When my dad was my age he owned a four-bed semi - so why am I still in a rented dump?

Conrad

I purchased a North London studio for under £100k today, nice little quiet development in a fair area.

Ok the lease is shortish at 73 yrs but £120k will get you a long lease. The way prices are going areas like this could easily be selling the samle place for £200k in 5 years time.

The issue here is expectation. If Hacnkey is now too expensive, go to another area and travel a bit. I used to drive 25 miles to outer London and then commute when I was 20 so please don;t tell me it can't be done.

abankerbutnotafatcat

Conrad wrote: »

The issue here is expectation. If Hacnkey is now too expensive, go to another area and travel a bit. I used to drive 25 miles to outer London and then commute when I was 20 so please don;t tell me it can't be done.

There's a element of payoff between affordability property Vs travel costs. That doesn't apply so much within the zones but once you're outside of them the travel costs can mean you have to earn a reasonable amount to make the cheaper housing stack up, particularly if you're a couple. My annual train ticket is c£3k.

My take on the generational thing in London anyway, is that housing prices started to rapidly rise from say Q1 1997 so anyone under say 25 then I.e. 40ish now will find it relatively tougher than those who were able to buy before that date.

zagubov

Or we could tell our MPs we want regional policies that will spread the jobs and housing around the country so we could grow Britain's cities that aren't London.

So London doesn't get clogged with everyone who needs a job and people get a chance to own bigger cheaper properties with more room in other parts of Britain.

How about a high-speed transport network that works instead of the industrial museum-piece that is our rail network.

Loads of other countries manage to spread their wealth and population and it's long overdue for us to do the same.

We can afford it because we're not a third-world country and we're not at war (OK I messed up that last bit, thanks a lot Tony).

ukcarper

abankerbutnotafatcat wrote: »

There's a element of payoff between affordability property Vs travel costs. That doesn't apply so much within the zones but once you're outside of them the travel costs can mean you have to earn a reasonable amount to make the cheaper housing stack up, particularly if you're a couple. My annual train ticket is c£3k.

My take on the generational thing in London anyway, is that housing prices started to rapidly rise from say Q1 1997 so anyone under say 25 then I.e. 40ish now will find it relatively tougher than those who were able to buy before that date.

House prices have always gone up and down and 1997 was the bottom of the biggest dip so I would say that it was relatively tougher for those who bought before and after.

zagubov

Wookster wrote: »

Anyone who says that life is easier for young folks nowadays than it was 30 years ago is in lala land.

Let's see- 30 years ago I had a good honours degree, was working unpaid in a hospital while writing off for over 130 jobs and ended up moving 300 miles for a post (not a job, but a course which I hope would improve my chanes of getting a job)..

Plus rail strikes stopping me form getting to some interviews.

Not a good time to be looking for a job, IMHO.

Thrugelmir

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

When these examples are provided, I often wonder what the positionwas for the grandad or even great grandad.

I would wager that they didn't think it was a right to own a 4 bed house and it could only be accomplished with hard work, dedication and will power.

One of my grandparents walked the 4 miles to work and back every day to save the sixpence bus fair (old money). In order to save the £25 deposit to buy a house in the 30's.

My grandmother did an evening cleaning job 5 nights a week for 8 years to pay for the articles for my father to become a Chartered Accountant.

Generations of bygone years aspired to better themselves and their families. Not like today's generally self centred and selfish society. Where I comes first.

drc

Oh well. If he would only forgo his iPad, his widescreen tv and his mobile phone, then he would be able to afford to buy a 4 bed terrace in Hackney at £2 million a pop, right?

sabretoothtigger

Just comes down to what is useful. A mobile phone is not always a luxury, if it helps your job it definitely isnt. Buying a house is quite sensible vs renting but not always not when prices were 50 years rents

So in the past maybe the point is people had the chance to make themselves more useful, do more work. Gain some extra income, maybe this is no longer possible. Regulation but also benefits make initiative pointless and illegal even

Im not inclined to think old people were better workers then us, the system was different though

MacMickster

zagubov wrote: »

Let's see- 30 years ago I had a good honours degree, was working unpaid in a hospital while writing off for over 130 jobs and ended up moving 300 miles for a post (not a job, but a course which I hope would improve my chanes of getting a job)..

Plus rail strikes stopping me form getting to some interviews.

Not a good time to be looking for a job, IMHO.

Some highlights from 30 years ago when many think that everyone had it easy compared to today:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_the_United_Kingdom

• The Welsh Army of Workers claims responsibility for a bomb explosion at the Birmingham headquarters of Severn Trent Water
• The lowest ever UK temperature of -27.2°C is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This equals the record set in the same place in 1895, and the record will be equalled again at Altnaharra in 1995
• Unemployment in the United Kingdom is recorded at over 3 million for the first time since the 1930s.
• Rioting breaks out in St Pauls, Bristol
• Laker Airways collapses, leaving 6,000 passengers stranded, with debts of £270 million
• The DeLorean Car factory in Belfast is put into receivership.
• The Glasgow-registered coal ship St. Bedan is bombed and sunk by an IRA unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
• The European Court of Justice rules that schools in Britain cannot allow corporal punishment against the wishes of parents.
• The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company gives its last performance at the end of a final London season, having been in near-continuous existence since 1875
• A 12-year-old unnamed Birmingham boy becomes one of the youngest people in England and Wales to be convicted of murder after he admits murdering an eight-year-old boy, and is sentenced to be detained indefinitely.
• Falklands War begins as Argentina invades the Falkland Islands
• The Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov, shot outside the Dorchester Hotel
• Welsh miners go on strike to support health workers demanding a 12% pay rise.
• The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi, chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.
• The first child of The Prince and Princess of Wales is born at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.
• A British Airways Boeing 747 suffers a temporary four-engine flameout and damage to the exterior of the plane, after flying through the otherwise undetected ash plume from Indonesia's Galunggung.
• Support for the Conservative government continues to rise, mainly due to the success of the Falklands campaign, with an MORI opinion poll showing that they have a 51% approval rate
• Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace and spends 10 minutes talking to the Queen until he is apprehended.
• Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings: The Provisional IRA detonates two bombs in central London, killing 8 soldiers, wounding 47 people, and leading to the deaths of 7 horses.
• Production of the Ford Cortina ends after 20 years and five incarnations
• Margaret Thatcher expresses her concern at the growing number of children living in single parent families, but says that she is not opposed to divorce
• Sinn F!in win first seats on Northern Ireland Assembly, with Gerry Adams winning the Belfast West seat.
• Three RUC officers killed by an IRA bomb near Lurgan in Northern Ireland.
• The government announces that more than 400,000 council houses have been sold off under the right-to-buy scheme in the last three years
• Unemployment remains in excess of 3 million - 13.8% of the workforce.
• A letter bomb sent by Animal rights activists explodes in 10 Downing Street, with packages sent to the leaders of the other political parties. One member of Downing Street staff is burnt
• Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp: 30,000 women hold hands and form a human chain around the 14.5 km (9 mi) perimeter fence
• More than 1,200 jobs are lost in the West Midlands when the Round Oak Steelworks closes after 125 years
• Inflation has fallen to a 10-year low of 8.6%, although some 1,500,000 jobs have reportedly been lost largely due to Government policy in attaining this end

abankerbutnotafatcat

ukcarper wrote: »

House prices have always gone up and down and 1997 was the bottom of the biggest dip so I would say that it was relatively tougher for those who bought before and after.

Q1 1997 was the start of the rise in London. The rise in London 1997-2007 was unusually high. My property increased nearly 3.5x during that period and that's without any major work and I don't think that rise is unusual. The many areas that enjoyed gentrification during that period will probably have seen even larger increases.