Resentment of this generation

grizzly1911

zagfles wrote: »

But a scheme like this could replace the other taxes, rather than be additional. It could eliminate stamp duty, maybe even council tax!

It would reduce the investment potential of housing, thereby reducing some of the demand, and so reduce prices, and so householder costs (mortgages etc)

The number of houses in the country has increased at a faster rate than the population over the last 20 years or so, the extra demand has partly been driven by investment potential rather than need for accomodation

First Para:- Titanic,shuffle, chairs arrange as you want. Taxation, as a whole, has/is rising for Janet and John endlessly we still have a deficit and we still have problems like housing.

Para2:- I would suggest that the majority of people buy a property for somewhere to live first and foremost, the fact that it is an hedge against inflation is the incentive because it is not dead money. I accept that there are speculators particularly in honey pots e.g. London and nice places like the Lakes/Cornwall/Devon.

If they don't buy then they need somewhere to live fueling

Para3:- Which if policed properly should also be taxed.

I was not aware that property availability had exceeded demand (apart from in pockets), where did that "statistic" come from (genuine question).

The reason I am surprised at that fact is that surely there would be no incentive for BTL, and prices would be going down.

I certainly see very few vacant properties around about.

What I do think is an issue is affordable social housing and the lack of investment there which has then fueled speculation. It also didn't help that vast housing stocks were sold off for political reasons.

This country has been run like it has been closing down for the last 40 years, everything has been sold off cheap to keep us afloat.

From council housing, utilities, telecoms, trains, airwaves, steel, coal (closed down I know but we still import the stuff), gold for example.

Trouble is there is little else to sell.

FTBFun

zagfles wrote: »

It might stop them "upsizing" in the first place. Single bloke across the road from me lives in a 4-bed house. His next door neighbours - couple in a 5 bed house.

People with money tend to buy a bigger house than they need because of the investment potential. Reduce the investment gain and you reduce the demand for people buying excessive property.

Not necessarily - they may think they'll "grow" into the house if you follow me.

Quite why any of the above is any of your business confuses me a little.

Pee

I forgot to mention, I talk to a lot of people in their seventies and eighties because they are writing wills. There is another generation who will benefit from this affluence, in due course.

fc123

quantic wrote: »

So the general gist of this is:

Every generation thinks they have it worst than the last one, each generation struggles with different factors, in the short term previous generations might seem better off but it will even out eventually and my kids will probably be saying they have it harder than me. Get on with it and don't worry too much about what everyone else is doing just concentrate on myself and my future.

I think the housing bubble is pretty much over now as we know it anyways, will be interesting to watch the University bubble next, kids leaving Uni with what is effectively a mortgage on their education, and they don't even get the house out of it! Well, I suppose that will probably be the thing that they say they have to deal with and I don't, just as I am moaning that previous generations didn't have to deal with these prices.

Thanks for all the comments so far guys, I am trying to educate myself somewhat, to become less narrow minded with these sorts of things because to be honest, its not really a topic that people get into in person often, I think its seen as somewhat vulgar to discus money in person, that and the fact that a lot of people don't age that I know don't even know the difference between repayment and interest only mortgage so the conversations are somewhat short.

The first para sums it up exactly.

I am late 40's and one grandfather bought a new house off plan in the 1930's under the Govt scheme with the low deposit. He liked the location as it was on a high point in London.
Unfortunately, a few years later, when he had two small children, WW2 came along and just up from his house was used for anti aircraft fire. This made the area a target for the bombers.

He was always a positive type and when he talked about it he was very thankful that his house got missed as, apart from the fact they would have all died like some of their bombed out neighbours, his house wasn't rebuilt after the war with an ugly concrete infill.
I still drive around those streets and you can spot all the bomb infill houses. Entire families were killed in their beds.

Very different concerns to today but no less stressful or worrying.

abaxas wrote: »

The situation is much worse today.

As in the past people wanted to change and improve it. Now there is a huge group of people who dont want it to improve, if anything for it to get worse.

Sickos is the word to describe them.

I don't belive that is true.....maybe you're hanging out with the wrong crowd.

grizzly1911

Pee wrote: »

I forgot to mention, I talk to a lot of people in their seventies and eighties because they are writing wills. There is another generation who will benefit from this affluence, in due course.

unless the care home gets it;)

grizzly1911

fc123 wrote: »

Unfortunately, a few years later, when he had two small children, WW2 came along and just up from his house was used for anti aircraft fire. This made the area a target for the bombers.

Horrible thought, some bombs were dropped across the road from where my parents brought their first house, before it was built, on a playing field. I used to look out as a kid trying to imagine it:eek:

Reminds me of the film Catch 22 - "It is a lovely day you will have a clear (bombing) run only downside the AA will have clear shots too".

I remember visiting a site, in the late nineties, close to St Pauls where there was still the empty plot where the end of a terrace used to be, fireplace hanging half way up the wall. Wonder if that has been redeveloped yet?

Loughton_Monkey

The 'financial position' of us older generations [which is how this thread started] somehow seems to be 'blamed' upon house prices and the general economic climate as it is today. Absolute rubbish!

Remember that, at any one time, we broadly have 4 different 'economically active' generations co-surviving in the same economic climate. There are the late teens just starting work/education, their parents in their 40's, their parents just retiring, and then their parents trying to spend all their money before dying.

We all suffer whatever the current economic climate is. Us 'oldies' have suffered about 10 totally different 'economic climates' through our lifetime. Current 'youngsters' will do the same. And yet the OP seems to be 'accusing' my generation of doing sweet FA, getting rich by 'circumstance', and not only that, guilty of 'demoralising' the younger generation as a result!

Complete Bunkum!

Any difference in the generations is 'social and behavioural' rather more than 'economic'.

My father would have been 100 this month (although he died 3 years after retiring at 65). His generation had very little money, but an awful lot more than their parents. They were grateful for it. They took responsibility for their own lives and generally thought claiming state benefits (other than pension) to be extremely shameful.

In contrast, my own generation (baby boomer perhaps), were given an upbringing with roughly the same 'thinking', although we were better off with (a) better education system, and (b) a reasonable economic environment in the 50's/60's. I know several 'peers' of my time and there is no black/white story of success. I did reasonably well, thankyou, and retired early. I know of one peer who still lives (unemployed) at age 61 in the same council house in which he was carted - like me - age 3 - just a few doors up.

Anyone who thinks it was 'easy' in those days, try living through a decade of inflation up to 28% (the 70's). Try buying a house on a 15% or 18% mortgage rate. Try living through 3 million unemployed and recession with a capital "R". Try waiting until 30 before you can afford your own car......

As far as I know, my generation simply kept our heads down, worked, took responsibility for our lives. Saved (or not in some cases) as we felt able. Didn't have Internet Forums to bleat over. Although I don't particularly 'resent' any generation, I admit to being a bit bemused by the generation below me who - as a general rule - tended to get promotion and advances far quicker than my own generation, in which 'management by 30' was the pinnacle of achievement!

As I got more senior, I was obviously managing those of the generation below me, and some even lower, and I tended to be struck by their far more rapid promotion (and salary in real terms that I would have drooled over in my day). However, I started to see - more poignantly - the start of the 'want it now' mentality and the 'credit cards are for credit' syndrome.

I fear this behaviour got even worse over the following generation to a point of sheer madness. Three years ago, there was hardly a young couple (on or two of them married) who were not giving birth (perhaps rather younger than we used to), driving around in 'new' cars, and getting their foot on the property ladder. In a short space of time house prices have had one of their many 'wobbles'. What's new? This is a miserable 3 years. Take it on the chin, just as we had to take trebling/quadrupling of mortgage repayments on the chin!

There is not a generation who does not live through, say, 10 different 'economic periods' that might range from 'dire', through, 'OK' right up to 'Brilliant'. The only difference is in which order we experience them. I fear that today's younger generation have some tainted view of life that suggests to them that everything happens in 'straight lines'. It doesn't. Things change - especially over 40 years of working life. Those of my generation - if we were so stupid - could sit here and whinge about having worked all our lives, saved our nest eggs, only to see them burning away at 1% or two under inflation. OK. I don't like it. But I tolerate it, knowing that things will turn round. In the meantime, I do all those things I cando to minimise damage.

There are far better, and more trivial things, to whinge about.....

N1AK

quantic wrote: »

Its not my situation so much that annoys me, its more so that the previous generations seem to have a sense of accomplishment from being in the situation they are in? My point is that even if you bought extremely stupid, you still did incredibly well, absolutely nothing todo with your own knowledge/strengths etc. Oh well, maybe the trend will continue and my kids will be even more fooked then we seem to be

The attitude continues even now. You'll get people in there mid-50s complaining bitterly about the fact the pension age changes will mean they have to work for another 3 months or some nonsense. They say "I've paid my national insurance" completely ignorant to the fact that they've voted for decades worth of government which has refused to address the pension funding gap, leaving taxation unmaintainably low, and has instead spent the future capital of the nation.

The problem is there is nothing 'fair' you can do to solve it. The fairest solution would be to look at the use of public resources by time period, work out how much people have benefited by under-funding and then take the money off them. However, you try telling a bobby who retired at 50 that he owes tens of thousands of £s to make up his funding shortfall and see if he'll vote for you.

Best solution? Do what those generations did. Vote for your own best interests and remember that we're in a global world when it comes to employment. I feel an obligation to help the generations that follow me, not to the generations before, whose collective greed and ignorance put us here.

grizzly1911

N1AK wrote: »

Best solution? Do what those generations did. Vote for your own best interests.I feel an obligation to help the generations that follow me, not to the generations before, whose collective greed and ignorance put us here.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Good luck on that one.

You really have no idea.

I suggest you at least spend sometime reviewing the thread as some of your more enlightened peers have done. Individual ignorance, of participating as a member of a civilised democratic society, perhaps.

zagfles

ukcarper wrote: »

Well if he can afford it I can't see that he will do anything apart from reduce the supply of bigger houses if he bought a smaller house he would increase the demand for those.

Or as people did in the past he could have stayed with his parents, shared a house with mates etc until the time when he actually needs his own place like when he gets married/starts a family etc.

So reducing the demand, which in the main has been fed by single people choosing to live alone, not because they want to live alone, but because of the obsession about getting on the "property ladder", which has been fed by the vicious circle of people thinking if they don't buy now they'll never be able to afford a house feeding back into rising prices.