To feel there is no future for children unless they

[Honeyyourfamilar]

unless they start a business or are super academic or excel in their careers.

I grew up in a working class neighbourhood in London (zone 6 so maybe not London London) and so many of the parents were normal working class people who owned their own homes: postman, bus drivers, dinner ladies, mechanics. There was a couple who both worked in supermarkets and they owned their own home. In a few families only the bloke worked and that was enough to sustain the family - I am maybe showing my age.

These were people in their early 30s who were financially secure. Now those houses are worth £500k plus and there is no way someone working a low paid job could afford that.

Two people making £30k a year will get £240k mortgage, where is the other amount going to come from?

I think that young people don't have a future here anyone.

The only way someone who isn't earning a decent wage can afford to buy a house is if they get an inheritance or if their parents sell their £500k house, that they purchased for £30k, and downsize, and give a deposit to their kids.

The amount of families renting and dependent on housing benefit is just a disgrace. It also means people stay in horrible relationships because they cannot afford to leave.

This country is a ***.

But why do you need to know anyone?

Haven't you ever started anywhere new. I moved to a town I had always liked but I didn't know anyone there on day 1. It didn't take long to meet people.

The poor are already living like that. Whole families crammed into one-room temporary accommodation, sharing beds. It’s happening right now. Dicksensian conditions.

You have a pit pony! We've only a barrow.

You are focussing too much on London. There are other places not so ridiculously extortionate to buy.

Because I have started over new many a time and it’s exhausting. I am of an age where I need a support network around me and most people around me already have theirs. Moving somewhere new, alone, no support network and where I likely would not be able to get a job seems silly just to have a property. Gain one thing, lose countless others.

Is it? Why?

Don’t be so fucking ridiculous. Do you think no one outwith London works?

Parents at open days, always southerners, expressing astonishment that Liverpool has student accommodation in leafy suburbs. Colleagues in Manchester and Sheffield say the same.

They are likely from the home counties not London

I 100% agree with you. Owning a home should be a basic right. A moral right. A safe place. People could easily become socially mobile and move inwards and upwards. Personally I think money and greed has destroyed us. The ultra rich just get richer and the middle classes and beneath just get poorer. I think multi property ownership should be outlawed or capped.

Depends on the business. Lots are doing incredibly well. All you need is to provide a product/service that's in demand that most people can't make/do. I.e. the trades typically, but also lots of other things.

No I don't need to do 'research' - you do.

It’s this post that got me laughing properly (and not at all bitterly)… “No help from parents”… except for the life on a plate. I wish I had had parents that would let me live with them / provided a place for me to live with them. Many do not. Do we not matter? Does our work not matter? No wonder so many turn to crime.

I worded it badly. What I should’ve said was the second half of the 20th century rather than ‘post war’.

No question there has always been poverty in the uk, it has fluctuated at times, but in the 1960s and1970s inequality and poverty were at their lowest point, and stayed low (with some ups and downs… Thatcher! ) until 2010 and since then they have increased exponentially and show no signs of slowing.

More people than ever are living in absolute destitution, the use of food banks was unheard of before this, the number of homeless people has increased dramatically, compounded by the rollback of welfare payments since the 1980s, low paid jobs and soaring cost of living and housing costs, lack of council housing and high rates of inflation have put poverty back into similar rates as the 1900s.

We have the fifth largest economy in the world and a fifth of our population live in destitution 😞 As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

In 2018 UN Special Rapporteur on Severe Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, travelled around the UK studying poverty—an unusual visit to a high-income country. He delivered an excoriating report expressing shock that a country with the fifth largest economy in the world had one-fifth of its population (14m) in poverty and 1.5m in destitution. He blamed ‘the politics of austerity since 2010’ for the ‘shocking increase in food banks and major increases in homelessness and rough sleeping’. He concluded that ‘The bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos’. ‘British compassion has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and often callous approach’. ‘A system supposedly designed to bring major and much needed improvements is fast falling into Universal Discredit’.

His report was brushed aside by the Conservative government.

“His report was brushed aside by the Conservative government.”

Wasnt there active talk about deliberate bias from hostile organisations as well? From the party that brought you ‘Law judges are the enemy of the people’.

It seems the UN make regular visits, and were equally uncomplimentary in 2023. I don’t remember many headlines about that, nor can I find many quickly now. www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2638

Big leap from not being able to buy to ‘no future’!

I have lost in property bids three times this year to Hong Kong (twice) and Chinese (once) immigrants. I know cos the ea told me.

Yes, will be grateful I'm not in the ice age and have lots more decades to live in rental.

It is because many even young come with cash. Lorlts of it. I had cash buyers, young couple newly in, interested originally from Hong Kong. I did pass them to surprise of others (wtf do you aay no to cash buyer) because I was pretty sure they would soon realise they would be happier with another area and they could quite easily back off.
The ones with a deadline are safer bet imho.

To add. Not their fault they were immigrants buying. Totally made economical sense. They were stidents staying lomg time.

Your individual experience doesn’t make you the voice for “most people moving here”. I moved up in 2017 and know at least a dozen southerners who’ve moved up since after being priced out down south - none of them live in those areas despite having or wanting a family. Those areas are basically the northern version of Richmond - definitely desirable but out of most people’s reach.

We bought a project house in 2023 for £270k, renovated it for £70k and now have a lovely 3 bed semi with a garden in South Manchester for under £350k. Despite being in a “less desirable” area, we queued down the street to view properties and demand still outstrips supply.

There’s also currently five 3 beds in Chorlton Green alone for £500k or less so maybe the neighbourhoods become much less desirable!

You’re not wrong. It concerns me how a young couple who want to live together and start a family really need a huge windfall or have to move a long way away. It is the same in other countries.

the younger people I know have moved hundreds of miles away from their families, they love their new area but also miss their families.
i also think and I’m not sure the finer details but Airbnb should be banned in domestic areas and something about clauses of london properties to ensure they’re lived in / something to avoid them being left empty and allowing people to live there.

Wealth handed down. "The only way someone who isn't earning a decent wage can afford to buy a house is if they get an inheritance or if their parents sell their £500k house, that they purchased for £30k, and downsize, and give a deposit to their kids."

That gives lots of people a massive head start in many ways.

this made me chuckle!

Hahaha stay ignorant and jealous then! Bye bye 👋🏻

Noone' s individually to blame there of course. Everyone is trying to make a better life for themselves. This was a reply to someone saying as people are having less kids the issue would resolve itself. But it won't. Because immigration surpasses newly built housing stock.
The issue is about our government and it is systemic. Massive housing crisis here, but we allow people who aren't even living here (overseas landlords) or non residents to purchase property. In addition to all the other root causes wage stagnation, wealth gap, lack of manufacturing jobs etc