Generation Whine

ILW

Graham_Devon wrote: »

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.

I guess I am a baby boomer, I bought where I could afford rather than whinging and moaning that it was not a great area. Does this make me unusual?
Someone is obviously buying these places which others consider not good enough for themselves.

jamespmg44

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

You've hit the nail on the head here.
I suppose we're baby boomers(late 50s) and I feel no guilt in the fact we are,why should we?.
My husband has worked none stop all his life and we did without holidays ect to buy a home,pay into a pension for almost forty years and save like mad so that when we got to this stage in our lives we could relax and enjoy ourselves.
We sacrificed,as a matter of choice lots of things that people expect as the norm nowadays.
I seem to remember my parents and also my grand-parents doing the same however we did'nt begrudge them anything as they too had made the same sacrifices.
As for my home there's no wealth there,it's my home(not an asset my home) and I need to live somewhere so if I sold it I'd just have to get somewhere else.
Why are some younger people (and I say some because I know a lot who don't) feel so envious of the so called baby boomers.
When we were in our 20s we had sod all but instead of moaning we just got on with it and tried harder.
Life is a struggle no matter when your'e born,you've just got to get on with it and make the best of it.

Absolutely.

My parents when they bought their "forever" house bought it the year before I was born. They had a 10 year plan to modernise it as it hadn't been touched since being built in the 30s.

My dad replumbed and rewired the entire house himself in the middle of winter (with no central heating) before they moved in. They sacraficed many things so they could provide a nice home for my sister an I. I could never grudge them a single penny or moment of enjoyment as they reach their late 50s and approach retirement. Infact my sister and I actively encourage them to do whatever they want - luxury holidays etc and not to think about whatever would be left behind for us.

You'll probably find that those moaning about the baby boomers make exceptions when it come to their own parents!

Life is too short for whinging - you want something nice, get your head down and get on with it if you do, you'll find it comes to you a lot quicker.

jamespmg44

Percy1983 wrote: »

80/81 you could have got in just before the 'boom', unfortunately for me I was 2 years later and in training get paid £50 a week for a good few years after school, they have been out of reach for a good while despite working hard, as it is they have corrected quite nicely and are no longer out of reach for me.

I bought in 2004 so pretty sure that couldn't be classed as before the boom.

I was in university until 2003 and while saving up for a deposit averaged 80 hour plus weeks for 6 months and didn't go out once. Every single penny was precious and saved. It was a case of chosing what my priorities were, sacraficing a social life etc and getting the head down.

Oldernotwiser

Percy1983 wrote: »

This whole the younger generation have better technology arguement doesn't sit well with me. Yes in many respects I would have had a better childhood than my parents due to better living standards and technology. But on the the same front when my mum and dad where the age me and my better half are now they could easily afford a house without highly paid jobs and already had me and my brother. So yes my generation may have better technology to play with but the fundamentals like housing are no longer affordable. Personally me and my other half are doing well for ourselves and can afford to buy in the current market and will be doing. Yet my brother who has worked hard is completely froze out of the market.
.

Better technology doesn't just refer to IT. When I grew up, nobody had dish washers or freezers, most people didn't have washing machines, vacuum cleaners were rudimentary and there were only 2 TV channels. I'm not even of retirement age yet!

ILW

Very few had central heating in the 70s, I could happily live without it now.
It does appear that the current generation does have aspirations above their pockets and just want to moan rather than doing something about it and matbe making a few compromises.

Graham_Devon

ILW wrote: »

I guess I am a boomer, I bought where I could afford rather than whinging and moaning that it was not a great area. Does this make me unusual?
Someone is obviously buying these places which others consider not good enough for themselves.

I should have added "apart from all those boomers on this thread of course".

Seems, as with many of the discussions, in this case, the boomers all know youngun's with 2 houses in their 20's, and all had it the hardest.

And the younger generation all have not a pop to pee in.

Personally, I think it's somewhere in the middle. I think it's more difficult now. BUT, it's not only more difficult, but the type of home has also changed. So you end up paying much more now for a much smaller place in general.

My place for instance was pretty expensive. But you could walk end to end within a few paces. It's absolutely tiny. Plus, because it's so tiny, they have had to use the main bedroom for the airing cupboard to be housed, and small, but deep wardrobe (meaning you can only really use one rail and behind it is useless).

That basically means that 3 walls of the bedroom are unuseable for furniture. One wall has 2 doors, another wall the main door, another wall 2 small windows.

Lounge is the same. Have to use half the lounge as a walkway to the kitchen, plus it has the front door. So again, a lot of the very small space is unuseable anyway.

This is my biggest gripe. It's not just the price. It's what you can actually get for the price. I've got no where to store an ironing board. It has to sit behind the door int he bedroom. No cupboard high enought to store it. Same with upright hoovers.

Happy to have the place though. Just wish others could see what you actually get in these FTB places. I'd suggest owning an ironing board is quite a usual occurance. I'd suggest a chest of drawers in a bedroom isn't too much to ask. But you can't have a chest of drawers and a double bed in the maiun bedroom without blocking out some of the window, or the main door, or the airing cupboard door. I can't have a normal size sofa, it's just too big for the lounge. I have no choice but to go for a 2 seater. A 3 piece suite would fill the room so it was literally unuseable. The kitcen / diner as they call it is a kitchen with space for a table, but no space for chairs around a table....well, no space if you want to sit on said chairs at the table anyway.

jamespmg44

the_flying_pig wrote: »

What a load of crap.

It is a matter of public record, never mind common sense, that it is far more difficult for an average earner to get decent housing housing today than it was for an average earner to get decent housign 30 years ago. Why do a handful of idiotic boomers have to insist that it's 'just the same'? Why presume this? Why not, if one is bothering to contribute to a debate of this sort, take the trouble to remember what both housing costs and wages were back then?

You mention holidays, that's something that's patently many times cheaper today than thirty years ago - did hundreds of thousands of average 20 year olds of the 1970s get the chance to routinely go on holidays to Thailand, or Mexico, or India, or whatever else in those days? Of course not, it's a new opportunity that today's young have and yesterday's young didn't... so why not apply the same rigour to housing when we've just seen how ridiculous it might potentially be to say that opportunities [of various sorts] have remained unchanged through the decades? Does today's average 25 year old have access to the same standard of accommodation as the average 25 year old of the 1970s? The answer is of course not - housing has become vastly more expensive and scarce, just as exotic holidays have become vastly cheaper and more widely available. Just look at the places that young average earners are living in today compared with then and look at how much debt they have.

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.

Today is a better time to be a 15 or 20 year old than the 1970s in terms of the cheap gadgets, holidays, etc that are available just as it's a worse time to be a 25 or 30 year old in terms of housing costs.

Maybe if those that are complaining about expensive housing went on less exotic holidays and spent less on gadgets, that housing wouldn't seem so expensive.

Far too many people in their twenties watch trash tv shows about Jordan, Cheryl Cole and want the same lifestyle of a big fancy house handed to them on a plate. If someone has to own (*well really it's the bank that owns most of it at the start) a house so badly then move somewhere cheaper, if they don't need it that badly, they can rent.

Home ownership has never been a right - most of those who cannot afford a house now would have been in social housing or renting in days gone by.

Now social housing is a whole different arguement...

ILW

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I should have added "apart from all those boomers on this thread of course".

Seems, as with many of the discussions, in this case, the boomers all know youngun's with 2 houses in their 20's, and all had it the hardest.

And the younger generation all have not a pop to pee in.

Personally, I think it's somewhere in the middle. I think it's more difficult now. BUT, it's not only more difficult, but the type of home has also changed. So you end up paying much more now for a much smaller place in general.

My place for instance was pretty expensive. But you could walk end to end within a few paces. It's absolutely tiny. Plus, because it's so tiny, they have had to use the main bedroom for the airing cupboard to be housed, and small, but deep wardrobe (meaning you can only really use one rail and behind it is useless).

That basically means that 3 walls of the bedroom are unuseable for furniture. One wall has 2 doors, another wall the main door, another wall 2 small windows.

Lounge is the same. Have to use half the lounge as a walkway to the kitchen, plus it has the front door. So again, a lot of the very small space is unuseable anyway.

This is my biggest gripe. It's not just the price. It's what you can actually get for the price. I've got no where to store an ironing board. It has to sit behind the door int he bedroom. No cupboard high enought to store it. Same with upright hoovers.

Happy to have the place though. Just wish others could see what you actually get in these FTB places. I'd suggest owning an ironing board is quite a usual occurance. I'd suggest a chest of drawers in a bedroom isn't too much to ask. But you can't have a chest of drawers and a double bed in the maiun bedroom without blocking out some of the window, or the main door, or the airing cupboard door. I can't have a normal size sofa, it's just too big for the lounge. I have no choice but to go for a 2 seater. A 3 piece suite would fill the room so it was literally unuseable.

I would have guessed you could have bought a bigger place in a less pricey area for the same amount. Its all a matter of choice. It just seems that the moaners on here seem to want a largish place, in an expensive area as their first home. Don't think that has ever been the case unless you came from a rich family.

Oldernotwiser

olly300 wrote: »

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.

But, if you're FTBs, you're not going to be buying somewhere to bring up a family in, are you? You're going to be looking for a 1 or 2 bed flat and move in a few years after (hopefully) a couple of pay rises.

Graham_Devon

ILW wrote: »

I would have guessed you could have bought a bigger place in a less pricey area for the same amount. Its all a matter of choice. It just seems that the moaners on here seem to want a largish place, in an expensive area and their first home. Don't think that has ever been the case unless you came from a rich family.

I already moved 25 miles from my main work to get what I got.

I could have moved about 75 miles away from work...there is a cheaper place I do know of as I've looked into it.

However, my transport costs would have trippled.

Fine line between how far out you move and how much it effects yoru fuel costs.

Obviously, without work, I wouldn't even have bought a house, so just giving up work isn't really an option

Anyway, just cus I could move further, it doesn't really get around the issue of the type of houses I was talking about. Someones gotta buy them....hence we are back to the whole "its good enough for you, but not for me" situation.

Everyone could point out cheaper places to live. But many times you'd have to give up your whole life to get there. Not really an option in my mind.