Resentment of this generation

quantic

Wages are stagnant, 1 in 5 young people are unemployed, benefits are a mess, house prices are in no way related to incomes... given all of this I can't help but feel a certain level of resentment to the last generation or 2 that have come before me. Don't get me wrong this is not a thread blaming anyone for my misfortunes, I own my own house (albeit with a mortgage that is larger than I believe it should be), I have a good job and live ok.

I don't know if its just me but the majority of my friends parents and other older people I know seem to be in a financial position which I will be unable to mirror even though I earn considerably more than some of them. I do not know a single person over 40 who lives in a house they could buy today, based on their wages... and no it is not because they have been smart with money or renovated wrecks.

It seems the last 2 generations (at least) have been a champion of circumstances, I find it pretty demoralising realising that people who earn much much less than me at work have houses vastly more expensive than mine and even have managed to accrue as many as 5 BTL properties additionally, which by no doing of their own are now worth twice or more than they paid originally.

Unlike a lot of people I know, I have gone without things, gone without buying fancy clothes, gone without nights out, gone without holidays and saved my !!! of to be where I am today, but it feels like a bit of a smack in the face that I have seemingly done everything right on paper, but others have done the opposite but simply because they bought 15-20 years ago they are somewhat set.

When I hear some of the people in their 40's, 50's and 60's on this forum asking for help about their financial situation, I cannot help but wonder what the fook they where doing, all you had to do was buy a house 20 years ago and you should be set by now, even if you bought like a mug over priced and on a !!!!!! mortgage deal you should still be sorted by now.

So my message to the previous 2 generations is, you want to try buying a house when average prices are 6-7 times the average salary. How the hell did some of you guys manage to screw it up?

DaddyBear

You wont get much sympathy from the older generations. They either don't care or don't realise that it's much tougher for young people these days.

quantic

I'm not looking for sympathy, I am just somewhat baffled by how these generations could mess it up, when they had the luxury of (in some cases) 5-10x property price increases... how on earth can someone still be in negative equity and have credit card bills when they bought a house for 5-10x less then it costs today? Not to mention the right to buy schemes, that allowed many to buy a council property with benefits money at a greatly reduced rate then sell it to a mug like me 20 years later for 10 times as much.

ILW

If your generation refused to pay the prices, they would drop. So you only have yourselves to blame.

quantic

ILW wrote: »

If your generation refused to pay the prices, they would drop. So you only have yourselves to blame.

Ah, why didn't you say sooner! I didn't realise it was so simple!! </sarcasm>

Graham_Devon

I've actually got an example of the age difference. My cousin.

8 years older. Bought a house here for 49k. Now has a house worth 300k approximately, with a small mortgage. It's under 100k I know that, but not sure on actual amounts obviously!

It was achieveable simply because of the age difference. He earns normal wages, infact I earn more. He bought the initial house on his own. Only difference is, he bought in 1997, I bought in 2006. he saw an increase up to an asking price of £275k. Not sure what it actually sold for.

The only reason he's now in that 300k house is purely down to timing, age, and a boom.

Seems strange really when you look at it like that. IMO anyway.

ukcarper

quantic wrote: »

Wages are stagnant, 1 in 5 young people are unemployed, benefits are a mess, house prices are in no way related to incomes... given all of this I can't help but feel a certain level of resentment to the last generation or 2 that have come before me. Don't get me wrong this is not a thread blaming anyone for my misfortunes, I own my own house (albeit with a mortgage that is larger than I believe it should be), I have a good job and live ok.

I don't know if its just me but the majority of my friends parents and other older people I know seem to be in a financial position which I will be unable to mirror even though I earn considerably more than some of them. I do not know a single person over 40 who lives in a house they could buy today, based on their wages... and no it is not because they have been smart with money or renovated wrecks.

It seems the last 2 generations (at least) have been a champion of circumstances, I find it pretty demoralising realising that people who earn much much less than me at work have houses vastly more expensive than mine and even have managed to accrue as many as 5 BTL properties additionally, which by no doing of their own are now worth twice or more than they paid originally.

Unlike a lot of people I know, I have gone without things, gone without buying fancy clothes, gone without nights out, gone without holidays and saved my !!! of to be where I am today, but it feels like a bit of a smack in the face that I have seemingly done everything right on paper, but others have done the opposite but simply because they bought 15-20 years ago they are somewhat set.

When I hear some of the people in their 40's, 50's and 60's on this forum asking for help about their financial situation, I cannot help but wonder what the fook they where doing, all you had to do was buy a house 20 years ago and you should be set by now, even if you bought like a mug over priced and on a !!!!!! mortgage deal you should still be sorted by now.

So my message to the previous 2 generations is, you want to try buying a house when average prices are 6-7 times the average salary. How the hell did some of you guys manage to screw it up?

People who bought 20 years ago have not benefited as much as people who bought 10 years ago the people who benefited the most were the people who bought 15 years ago. But I’m not sure what they are supposed to have done to help the situation now.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I've actually got an example of the age difference. My cousin.

8 years older. Bought a house here for 49k. Now has a house worth 300k approximately, with a small mortgage. It's under 100k I know that, but not sure on actual amounts obviously!

It was achieveable simply because of the age difference. He earns normal wages, infact I earn more. He bought the initial house on his own. Only difference is, he bought in 1997, I bought in 2006. he saw an increase up to an asking price of £275k. Not sure what it actually sold for.

The only reason he's now in that 300k house is purely down to timing, age, and a boom.

Seems strange really when you look at it like that. IMO anyway.

He was lucky to buy at the bottom of the last crash.

julieq

To be honest, we were saying much the same in the early 1980s (remember the punks' "No Future"?). Every generation thinks it has it tough.

Sorry, but we've had a high relative quality of life in the past because we were a first world country largely able to keep the forces of globalisation out. You're now in competition with a billion Chinese for prosperity, and a great chunk of that will do what it takes in terms of self education and hard work to win. It has nothing to do with baby boomers or council house sales or anything at all locally, it's about evening out levels of prosperity into the whole world. Which is basically a good thing. Most of the world is seeing more opportunities and improvements in quality of life. There are always winners and there are always losers.

There will be people in your generation who succeed, and there will be those who don't. So instead of complaining how bad things are and hoping someone turns up with a magic wand to take things back to how they were in the 1970s, you'd be better off trying to get into the first group by your own efforts.

smartn

In defence of the generation you are criticising. When I bought my first place approx 18 years ago I struggled to afford it, it was a 2 bed flat and I rented out a room to a friend to cover some of the bills (and I was on a very good wage for someone of my age at that time). Interest rates were way higher than they are now or have been recently, and we had to put down deposits and prove we could afford the repayments unlike people who bought say 5-10 years ago. In my opinion you are blaming the wrong people!!

quantic

Don't get me wrong, the opinion expressed in the OP may be narrow minded, but it was born of my personal experience with people I have seen first hand, I am open to being educated on the matter hence the post, I did not expect everyone who comes here to agree with me and would prefer the opposite actually so that I can form a more reasonable opinion on the subject.