Once a bear, now firmly a bull? Or once a bull now...

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I read somewhere (and was posted on here) that 80% of those people got it from their parents.

Hence being able to go from 10k average deposit to over 30k average deposit "just like that".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertymarket/wordonthestreet/6563560/Property-TV-shows-switched-on-youngsters.html

These days posters of Kevin McCloud and Phil Spencer have replaced Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom on the walls of teenage girls’ bedrooms. Ok, perhaps this is a slight exaggeration, but the girls I met at my former school in Dorset last week are avid watchers of property programmes. They race to finish their homework in time for Location Location Location, and are more clued up about the various episodes of Grand Designs than the works of Shakespeare: “Did you see the one of the house in Bath?” one of them asked. Everybody nodded. “I drove past it the other day and it’s still being finished.”
The girl sitting opposite me at lunch looked like she should be an actress or a film star. “I want to do something property related when I leave school,” she said, flicking her hair. “My uncle is a chartered surveyor.” Even the teachers are obsessed: one of them went to the last Grand Designs Live (“Kevin McCloud was fantastic”), while another has bought a bungalow on the coast to refurbish. “We got it for the view,” she explained to a group of attentive girls. “You walk around the corner and there it is.”
Is it not slightly worrying that we are cultivating a generation of property addicts? These girls are growing up on tales of home ownership and costly renovation projects. Not really, according to Sarah Beeny, the presenter of Property Ladder, “It’s good to give people aspirations,” she says. “It’s more positive than going out drinking vodka.” Michael de Pelet of Knight Frank in Sherborne agrees that the younger generation’s enthusiasm for property television programmes can only be seen as a good thing. “Everyone should strive to own their own house rather than blowing all their money on holidays,” he says.
David Adams of estate agency Chesterton Humberts says Sarah Beeny’s programmes, where people buy, renovate and sell properties to make money, have brought people to the market who wouldn’t otherwise have bothered.
Like these teenage girls in Dorset – except most of them will have to wait more than a decade for their Grand Designs moment. University education has become so expensive that young people spend the first years of their working life paying off debts.
A survey of first-time buyers by Miller Homes found that 28 per cent of buyers still believe they will need to save for at least five years before getting their own home; the average age of a first-time buyer is 34, and if current trends continue, by 2039 this will have reached 41.
“The age of First-time buyers is increasing all the time due to high house prices and debilitating legislation such as stamp duty, HIPS and planning regulations,” says Adams.
Unless of course you can put all you’ve gleaned from property television to good use, and convince your parents to buy you a house. Recent figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders show that 80 per cent of first-timers now get parental help with their mortgage. I can’t help thinking though that teenagers would be better off focusing their attention on Gordon and Jamie rather than Kirstie and Phil; with food programmes there is less risk of getting your fingers burnt.