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 ***.

Life has always been hard for the vast majority of people, regardless of time or place.
Grow up.

Manchester outskirts are still just about affordable. Although it's getting very like London now here (mostly due to Southerners moving up north for jobs ;)) house prices are continuing to rocket, yet we don't quite have the wages to match. My kids probably won't be able to afford to live here after the next 10 years, but we'll be helping them find somewhere else (hopefully close by) that works for them at the time. Personally, if I lived in London like you, I'd be encouraging my kids to move up North for work (if circumstances were allowable), I wouldn't just be writing their outlook off based on where you/they currently live.

100% agree with the problems.

But don’t agree the solution lies with professions or better pay to cover housing costs, which only drives the housing market ever higher. There’s a shocking housing crisis and the government need to get a grip and stop looking for quick fixes by next election. Instead, seek cross-party support for investment in well-designed (spacious, soundproofed, energy-efficient, private outside space) and well-built social family homes. That people want to live in. So people have a decent alternative and the heat’s taken out of the market.

In meantime, do a deal with decent private landlords: loans (in return for share of equity) to get up to standard in return for letting at 50% market rate, which local housing allowance should be raised to cover. Come down hard on high rents charged by landlords who own outright, by taxing high rental yields (some landlords making no revenue due to mortgage costs). Right now housing allowance frozen again, while rents continue to skyrocket. Covers around bottom 2-20% of market, which is the crap stuff. Homelessness growing.

Better choices for single people of all ages. Own little house or decent flat in schemes with chances to mingle with neighbours, via shared indoor and outdoor spaces, serviced guest rooms you can book, mini gyms, subsidised community cafe, concierge. Lots of lone people would downsize or avoid residential care if they had chance of decent own place with opportunities to mingle, linked to onsite care and support, when needed.

Women are HEAVILY encouraged into it, most just choose not to. Same happens in many fields.

When I was at university you where pretty much guaranteed a place on Engineering as a woman, same can happen with men in other fields. What most don't realize is even more so a man would be automatically given a place on Midwifery (strange that its so low, as male gynecologists and Obstetricians are fairly common) as the uni had to hit equality and diversity regulations and so few applied. There could be much more qualified members of the opposite sex but you would be picked simply due to the huge push to equalize sexes in these fields. There is nothing keeping people out of these fields its just people of different sexes tend to prefer different fields tend to want to apply.

There was a HUGE push for me to go into trades even 20 years ago, frankly ridiculous with my disabilities (and I also have academic grades, I ended up studying medicine which is woefully low paid for the work and hours) but it has been raised and pushed many times in my life from family, career advisors, job center etc... as it would 'guarantee me more money' and 'female trade is in high demand' (always the story of the little old lady scared to have hairy builder bum blokes take over her house and how she would prefer a lovely little lady... won't someone think of the grannies).

Could write a book.

It has been exhausting !!!!!!!!!!

Sure there are some expensive neighbourhoods up North. I live near Manchester. My dc go to an outstanding school, we have a successful business and I can walk or cycle for miles from home without crossing a road. I can also be in Manchester city within 45 minutes by tram or train. You can buy a 2 bed terraced needing some work for around £120k, or a 3 bed semi with garden for £250k in my area.

@Honeyyourfamilar you're getting a hard time but I spent 17 years until recently living in zone 6, near Kingston so very expensive, and am from the North east so know that the job market isn't as varied as in London and its surrounds. We moved because we had a child and on similar wages to what you posted, we couldn't afford to go into debt or spend our savings on nursery fees, or didn't want to anyway. We certainly couldn't manage to buy anything but a tiny flat with a short lease in our old neighbourhood which would be throwing money down the drain. It's a shame, we miss it hugely, but just got priced out. I dont know how people on lower salaries do it, though most I know bought ages back or are living in aforementioned flats with crippling service charges.

True, but if you actually look at the vast amount of data available you will see that things are very difficult now. I think this is actually a very childish response as it doesn't really help anyone or resolve any issues. You just get more decline.

The good/bad news (depending on how you look at it) is that my generation (b.1980s) and the next generation (b. 1990s/2000s) are having very few babies so in about 25-30 years there will be a huge drop in young people seeking houses and the value of property will go way down.

If we stop having kids, or deliberately limit ourselves to one child, we end up with a society where more immigration is required to prop up the labour market and contribute income tax. So we get identical pressures on housing, nhs, etc.

The government always talks about "growth". Growth until when? They are signing free trade agreements in order to enable us to export whisky and cars?? How does that help 99% of the population? I don't think it does.

I live next to the M60, and next to a tram line, a 10 min drive into Manchester. Nearly paid off my large extended 3 bed semi, big garden and it's probably worth £260k. Similar houses on the street unextended have gone for £220k recently. You can still live in most parts of Manchester without paying £700k for a terraced/semi. The jobs market here is flying and there are significant large numbers of huge high rises due to go up here in just the next couple of years. Moving up North is a very wise thing to do, especially now while it's still reasonably affordable.

I think we do need to start putting pressure on the government properly around housing. It is utter cowardice they don't deal with this issue properly and it's nuts we are paying housing benefit to private landlords when this could be going back into the system via social housing. Quite a lot of wealth inequality stems from housing. There will always be private landlords needed, but we have been too heavily reliant on them to plug the gap in recent years and economies fluctuate. It's not really a secure way to provide rented accommodation to people.

Just a reminder that moving for jobs and housing is not exactly a new thing.

Unemployment rates when I was growing up were very high, particularly amongst young people. The Tories were very fond at the time of telling people to get on their bike. That's pretty much why I ended up in the Midlands, away from my family.
As much as I despised Thatchers government, sometimes moving is the right thing to do.

Not true I live in a major city in Scotland and it’s also the case. The country is broken. Too many not working and then the opposite too - wealth hoarding by the super wealthy.

And btw….. why is “surviving” acceptable? People need to be able to thrive.

The owners of the £500k houses in zone 6 will be sold one day - a small number of people will end up spending a lot of money on care but most do not.

So where does the value of the house go when sold? It will go to the children of the postman/supermarket worker.

The "problem" is that with life expectancy extending that inheritance will often only happen when the children are in their 50s, so it is too late to help during the young children years and potentially too late for them to stretch the mortgage on top of whatever deposit becomes available via inheritance to then buy a family size home.

It's all down to uncontrolled immigration.

900,000 new people arrived in 2023 (based on revised ONS figures December 2024). We built 221,070 new homes during the same period.

When you look at jobs, adding approx 500,000 new workers a year depresses wages. More workers chasing jobs means lower wages as there is no shortage of applicants.

It's pretty easy to see why things are getting so bad so fast.

No. Anything north of Watford is a barren wasteland, where apocalyptic winds howl through a desert and tumbleweed blows past the occasional dilapidated shack.

Now, back in the real world…what you describe is undoubtedly a problem but life does exist outside of London, so you’ve lost me by talking about London cost of living as if it’s the entire country/world.

Agreed. Honestly, I'd advise ALL kids to do this. I would be a million times happier if DD came and told me she wanted to be a hairdresser or an electrician or a gardener than if she said she wanted to work in publishing or whatever. Those jobs are dying. Trades never will.

My son is about to finish his level 2 plumbing at college. There are two classes, so around forty pupils. We have been looking for an apprenticeship so son can continue the next three years it takes to become qualified . On the college website advertising apprenticeships, there is one job. Also one electrician apprenticeship and a few for commis chefs.
Son has called around all the companies and hardly any take on anyone. The one that does uses the college thirty miles away from us( college one day a week). Its proving quite hard to get in to the trades.

Many of us would be dead without immigrants and their families coming to work in our public services.

It’s the criminals across the board that are the problem. Not the immigrants.

Politicians are the biggest criminals of them all.

wrong post 😂

My DS has just bought his 1st house (2 bed terrace) in the W.Midlands on one average salary. He was able to save for a deposit by living at home but the mortgage is all on him.
Lots of young people around here buy houses on ordinary salaries.

Its not just London, I live in a popular suburb of Bristol and we have been priced out. We need a bigger house desperately but there's no way we can afford one where we are currently. We have pretty good jobs ect, reasonable sized cars, keep our outgoings under control but many of the houses round here are 800k - 1million which is waaaaay out of our price bracket. We can't all move up north

Popular places up North cost this much too. Loads of affordable houses in Bristol in less desirable areas for less than 800k!

Same. Any tradesman I know is making 6 figures.