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 ***.

I'm in NE. I have nieces in their early thirties with partners same age. Both live in lovely 2 bed houses, pay for child care, have a car each, holidays, and have "normal" jobs. It's the area you are in OP. Expectations also play a part. They live within their means and prioritise.

I have family members who struggle on, in what I consider to be terribly expensive but inadequate housing in London. Their rationale has always been that it’s because of the good jobs there. One who was recently made redundant has just got a good job, paying more, in the Midlands. In their part of South London house prices have stagnated and several local junior schools have closed down, as so many families have simply been priced out of living there (or maybe just got fed up of living there when there are so many really lovely places they can go to). I live in the North but visit London regularly and can honestly say I would never want to live there, I find it grim.

Get away! Do you have thyroid issues are are you actually a Southern fairy in disguise? Northerners don't feel the cold, its bred into us because our parents couldn't afford to buy us coats...

(Sorry! I love your country and I love both your national drinks. I'm sure you're a lovely Scott, now go and have a deep fried Irn bru, gotta get your vitamins 🤣)

It was as recent as the early 2000's when Northern Rock were offering 100% and even 105 % mortgages ..so basically no deposit required.

All couples or indviduals needed to save for was solicitiors and moving fees.Saving £3k for this was more than achievable.The people that got these mortgages are now smugly ensconced in their lovely homes, forgetting they didn't struggle at all.

Trying to save a 20% deposit now is completely unrealistic for most people , and is incredibly frustrating when you know you can afford the mortgage payments & bills...you just don't have £30k lying around for the deposit.

As for North v South ..Yes there are careers that only seem available or in abundance in London, but maybe a change of career is needed rather than suffer the pressure of trying to live in London. I have zero sympathy for anyone with a career such as Teaching that moans about how expensive London is..just relocate if you can't afford it.

Before the 60s most people rented and council houses were available. Many families lived multi-generationally.

Property prices have been bonkers. It's cyclical and prices will stagnate and fall in relative terms and wage inflation will catch up to them.

Too many people are going to "university". There are not enough graduate jobs for those who leave and many who are leaving with a degree are not graduate calibre and do not have the foundation skills or life skills to be work ready.

We should be investing in and better regulating the trades: mechanics, carpenters, builders, electricians, plumbers, etc. The trades need to be better respected and better valued and that starts at stage 1 and some reality checks in the teacher training centres.

PS: DS an academic relocated to Yorkshire with his wife who works remotely with a couple of London visits per month.

Yep, I'm sick to the back teeth of this too, we get spoken about on MN as if all Southerners have the same thoughts and feelings, we bloody don't..

What your kids go to school!!! Get them down those mines sniffing drugs at five. What sort of a parent are you.

Back to the original question, hard to comprehend I know but not everyone lives in London (gasp).
I live in the midlands; my adult kids and my friend’s kids all have average pay and all have bought property.
Have you thought about moving op?

If you think that young people don't struggle to save for home on the wages they are paid you are ill informed. There are also a whole host of other factors to consider such as family support network if you have a family.

Makes a change for the northerners to not all be complaining about the lack of jobs. Wonder where us southerners got that idea from…

@Veebee89 so basically small towns are useless? Anyone who is so narrow minded that they limit themselves to large cosmopolitan cities only has themselves to blame if the can’t afford a nice house.

Yes but if you weren't born in the south or London you aren't going to feel the same about it. DH and I were born and grew up in London, we have family in London and the south east, we want to be near them.

My late parents born in the 1920s lived with ms parents, one room. Never bought on one income,DM had ft job plus bar work till midnight. Ex H and I,1970, a couple rooms,share bathroom, in north London. He was the manager a jewellery, I had a good job. (Walked out on the spot, serious sexual harassment) Shop burgled and closed. Lived in a caravan for 5 years,a freezing metal box one DC that's why we married,) sold it, started nursing training, also had cleaning jobs. Bought an unmodernised Victorian 2 up 2 down. A 2 bedroom ground floor flat divided a room. DH (second marriage) in the 60s,lived with his paternal GM, a couple of rooms, kitchen facilities was a cooker on the landing,shared a. BED, not a bedroom. His late DF had a good job,south London. His GPs, lived in Norfolk,in the 70s,no bathroom, outside chemical toilet, a shed attached to the cottage, with cooking facilities, this is how we afforded to purchase modest properties. Our DCs shared bedrooms, until the older 2 left home. I was made homeless several times because of xh. Second DH made redundant 4weeks after buying first property, then 5 times in 8 years, I usually had 2/3/4 jobs at once.. we always bought doer uppers.

Did you read what I wrote?

YABU to think that being unable to afford to buy a house means you have no future.

The jobs market is wrecked and will never recover. AI will only serve to make things worse. Globalisation and capitalism mean every penny of profit has been squeezed out of everything we do or buy.
The only minor saving grace is everything we buy is so poorly made now, it will at least need replacing, creating more jobs - but certainly not jobs here, and not jobs that you'd want.

A friend's son is graduating this year with a degree in Art History. He's on track to get a 2:2. He's from a working class family with no connections. My friend is so proud of him, but I know with 100% certainty he won't be able to get a job.

It's been that way for a long time. DH and me are in our 40s and will never be able to buy a property (even less so now I've had to give up work to be a carer to DS). I have friends of the same age who can't afford property either .
It's ridiculous but prices keep rising and the only people who can afford them is landlords so they buy them and the situation carries on
I'd love to own my own place but have accepted it's never going to happen and I expect it'll be the same for my kids. Sad though.

My son isn’t academic and because he doesn’t have C or above wasn’t able to do any of the above courses, it’s all very well saying that and he’s certainly able to learn a trade but with dyscalculia he will never get into college without his maths.
He is a driver now and probably for life.

When my Grandparents married they lived with one of their parents in London for many years until they were able to buy a plot of land in a county outside of London and self built.

My parents bought a house with my Grandmother and we all lived together until she died as they could not afford to have bought alone.

All these people living in £500k family homes that they bought for £30k could downsize and help out their kids, or share the space. Rather than having two people living in a family home and a family squeezing into a tiny flat.

People did stay in horrible relationships. As soon as we started to (rightly) make it possible and socially acceptable for (mainly women) to be able to escape from horrible relationships that made a massive dent on the available housing.

So in my GP era two generations 4 adults and 2 children lived in one house, in my childhood it was 3 adults 2 children.

This was not uncommon.

Now with changes to family set up, very few families live in multigenerational home. 1 in 4 families are a single parent set up, that's two homes per family. So combine that, with population growth, increased life expectancy and the housing stock we need has far outstripped growth. Supply and demand, housing prices go up.

Where I live there are posters everywhere campaigning to prevent more housing estates being built. At the same time as people complaining at the cost of housing. We need to build more and perhaps adjust our expectations to reality.

I have zero sympathy for anyone with a career such as Teaching that moans about how expensive London is..just relocate if you can't afford it.

Teachers do get paid more in London but the fact remains teachers are needed in London.

YABU to think that being unable to afford to buy a house means you have no future.

Well a shit one as you have no security.

@hopingtofeelbetter can your son do functional skills maths instead of GCSE?

It is funny how male oriented trades are very well paid yet female oriented professions are not. Teaching and nursing hot better paid (then stopped) when sognificsntly more men entered the field. And GP’s are striking over pay and conditions for the first time ever after the shift of GP’s switched from mainly male to mainly female. And even then the BMA states:

Women GPs earn on average 15.3% less than men and clinical academics 11.9% less than men. The total non-adjusted gender pay gap is 24.4% for hospital doctors, 33.5% for GPs and 21.4% for clinical academics.

Almost like it is the result of the patriarchy and not women choosing poorly…again.

also: ‘While career choices and subject choices play a role, the gender pay gap also exists within the same occupations, suggesting that women in male-dominated roles are paid less than similarly educated men’ A little google AI summary.

live in Manchester and a 3-bed mid-terrace in the area where I live is £700k

It doesn't have to cost that much though. I imagine that Manchester is very similar to Leeds in that it has pockets of very overpriced housing but there's also plenty of choice that's much more affordable.

A house close to a relative has just sold for under £200k and its a traditional 3 bed semi in a nice village with a bus to Leeds every 10 minutes, good motorway connections, good access to amenities and everything a big city has to offer. Leeds and Manchester are especially good for law, finance etc as well as large hospitals, arts, media etc so plenty of employment opportunities too.

I despair at the ignorance of some Londoners about the rest of the country they live in.

I lived in London in the 1990’s and it was okay. I bought property in Putney with a friend. Putney, Barnes, Richmond and Wimbledon are nice enough but they’re nothing special. I am not from London. I am from the North of the UK. IMO there are plenty of comparable areas which are much more affordable.

Shock horror many of us even after living in London and owning property there don’t think it is the only place to build a life.

Other parts of the UK are affordable.

Absolutely this!

Try getting any sort of tradesman (I’m in the south east) and you either won’t get a reply or they’ll quote you a huuuuge figure - because they can. They probably don’t want the job, so they don’t expect you to accept. There aren’t enough tradies. I really hope my grandson becomes a plumber, but he’s only one. I don’t think my leaky shower will last that long

There’s a gorgeous village not far from where I live. All big detached lovely houses with big drives. If you drive round on a Sunday, in pretty much every drive is some sort of tradesman’s van. They’re not working there - these are their homes, meanwhile the majority of people in my area commute to London and live in the expensive new build developments (housing estates). I know where I’d rather be