The cost of living issue has fundamentally changed though.
We have friends who are in their 50s who have said they would not be able to move to the same area, in the same career if they had been ten years younger.
Thats nothing to do with how they spend their money. They have been through similar recessions to you as they are similar in age. And they STILL see the problem with the housing market.
I ran through the figures with my local councillor to demonstrate just how bad the problem was. They have been here for 40 years. They hadn't realised the issue was about affordability of housing to the degree to which its a problem. The way that lenders have changed their lending criteria has had a massive impact too. They were shocked at how bad it was when you put it onto paper. They were aware there was a problem, but hasn't realised HOW much of a problem until it was put in front of them.
This is been recognised by numerous agencies, studies and government. This isn't just me making this up.
In 1997 the average house cost 3.55 times the average median local wage.
In 2017 that ration had risen to 7.8 times the average local wage.
This pattern isn't consistant across the country. There are areas where this ratio is much, much higher.
Taking one authority at random: South Oxfordshire. In 1997 it was 5.3, but by 2017 it was 11.9.
Given that a standard mortgage lender works on a 3.5 multipler this is something of a problem. Yes you can get higher multipers but you have to have exceptional credit and thats still taking a bloody huge risk and it will cost you more in the long run to do too.
Not only this, but the affordability of new housing is considerably worse: New homes typically cost 9.7 times wages, whereas existing homes cost 7.6 times full-time pay. Which doesn't exactly suggest that planning and schemes like help to buy are really resolving very much at all. Indeed it looks a lot like developers are lining their pockets and not building the type of housing stock thats really needed - four bed executive houses are much more typical than 2 bed starter homes.
And given the problem of extending your mortgage, thats also lending itself to encourage people to extend their existing homes thus also reducing the housing stock of smaller homes (and pushing their price up too in the process).
The ONS report which did the figures stated that: ‘Housing affordability has worsened significantly in 69 local authorities in England and Wales over the last five years, with over three-quarters of these being in London, the South East and the East.’
You also can't just tell people to move elsewhere cheaper. As we've seen during the pandemic, we kind of need nurses everywhere... and if they have huge tiring daily commutes this doesn't exactly help us.
Also....
Younger people will end up putting more into the tax system than their older counter parts. Those who are baby boomers are net beneficaries which slides down in scale to young people who over the course of their life time will be net contributers, because of how the demographics stack...
Housing ownership has declined in younger age groups as housing affordability has got worse. This has been studied and there are government reports on this.
But you know, you obviously know better...
"Blah, blah, blah, young people should just save harder, and they are no better or worse off than people in previously generations..."
.... and your evidence for this is?
So sick of this opinioned bullshit.