Soldato
Then stop moaning! It's clearly a lifestyle choice not to buy a house in that case.
I moved to Germany, away from all of my family and friends, where I didn't know anybody. Again it was a life choice to do so.
Boomerang Generation
- Thread starter chris.tarry85
- Start date
I moved to Germany, away from all of my family and friends, where I didn't know anybody. Again it was a life choice to do so.
Associate
I can only speak for my partner and I but it certainly did. I think we would have probably spent £5000 on holidays in two years alone. I think the main thing is the "economical" mind-shift where you are move aware of what things cost and looking for ways to get them cheaper. Everyone is different though I guess. We have friends who recently spent £25,000 on a wedding and then went back to their rented house....
^ This,
Unless someone happens upon wealth - through the fluke of birth, death of a family member or getting lucky with a career/investment/opportunity, you will be in the rent cycle for a long time.
You are belittling the problem. Avoiding a crap quality of life is hardly ‘a lifestyle choice’. Since when should buying a home cause a dramatic reduction in quality of life?
If there wasn’t so many buy to let properties out there I’d suggest it wouldn’t be such an issue.
To put it crudely, for young and single people that aren’t on mega bucks without financial assistance it’s either:
Save a truckload to move into a crappy shed in the middle of nowhere with a long commute: or
Rent somewhere more central and closer to work and have little hope of affording anywhere in the foreseeable future.
All things considered the second option is not necessarily a reckless or shortsighted option.
Yep. My rent + bills for a 1bed flat is around £1300 per month, leaving me unable to save anything
Soldato
But what choice do they have? Would a different order make more sense?
It's definitely hard to become a house owner. I think there's little doubt about that. But there are definitely many in this generation who seem to have some dubious expectations of how easy life should be. It can be both. One thing that rankles is that the help available seems to be out of line sometimes. I worked like crazy to get the deposit together and be able to afford my house. A friend who was on benefits a lot of the time got put in a council flat which she proudly informed me she would live in for five years until she got the right to buy, and then sell it off for a big amount of money. Didn't feel fair.
Caporegime
The discount after five years is minimal. If she’s on benefits, how will she afford to buy? Talking out of her arris if you ask me.
Edit: just actually seen, the discount on flats is fifty percent! That’s ridiculous. She’s still going to have to find a lot of money though, especially for someone who is on benefits.
Soldato
I think to say that people overspend these days is a little unfair. These are things (broadband, phone, car) which are probably on the poverty list if you dont have them.
Compare to your nan and grandads generation.
No phones.
No computers.
Tv? three channels maybe?
No automatic washing machines.
Woman stayed at home to bring up kids most likely.
No long distance commutes.
Go to work, come home, eat and sleep. Pub on a friday. Paid weekly in cash. That was their life.
Holiday was a coach trip to blackpool.
Safe to send your kid to go play in the street. It didnt matter what trainers they had. holes in clothes didnt matter.
Didnt need brand name prams and car seats.
Huge inter war and post war housebuilding programme.
House cost £10k or they got a council house. Yeah wages were lower but their life was as i described.
Take a look at what you could really do without these days if you have a job and a commute and want to do more than rot in your bedroom for 10+ years.
Compare to your nan and grandads generation.
No phones.
No computers.
Tv? three channels maybe?
No automatic washing machines.
Woman stayed at home to bring up kids most likely.
No long distance commutes.
Go to work, come home, eat and sleep. Pub on a friday. Paid weekly in cash. That was their life.
Holiday was a coach trip to blackpool.
Safe to send your kid to go play in the street. It didnt matter what trainers they had. holes in clothes didnt matter.
Didnt need brand name prams and car seats.
Huge inter war and post war housebuilding programme.
House cost £10k or they got a council house. Yeah wages were lower but their life was as i described.
Take a look at what you could really do without these days if you have a job and a commute and want to do more than rot in your bedroom for 10+ years.
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Caporegime
10k was exactly the price my dad paid for his north London house in 1979. 40 years later it’s worth £1.4m. I am pretty sure wages haven’t increased that much lol!
Soldato
^^ yep. not buying a car on pcp is not gonna have a dent in that.
Something has to be done to change the system. Ive no idea what because anything that reduces current house value for owners would not be paletable.
And even with prices as they are, anything half desirable is flying off the shelves.
As unpaletable as it would be, Id like to see a very high landlord tax with controls stopping it being passed on to tennants. A ban on foreign purchases altogether. a big housebuilding programme with revised building specs to get rid of tiny gardens and no parking. scrap right to buy on council houses (that did huge damage). lower immigration (demand has to be brought down quickly imo).
Something has to be done to change the system. Ive no idea what because anything that reduces current house value for owners would not be paletable.
And even with prices as they are, anything half desirable is flying off the shelves.
As unpaletable as it would be, Id like to see a very high landlord tax with controls stopping it being passed on to tennants. A ban on foreign purchases altogether. a big housebuilding programme with revised building specs to get rid of tiny gardens and no parking. scrap right to buy on council houses (that did huge damage). lower immigration (demand has to be brought down quickly imo).
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Obviously gonna be many cases where what you said is true but after I'd posted having a look at the prices in this area it isn't quite as bad as the examples I was going to quote from a year or two back where in some cases forgoing some luxuries didn't make any meaningful difference to affordability house prices around here have dropped around ~35K across the board that does make some difference though most of those are "offers in excess of" but it does help.
Something that really stung quite a lot of people I know is that those jobs that 10 years or so ago were around £18-19K and a reasonable leg up from minimum wage are still around that maybe gone up slightly while house prices had pretty much doubled or worse putting most reasonable places outside of their reach - unlike those in the next bracket above them who might have to make some compromises (which I still don't think acceptable) in terms of the kind of house they bought but could atleast afford something reasonable.
Problem is I think those that live life in a more disposable/detached way can't even conceptualise the mindset of people who aren't like that and probably vice versa. There are a lot of people who have very reasonable reasons why they can't just drop attachments, etc. and move 100s of miles just because the economical situation is dictating that. Then there is the longer term outlook - as a progressive career move it might make sense but not everyone has much scope employment wise and might already be tapped out on their realistic options.
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Soldato
I don't know the details so can't argue it. She wasn't on benefits all the time, she had on and off retail jobs. I don't know if there was any family funding I don't know about. But she definitely got allocated a council flat and definitely bought it under Right to Buy after the time was up and made a big profit on that. Whilst I was earning more than her and still couldn't afford to get on the housing ladder.
I think there was less of a Middle Class back then. That probably helped with the "didn't matter what trainers they had". Perhaps more of a feeling of all in it together rather than everyone struggling to appear fancier than they were.
Permabanned
Possibly, contributing early is key for having a sufficient pension pot.
But, I was really just making the point that we're kicking the can down the road, insufficient pensions will be a massive problem for society as a whole when these people reach retirement age.
Same even up North to a lesser degree. Here is something depressing, ask your parents what they paid for their house and then use this inflation calculator to see how much they would have paid now.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator
I've said this before but I grew up in a 4 bed detached house with my Dad running a small business and my mum helping him part time. They left school at 16 with no qualifications. My wife and I are both university graduates her a Teacher and me an IT professional. There is no way we could afford to live in the house I grew up in.
We paid 230k for a small 3 bed semi in 2013 my mum and dad paid the equivalent of 173k for 4 bed detached in 1983. They made sacrifices for that house, but to buy now would be well over half a million. Based on my parents qualifications and occupations they would be struggling to afford a flat if they were starting out now.
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Soldato
Incidentally, I got this recently:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meaningful-Money-Handbook-Everything-everything/dp/0857196510
A lot of it (most of it) is common sense. But it's nontheless quite good, imo, even if some of it is just nudge to get you doing what you know you should be doing. I think a lot of people who are on middle to low incomes would benefit from the book, tbh.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meaningful-Money-Handbook-Everything-everything/dp/0857196510
A lot of it (most of it) is common sense. But it's nontheless quite good, imo, even if some of it is just nudge to get you doing what you know you should be doing. I think a lot of people who are on middle to low incomes would benefit from the book, tbh.
Soldato
I agree.
Caporegime
I personally believe that no one should be allowed to own more then two to three properties. When we had ample housing,mug was ok, but we need to put a stop to people amassing huge portfolios of properties and leaving them empty while they appreciate in value or charging exorbitant rents which prices out 80%+ of the population.
Caporegime
My dad sold the property in 1997 for £165000. So in the 23 years since he sold it, it has gone up nearly 750% in value!!!
I never thought we were particularly well off growing up kind of imagined my life was pretty much like the average person lived - but we'd take two holidays a year, main holiday in the summer and car trip to somewhere like Cornwall for Easter, sometimes even went abroad. I was I'd say almost shocked talking to people in my year at school much later in life and finding many of them could only dream of a coach trip to somewhere like Blackpool maybe every 2-3 years for the summer and just how many lived in council properties, etc.
My parents house is currently worth over 4x what they paid for it - with inflation the price they paid back then doesn't come even close to what they potentially could get for it in the current market.
Caporegime
My dad never took us abroad. He had plenty of money, he just didn’t like spending it. He’d rather make a sound investment on the favourite in the 2:30 at Epsom rather than something as frivolous as a foreign holiday.
Week in a caravan on the IOW or Cornwall was as good as it got for us. Didn’t go abroad until I was 19. Fortnight in Gran Canaria. Prefer Cornwall tbh lol!