And boomers wonder why millennials are bitter towards them..

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So, the house opposite me has just gone up for sale for £1.7m (disclaimer, I merely rent a flat opposite, this isn't some sort of humblebrag). Being the nosy neighbours we are, we found out that the owners (a couple aged probably early sixties) bought it 14 years ago for just shy of £800k.

Doing some simple maths means that house has increased in value by roughly £900k in those 14 years. WTF. Absolutely insane. I'm not surprised for this area, but jebus wept..

I was thinking about it further, and I actually left university 14 years ago and began my working career. I don't do badly, but do you think I earned an equivalent amount as that house did every year, for 14 years straight? The heck I did.. Perhaps I should have transformed myself into bricks and mortar and sat there doing **** all for 14 years, I would have earned more!

/pointless thread is pointless

 

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Not entirely sure of the rant here. Stuff goes up in value.

You're comfortable with bricks and mortar 'earning' more than double the average salary in the UK?

This issue is the very act of having a roof over your head is going up far, far faster than income. And your comment shows just how out of touch a lot of people are.

Exactly.

So they bought the house together when they were in their 50s?

Maybe when you and your partner have worked for 30 years and combine to buy you'll be able to afford a nice house?

I think they're early sixties, if not late fifties. So actually they bought it in their forties I'd imagine. But you're splitting hairs and missing the point. It's not about old people having nice stuff..

But I don't understand the anger aimed at a specific demographic just because they were lucky.

It's exactly because they were lucky.

The op does like a London house price rant. They come round every so often.

Indeed! It's what you get for renting in London.

Just playing funny with the numbers, and base that on an 40 hours per week, would work out as £30.90/hr equivalent to an annual salary of 60k.

Exactly. Funny how some people are so inured to bricks and mortar 'earning' more than average salaries, it shows in the replies here.

 

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Hey, the price of my flat has dropped; are you going to rant at me?

I earned about double the annual average salary; are you going to have a rant at me?

Do you by any chance want me to have a rant at you?

Thread title ;
And boomers wonder why millennials are bitter towards them..

I'm not bitter about them having nice stuff, I'm bitter about them being gifted a huge amount of unearned money and living like kings for doing absolutely nothing apart from being born in the right decade.

So it's swings and roundabouts. You lose, but other people win handsomely.

Indeed.

Doesn't literally every front bench MP have their own portfolio these days. On both sides of the house.

Yes. For every 'wrong' the Tories have committed against fair housing, Labour have done just as bad. BTL absolutely blew up whilst they were in power, just look at Tony and Cherie's *spit* portfolio nowadays.

 

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lol I knew this thread would 'inspire' some excellent replies Don't take life so seriously chaps, if you think I'm sitting around butt-hurt by my rich neighbours 24/7 then you're entirely wrong. I've saved very well even during the beginnings of my career on minimum wage in a terrible house share, and to be honest buying something around here with my partner is not completely out of the realms of possibility. We do absolutely fine, live within our means (cook from scratch all the time, careful with heating/water/bills etc. all the usual) and save a lot every month whilst still enjoying ourselves on the aforementioned holidays…(thanks for that whoever it was). Doesn't stop me pointing out the absurdity of this country's housing market though. Sorry to ruin the narrative some people were trying to build about me

I don'te get why millennials are so butt hurt about property prices. They trend up over time (corrections allowing). Find a way to get on the ladder one way or another and work your way up. No generation got handed houses for nothing.

Not nothing, but a deposit that took a year to save rather than 20. That's the difference. And all the other examples of people buying houses back in the day when on a call centre admin job. It's the affordability ratio people need to pay attention to.

Commute.

You don't need to live in the city to work in the city.

Except when you live with a partner that needs to commute as well you're looking at what £3-5k/year each. You may as well pay that in rent, which is what we're doing. They're both dead money.

We shouldn't be forcing people to structure their whole lives around working their ass off, just to get a roof over their heads.

Exactly. a lot of people seem to forget that safe housing is a human right…

if you had mined 100 BTC when you were at University would you consider the feelings of the next generation when cashing them in?

No, because my actions wouldn't directly negatively the next generation. All the boomers who are entitled BTLers are having a direct negative affect on the next generation though.

Boomers are aged 56 to 74, I think there must be at least some people in here getting offended for no reason.

lol you think

Or you lived in a world war, or after that lived in threat of nuclear war, but oh yeah life is so difficult now...

Except boomers weren't born during either world war, and most were probably too young to know what was going on during the Cuban missile crisis. Try again.

 

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You don't have to own a house, the op is jealous of people who had no choice when it comes to inflation, millenials may hate boomers but it seems for no other reason than jealousy, try 40 years of hard work(not media studies or journalism) & you might be able to own your own home if that's what you want.

Except back when boomers were buying their first homes the average age of an FTB was what 27? It's now more like 38. So your average boomer didn't save for 40 years.

Sounds like the OP is bitter whilst spending all his money on car leases, phone contracts and holidays .

Except I don't have a car or a phone contract. Try again.

 

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You must surely be what people here are calling 'boomer' age if you joined the forums in 2002?

Nope.

Stop living somewhere you clearly cannot afford.

See this post. We can afford it fine, thanks. I'm allowed to have an opinion/rant about a subject without being personally invested in it…

Spent excess cash renting in an expensive area over several years when you could have rented in a cheaper area and bought in a cheaper area instead...

See above. And that's after rental prices have jumped in the last 4-5 years.

Why would any generation want things to be as difficult for future generations as it was for them? Isn't that the point of progress? That things become easier to achieve? Unless they're actually just a bunch of selfish cretins afterall...

You might have hit the nail on the head there. What's with all the boomers arguing we should have it as hard as them? lol..

It just screams of entitlement to me, youngsters want everything right now but they don't want to work for it or pay for it themselves, being able to blame someone else for your jealousy now that's privilege!

I suggest rather than blithering on about entitlement you do a bit of research on housing affordability. How about here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ns/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/2019

Where the very first point is:

In England in 2019, full-time employees could typically expect to spend around 7.8 times their workplace-based annual earnings on purchasing a home; this is a significant improvement from the previous year, when the ratio was 8.0.

But yeah sure. "Stuck it out at school, go to uni, don't buy avocados" lol

 

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Get a grip, the lot of you. Honestly.

Well said sir. I'm flabbergasted people are not-only 'ok' with bricks and mortar earning nearly triple the average salary consistently for 14 years, yet they're actively defending it as normal. Either there's a lot of closet landlords on here with fingers in the pie (likely), or the whole world has gone mad! A reminder that this thread was never about me, it's about that fact.

You can afford to rent there (but not buy) seemingly, but in doing so you've missed out on potentially several years of owning a property, paying down a mortgage and perhaps being the beneficiary of some gains in its value.

I think you're forgetting that buying nowadays involves a massive deposit. The average FTB deposit was £46,187 in 2019. The average renter spends around 30% on housing, so saving even a third of your salary is difficult.

Thats a compromise you've chosen to make, if you want to live in the now, rent a 2 bed flat when you only need a 1 bed, rent in an expensive area in West London when you could rent then buy in a cheaper area then that's your choice.

It is. And I'm ok with it. This thread is not about me. But if you do want to know we've rented the same place for a number of years with no rent rises and hence aer paying below market rate. Which is helping. Moving to a worse area would not save us much at all, now. That's the renting cycle.

How far do we let this bar drop? At what point do we, as a society, say "ok maybe this needs fixing".

Exactly. Clearly the bar has fallen very low indeed considering most people here seem ok with houses earning way more than your average worker. Which (again) is what this thread is about.

 

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Ah yes, the generation that blames everyone else and expects the world to give them everything for free.

You're talking about the boomers presumably? The ones that had free further education, cheap housing, final salary pensions etc. Oh and then massive property inflation just to ensure they can live in the lap of luxury in retirement? Thouht so. Just checking we're on the same page..

If you removed buy to let. Then all the people who rent but have zero deposits would be homeless.

Not if we had proper council housing. Let's not forget all the boomers that were lucky enough to buy their council houses at a discount and have now sold them on for vast sums.

It creates a growing wealth divide. And it's unfair.

Inheritance only creates a wealth divide now because of property inflation. For the average joe anyway.

House prices can and will increase, because government will do everything in their power to ensure that they do. This includes not building anything.

Exactly. At the moment they're just building luxury apartments that FTBs can't afford. Thus further enabling the BTL nonsense.

They can do a lot more than they do now, look at what other countries do. Affordable housing schemes, rent control, land value taxes, second home taxes, taxing rental income at income tax rates, etc etc.

We don't do these things, not because we can't. But because we don't want to.

Yep. Maybe once there are some renters in government, a new generation perhaps, things will start to change.

EDIT: We should really implement something like this: https://www.theguardian.com/busines...t-could-earn-the-government-400bn-in-25-years

A seller, or an estate if the last owner has died, would pay a percentage of the difference between the price at which a property was bought and the price at which it is sold. Levied at a rate of 10%, and assuming houses rise in value by only 1% a year, the tax would raise £421bn over 25 years for the Treasury, calculates Johnson.

 

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Travelling this week so can't keep up. Sorry chaps.

They're actively buying up all the starter houses. The "cheapest" housing on the market. Purely to deny it to the lowest earners and to force them into servitude via paying rent.

This point could have had it's own thread on why millennials are bitter. It's not just the fact that houses are astronomically expensive, but the boomers actively expect you to pay off their second/third mortgage to ensure they can live in the lap of luxury (being retired at 55 obviously), whilst nullifying your chances of saving that extortionate deposit because it's all going on rent.

Take landlords out of the equation. Renters cannot get a deposit together.

Take your average hobbyist BTL landlords out of the equation and we wouldn't have had astronomical price inflation, and people could save a deposit within a year or few.

Rent is based on supply and demand.

Except there's massive supply of poor quality rentals, yet consistently high rents. Why is that? (Don't reply, I know the answer).

I am one of the lucky ones and gained from the market. Bought our house in 1999 for £95k and current value is £550-£600k so not a bad gain for 21 years since we are "up North"

Roughly £20k per year is decent for a £95k outlay (I'm sure your deposit was a small percentage of that anyway). Now can you keep posting this every 5 posts or so? Because apparently London is the problem and this doesn't happen anywhere else

(Sidenote, the Manctopia documentary on TV recently was quite interesting. People flogging £1m luxury apartments to who the heck knows whilst displacing thousands of low earners. It's ok, it only happens in the South!)

Also, for those in denial that house prices are not artificially inflated above all normal sense of the word.. this is interesting (and old now) https://england.shelter.org.uk/prof...ibrary/policy_library_folder/food_for_thought

Summary
If grocery prices had increased at the same rate as house prices since 1971, then:

• A 4-pint carton of milk would cost £10.45
• A chicken would cost £51.18
• A bunch of 6 bananas would cost £8.47
• A box of 6 eggs would cost £5.01
• A loaf of sliced white bread would cost £4.36
• A leg of lamb would cost £53.18
• The average weekly expenditure on food for a family of four would be £453.23.

 

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I had a £25,000 mortgage on a house that i had put down a £4000 deposit on and i did that on an income of £75 a week. How did i do it.

All you did was save a year's salary. Congratulations. This is the point where we point out a year's salary (average) is nowhere near enough for a deposit these days, especially in the south east.

 

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is why I find it somewhat puzzling that people will defend the status quo as if nothing else were imaginable or reasonable.

Because too many boomers have their fingers in the pie and are actively defending their "right" to retire with a final salary pension, lovely mortgage free house to live in, and maybe a nice little nest egg rental on the side for good measure. And they have the gall to call millennials entitled for simply wanting a roof over their heads without 2 months eviction notice.

 

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Plenty of Londoners could sell their small home and move to a far bigger property somewhere more rural, would probably still have a chunk of change as well. I believe that is what estate agents are seeing an increase in demand for now what with covid and working from home, just need a decent internet connection.

Seems to be the case around here (zone 3).

Here's another good profit for someone, just gone on sale round the corner;

Sold prices provided by Land Registry
29th Sep 2020 - £1,495,000 - First listed
11th Sep 2009 - £616,000 - Last sold

That's a nice £80k per year. More than double the average London salary.

I'm sure everyone will be pleased to hear that the house opposite me sold within a week, so I'd imagine they got the asking price. Woop woop.

 

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That's not a very good example. It now has more bedrooms and bathrooms than when it previously sold.

So take off the cost of that and you're probably still looking at what *puts finger in air* £60k/year (that accounts for a very fair £200k on work). I'm not sure why people sit here insisting bricks and mortar earning nearly three times the average salary for the country (every year, for 11 years) is perfectly acceptable. That house has probably had a better career than half the people on these forums... That's what this thread is about.

 

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I'm not sure 'earning' is the correct term, as you can only realise that gain when selling and even then, unless you're moving to a market that has grown at a different rate, it's not really of any material benefit.

You need to sell to realise that gain in cash terms, but you still 'own' and 'realise' that capital increase. You have to compare it to the non home-owning population and you can see how far the first rung on the ladder is moving. Far out-performing average salaries and far out-performing salary inflation. Deposits are a proportion of the final price (obviously) so that goes up just as fast as the house prices. How are people supposed to save a deposit when houses are going up faster than pre-tax salaries?

these 2 houses you mention were already really expensive anyway...no really average houses in the first place?

I never said they were average.

 

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Indeed, it's only really an issue for first time buyers. Once you're on the ladder, you're not really gaining anything by increase in property value - until the point where you downsize or exit the market completely.

I'd imagine most people selling a £1m+ London pad would be moving out, I'd love to know what our neighbours are doing But anyway, contrary to all the arguments in this thread what you said above is the only point I'm trying to make with this thread. This is now a country of "haves" (those that own ever-increasing property) and "have nots" who are mostly <35yo and are not on the ladder.

 

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Indeed, it's only really an issue for first time buyers. Once you're on the ladder, you're not really gaining anything by increase in property value - until the point where you downsize or exit the market completely.

Makes you wonder why if you stopped the average Joe in the street they'd believe house prices going up is a good thing... The mind boggles...

 

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Because if they're not going up then they're going down and that could be a problem for average Joe.

"Could be" yes... Anything else you buy on this green earth, it depreciates.. For most people their house dropping in value wouldn't affect them in the slightest.

 

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We need to consider proportion of income spent on rent/purchases for the median household in the UK to get a good picture, based on that measure all of the figures I could find do seem to indicate this has increased.

This has some pretty severe negative side effects on the UK economy. The only people who benefit from an inflated house price market are the banks (who benefit indirectly) and people who were lucky enough to be the right age to purchase a property before the boom. Everybody else loses out, all other businesses lose out. If person A is spending 40% of his income on rent, that's a significant reduction in disposable income to spend in the local economy on goods and services.

The only people I can see who defend this situation are people who are directly benefiting from it, or expect to later on it in life due to riding the same gravy train (or at least attempting to get on board it). Home/space in the UK are a finite resource & should be rationed to ensure the population has a suitable large house to fit a family. They should not be part of an investment portfolio in which income is bled from the UK population to benefit of economic parasites.

Very well said, sir. I'm failing to keep up with this thread due to you know.. work, but again it still boggles my mind that people are actively defending the status quo.

Even furlough is essentially a way of ensuring landlords get paid, whether it be from their tenants in a two-bedroom flat or a small independent restaurant in the town centre… Churchill had it right (gotta love bringing Churchill into an argument!):

"The landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts of a great city … watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient. .. and all the while sits and does nothing. Roads are made … services are improved … water is brought from reservoirs one hundred miles off in the mountains and -all the while the landlord sits still … To not one of these improvements does the landlord monopolist contribute and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced …

 

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Unless there are some punitive tax measures introduced to prevent a return to the current position.

lol, @Stu999 meet the government *shakes hands*. Government meet @Stu999

What @Tuppy_Glossop has described is exactly the reason why the home-owning class are getting richer whilst the tenant's class are getting poorer. And exactly the reason why the argument of "it's just supply and demand" does not work. Any additional supply gets hoovered up by the BTL class, further increasing prices, further putting FTBs out of the picture. Until we absolute ruin landlordism in this country we won't get anywhere. And that simply won't happen with any government in this generation.

 

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I also think it's about time councils across the country started charging higher rates of council tax for second homes. Clearly if someone can afford multiple homes, they can afford to pay a little extra in council tax.

It's literally insane this doesn't happen. In fact, the government do the complete opposite by letting off someone like Dominic Cummings in £30k+ of unpaid council tax on his second home. Literally insane