oh dear...
Hopefully, my "baby boomer" husband is gonna live well into his nineties and keep increasing the wealth he already accumulated.
And by the way, just as you are waiting for this generation to die off, that much shit I give about generation Z.

How old are your children now, OP?

Easier said than done, but try not to worry about it.

Many, many things can change in the space of 5, 10, 15 years.

You're saved £10k for them (well done!) and can hopefully continue to save a little more and support them.

That's all you can do, and a lot more than other people have.

How many kids do you have? Do they get on well?

For example, if you have 2 kids, rather than split your £10k between them, maybe they could buy a property together?

I know a few sibling sets who have done this and it's worked out very well. They now live separately in their own properties, but buying together was a great way to get on the ladder.

I’m surprised so many young people are getting paid £11/12 an hour as opposed to £6-8. It’s a good thing but it can’t be representative otherwise why so much uproar each year about increasing minimum wage.

This is a fantastically one-dimensional view of the purpose of home ownership (inheritance).

What about the other 50-70 years of having a stable home, a mortgage-free property in retirement etc?

@Nothatgingerpirate what confused you about @FancyBiscuitsLevel post? I’ve no idea why you have taken it so personally!