To be jealous of older generations who were able to buy houses because their bosses exaggerated their salaries?

[HonestTealPoster]

Yesterday I was at the spa and got talking to a man who was older than me (I’m 33 and I’d put him in his early 50s at most).

He told me that when he was in his 20s, he and his friend were able to buy properties in the area of South London where I grew up.

Despite not earning particularly much at the time, his boss wrote a letter stating that he earned £90,000 a year! He openly admitted that he wasn’t earning anywhere near that amount but the letter helped him secure a mortgage. He also received £5,000 from his grandmother towards the purchase.

I’d heard stories about people being able to do things like this years ago but I’d never actually met someone who’d benefited from it!

I was genuinely gobsmacked. Imagine being able to get on the property ladder like that.

AIBU to feel rather envious of how much easier some people had it when it came to buying their first home?

Well, my older friend makes more in his penions (employer and state) that I make working full time. And the fcker looks as if he's going to live to 90 (due to all the bloody relaxation and chilled retirement he's had) whereas I'll probably keel over at 67.

I love 60’s pics of my mum. Liz Taylor eyebrows, lashes, beehive hairdo.
This was when a lot of looks from now started especially with Bardot.

YANBU but unfortunately that behaviour all was part of what lead to the crash of 2008. You didn't even need a boss, by around 2000 you could self certify that you were self-employed earning 90k and, so long as you had a mortgage broker motivated only by earning their commission, no questions were asked.
Here's an article from 2003 about it. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2003/oct/29/mortgages.property and this early 2008 article, at the brink of the crash, notes that 1/5th of mortgages at that time were self cert and/or subprime https://moneyweek.com/3777/self-cert-mortgages-a-warning-from-the-last-crash

But not having Netflix, Sky or foreign holidays might well do. We didn't have a holiday for 10 years, we bought everything second hand, we didn't eat out or buy anything except the most essential clothes and we did all the work we could ourselves. Base rate was 12.38% when we got married.

How long has he worked for? How much did he put into his pension rather than spending? And is there any need to call him that?

Exactly and they looked lovely! I don't begrudge at all but raise an eyebrow when they preach about how they went without and sacrificed and todays generation get their lashes and nails done

It's actually the massive cost of house deposits, stamp duty and solicitors fees these days. Plus the costs of surveys have increased and if you find something on them unacceptable and choose not to go ahead and buy, its money down the drain. Back in thev197Os we even got tax relief on our mortgages . The only big disadvantage then was that we had to insure our houses with the mortgage lenders.

I'm 60. Had to supply payslips and P60 to prove my income for my first mortgage and every subsequent mortgage. I also worked placing mortgages in the 90s. Never heard of any lender accepting an employer's letter. I think this bloke was lying.

If it makes you feel better, I had to move away from the area I grew up in because I realised I would never be able to afford to buy a home there.

I don't do any of that, I can only dream of getting my hair done, it's overgrown and split and looks a state. It's my daughter's birthday next month and I can only dream being able to her to a lovely fancy meal or a fancy coffee with whipped cream and sprinkles. I've worn the same clothes for many years, and I've owned the same handbag I got from a charity shop years ago. I work full time. What do you suggest now?

I do all that now. I don't have sky, never had a foreign holiday, never eat out and I work hard. What do you suggest? Simply stop being poor? Dang never thought of that one.

You've still only heard about it anectdotally tbf. I doubt he was able to prove it to you 🙄

@ClawsandEffectsorry I meant they weren’t better! There’s a reason very final salary schemes exist these days

Agree. From someone with personal and professional experience of house buying from the 1980s.

The very first comment mentions avocado toast 😂😂😂

I'm in my 50s and I don't know anybody who did that. Banks and building society's were ridiculously strict about mortgages only being 3 x your income at that time. What helped me and many others buy then, was that property wasn't the ridiculous price it is now, because Buy To Let mortgages didn't exist at that point either, so there weren't lots of people getting into the landlord game, which massively pushed up prices. You can be annoyed about that, but it's about as much use as shouting at clouds.

@Suspicioustoenails

Young people these days are worse off than our generation. Not because they go on holiday, not because they have phones, but because we've fucked it up for the generation behind us.

Nail on the head.

Cool I've got rid of my internet. Please can you now tell me how my children can access their homework that is set and completed and marked with feedback online please. Much obliged x

Everyone looking to buy a house already lives somewhere, most people don"t NEED to move, the market can slow to a very slow clip and just turn over on probate, divorce and cash needed for debt sales, those sales usually drop prices to sell and that affects the valuation of the wider market whether it is selling or not.

very few

@TheEighthDwarfself certainly mortgages were a thing & you didn’t have to be self employed. Read the thread

Also you can get 2 avocados for 99p in Lidl so how is that even relevant please? x

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I suppose admitting this means taking accountability hence the denial?

I think you are confused on the timeline? This guy would have been in his late 20"s in the early 2000"s, BTL was well under way by that point.

wow, can't believe the number of deniers on here. So many people deny things that didn't happen to them or people they know! As a pp said, there really were sites selling fake payslips, the phrase "liar loan" didn't come out of nowhere.

Here is a Financial Conduct Authority document from 2009 saying that verification of self cert is needed - amazing but true that there was not full regulation for this previously
https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/discussion/fsa-dp09-03.pdf

"In our view, there is a clear and non-controversial case for product regulation of
non-income verified (self-certified or ‘self-cert’ and fast track) mortgages. Self-cert mortgages were designed by the market to meet the needs of self-employed
borrowers but grew way beyond the consumer groups for which they were
originally intended. Our analysis shows that self-cert borrowers take out larger loan
amounts than borrowers with standard products and fall into arrears much more
frequently. To address these issues, we propose to require verification of income for
all mortgage applications"