Generation Whine

JonnyBravo

the_flying_pig wrote: »

And before anyone thinks of suggesting it, no the two things don't exactly cancel it each other out. The impact of house prices doubling in a short space of time blew any number of holidays, ipods, etc out of the water - the order of magnitude was vastly different.

In your opinion maybe. But the people who are spending their money on these things instead of housing clearly have a different priority list.
Or perhaps you think they should have these things AND own a house?


Oh and I agree it is harder to buy a comparable house now, but that is due to the housing stock having changed. ie more flats etc now.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

If all that was true, baby boomers would hold an awful lot more than 80% of the UK's wealth!

I spend a lot of time looking at privately-owned companies. There is an interesting generational split, imo, between boomers and Xers. Although firms are handed down through families, I'd argue that boomers predominantly set up firms that made things or sold things. Car dealers are an interesting case in point, the owners of many independents are boomers or the children of boomers.

Xers on the other hand are much better at setting up firms in technology and services and have taken a greater advantage of the IT boom. Xers are less likely to set up the type of companies their parents may have done, even if there are still opportunities in those industries.

Moving on, I read an article in USA Today that said Gen Yers may be even more entrepreneurial, as they won't need overheads such as office space and massive computers and there tends to be more flexibility and blurring of work/leisure time. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out here.

link to article:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28998657/USA-TODAY-Collegiate-Case-Study-Gen-Y-Entrepreneurship-Fad-or-Legacy

olly300

Generali wrote: »

@ILW - Apparently the average salary in London is £30,000 (link) so a couple each earning the average income buying a £150,000 house would be borrowing about 2x gross joint income to finance it. A concerted effort would see that mortgage all but repaid in 5 or 6 years.

The places that are £150,000 are one bedroom flats, studio flats, shared ownership or 2 bedroom flats on tower blocks in council estates.

They all have problems associated with them including the fact that flats on council estates are known for having very expensive charges for works.

A couple on the "average" salary each (oddly enough I know couples on less than this each) would want a place to bring their kids up in, so one bedroom and studio flats wouldn't be suitable. Therefore the majority of them would either rent in London, buy via shared ownership or move outside London to the Home Counties.

vivatifosi

olly300 wrote: »

The places that are £150,000 are one bedroom flats, studio flats, shared ownership or 2 bedroom flats on tower blocks in council estates.

I'm a late boomer/early Xer depending on where the line is drawn. I worked in London in the 1980s and I knew very few people on average wage then who bought anything other than a 1 bedroom flat, studio flat or less desirable two bedroom place.

The typical price locally when I was a first time buyer in the suburban South East in the late 1980s was £70k for a one-bedroom house. We couldn't afford big houses to bring up families either.

olly300

JonnyBravo wrote: »

In your opinion maybe. But the people who are spending their money on these things instead of housing clearly have a different priority list.
Or perhaps you think they should have these things AND own a house?

What particular things to do you mean?

You can get MP3 players, mobile phones and computers very cheaply particularly if you aren't buying well-known advertised brands. Plus people have the disadvantage now if they are in the job market that they are expected to have a mobile phone and computer access.

Also holidays until very recently were very cheap.

Obviously if someone was spending loads of money on this then this would affect their saving for their deposit. However there are lots of threads on here about people saving for a deposit.

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Oh and I agree it is harder to buy a comparable house now, but that is due to the housing stock having changed. ie more flats etc now.

That's what the moaning Generation Yers want they want to be able to buy the same houses as their parents at a comparable time in life in the same or near enough location. People in this country are very conservative when it comes to housing - they don't want small new build flats.

ukcarper

olly300 wrote: »

The places that are £150,000 are one bedroom flats, studio flats, shared ownership or 2 bedroom flats on tower blocks in council estates.

They all have problems associated with them including the fact that flats on council estates are known for having very expensive charges for works.

A couple on the "average" salary each (oddly enough I know couples on less than this each) would want a place to bring their kids up in, so one bedroom and studio flats wouldn't be suitable. Therefore the majority of them would either rent in London, buy via shared ownership or move outside London to the Home Counties.

As they have always done

olly300

vivatifosi wrote: »

I'm a late boomer/early Xer depending on where the line is drawn. I worked in London in the 1980s and I knew very few people on average wage then who bought anything other than a 1 bedroom flat, studio flat or less desirable two bedroom place.

The typical price locally when I was a first time buyer in the suburban South East in the late 1980s was £70k for a one-bedroom house. We couldn't afford big houses to bring up families either.

To be fair the bloomers in my own family brought their housing late.
They lived at home or were someone's lodger until they saved up enough for deposit. So when they brought housing they were able to buy a house. They were lucky that loads of areas of London weren't desirable at the time.

Two of them also did more than one job to save money.

Talking to other people who are bloomers or older doing more than one job isn't and wasn't rare.

There as I've noticed a lot of younger people due to how work has encroached on life - many jobs now state that you have to work additional hours as necessary - find it difficult to even think of fitting in another job.

ukcarper

olly300 wrote: »

What particular things to do you mean?


That's what the moaning Generation Yers want they want to be able to buy the same houses as their parents at a comparable time in life in the same or near enough location. People in this country are very conservative when it comes to housing - they don't want small new build flats.

If I were in the same position now as I was in 72 and got a mortgage the same size in relation to my salary I would be able to buy a 2-bed terrace instead of a 3 bed so not quite as bad as some would have you believe.

Couldn’t buy were I live and worked at the time so had to move out 20 miles and commute.

ILW

olly300 wrote: »

The places that are £150,000 are one bedroom flats, studio flats, shared ownership or 2 bedroom flats on tower blocks in council estates.

They all have problems associated with them including the fact that flats on council estates are known for having very expensive charges for works.

A couple on the "average" salary each (oddly enough I know couples on less than this each) would want a place to bring their kids up in, so one bedroom and studio flats wouldn't be suitable. Therefore the majority of them would either rent in London, buy via shared ownership or move outside London to the Home Counties.

Some were 2 bed houses.

Graham_Devon

ILW wrote: »

I just did a quick Rightmove search for properties in London, over 1000 below £150k. Bearing in mind that London is the most expensive part of the country, what is all this rubbish about not being able to afford to buy?

This is one of those discussions which would turn into "well, I wouldn't want to live there, but it's good enough for you, stop complaining".

Things were exactly the same back in the day. There were places where you may be able to afford, but you wouldn't buy because it's a shytehole.

No point in pretending people back in the day all just moved to where they could afford. They didn't. This is exactly the same today. There are complete dives which have cheap prices.

Of course today, the younger generaton are supposed to be graetful for these homes that the older generation wrote off as not good enough.