Property has risen 6 months in a row & is set to rise by 7% next year!!!

Graham_Devon wrote: »

No. I don't think it's a basic human right.

However, I don't think the choice of either being able to afford children, or a house is healthy.

Neither do I think people popping out kids purely to have the chance of a roof over their head as they know they have no other chance (i.e. social) is healthy either. which unaffordable homes is creating and fueling.

I don't think we should be drawing a line between house or kids. In my most humble opinion, I would think it should be acceptable, and also encouraged, that a family, who is working off their own backs should, within reason, be able to put a roof over the heads. Not face the stark choice of kids, or house.

I am talking within reason here and I am not saying the person on minimum wage should be able to buy.

But you are saying that people on minimum wage should not be able to have children and 'put a roof over their heads' as you put it (by which you mean buy a house). As someone else has already said, you can't have it both ways Graham.

DaddyBear wrote: »

And there lies the problem, and is the reason why society in the UK is about to implode. The number of couples having to make this choice is rising exponentially. My parents, grandparents and their siblings didn't have to make this choice. Why? Because a small family home was affordable on an average single income.
Today, unless you are in the top 5% of earners, the only ways to afford a house suitable for raising a family are:
1. Massive inheritance.
2. Massive gift from the bank of Mum and Dad.
3. Two average full time incomes, meaning putting off or abandoning having children.
4. Multiple children and social housing.

The proportion of children being born into households that are completely reliant on state benefits is increasing. We are becoming a nation full of economically inactive individuals and house prices have a lot to do with it. HPI is bad for society.

My grandparents lived in LA and rented accomodation, I don't think they were unusual in this. There seems to be a prevailing argument on here that only our generation has been priced out of houses and it's just not true. Home ownership really took off in the Thatcher years, prior to this there was not quite the same mania for home ownership that there is now. Indeed it was very difficult for working class people to buy a home because they could not obtain credit as freely as they can now.

Getting back to the discussion in hand, our parents, grandparents and beyond could afford to have a family and accomodation because they had cheap rented accomodation that was often supplied with their jobs (especially those who worked in the mills and factories of the Midlands and the North) and had children who wore 'hand-me-down' clothes and didn't require the latest wii, laptop or mobile phone and all the other trappings that seem to be a necessity these days.

I think many of you who push the idea that our grand-parents and parents had some sort of halcyon period of home ownership should actually sit down with them and ask. You might be surprised at what you hear.

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I don't think anyone would dispute that, what's changed is that middle class normal families can't now afford a house, that is what is different.
The fact is of course, that we seem to have more middle class families than we used to. Everyone wants to be middle class, although many of them will tell you they are working class if you ask them.

As you've stated, what has happened is that the definition of Middle class has changed to include a much broader range of people than it traditionally covered. The original Middle classes consisted of bank managers, company directors and such and this range of people are still able to afford a nice house and lifestyle. However, we also now have people with a degree in something or other and by dint of their educational achievement, state that they're middle class. If they then struggle financially, we see headlines about the 'suffering' middle classes. The truth, however, is that the true middle classes are probably doing better than ever.

Indeed, so are the working classes, at least those who class themselves as such and set their expectations accordingly. i.e. those who have a house and spending commensurate with traditional working class lifestyles such as a terrace house or a semi detached, one small car and reasonable living expenses. These people are far better off than their counterparts in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.

The 'middle class' who are suffering are the aspirational working classes who need to have a 4 bed detached, two cars, foreign holidays, expensive gadgets. The 'we want it now' generation. These people are suffering because they believe they're entitled to a middle-class lifestyle but only have working-class money to pay for it.

Harry_Powell wrote: »

Sorry, my fault Graham. I engaged you in discussion. My mistake.

And I discussed and backed up my thoughts. My mistake.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

And I discussed and backed up my thoughts. My mistake.

Your thoughts and discussions are all over the place though, Graham. I still don't know if this is a deliberate ploy to wind people up. If it is, and as I've said in the the past, you're a genious. An absolute genious.