The Trouble With Gen Y

Cornucopia

It's very difficult to compare then & now. So much has changed.

I remember the figures for my first flat quite clearly:

1988 SE London studio flat. £52k

I borrowed 4x my income: £46k. Payments at the peak were nearly £700 per month - over half my income.

I lost money on that property, but made money on every other property I bought (and there have been a few). In many years, I made more in HPI than I earned from a reasonable job in IT.

In my second job (c.1990), the two youngest team members both had second jobs to increase their pay. I also struggled to keep up with the slightly extravagant drinking/dining habits of the older team members.

edit: It was tough at times, but it always seemed worthwhile and doable, somehow. I don't always get that feeling about the property market these days.

ruggedtoast

I doubt some people here were ever young.

Thank god for the Hemingways and the Kerouacs I say. Life is too short for bean counting buy to let Scrooge McDucks who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Miserly old saddle bags who will begrudge a young person an iPhone while they themselves rattle around 5 bedroom mansions grumbling about how deserving they are.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I doubt some people here were ever young.

Thank god for the Hemingways and the Kerouacs I say. Life is too short for bean counting buy to let Scrooge McDucks who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Miserly old saddle bags who will begrudge a young person an iPhone while they themselves rattle around 5 bedroom mansions grumbling about how deserving they are.

pretty sure that Kerouac and Hemingway wouldn't have been vitriolic and mean spirited about an imaginary generational theft.

MobileSaver

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Miserly old saddle bags who will begrudge a young person an iPhone while they themselves rattle around 5 bedroom mansions grumbling about how deserving they are.

It seems to me it's the other way around... young people grumbling that they should be entitled to a 5 bedroom mansion and how dare anyone suggest they sacrifice their expensive iPhone, Sky subscription, Nike trainers, overseas holidays, Pret A Manger lunches and weekend benders so that they can afford it.

[Deleted User]

ukcarper wrote: »

1989 was well after the time you needed a interview to get a mortgage and it didn't help much with rampant HPI as prices crashed after 1989.

Didn't see (or read) the 1989 bit..

Anyway - why does anyone think that 'people' have changed? 'People' like shiney stuff and are influenced by culture and advertising. Just look at that fool blowing a year's savings on a VCR! If I said i spend a years savings on an iPhone or a mac, i'd probably get lynched round here.

You need to look at these questions:
Is it easer now, or was it easer in the 70s, to find a job that would give you enough salary to pay for a home?

Sure, an equivalent salary from 'then' would probably buy you a house now (after HPI and salary inflation).. but would more, or less people have been able to get that salary?

ukcarper

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Didn't see (or read) the 1989 bit..

Anyway - why does anyone think that 'people' have changed? 'People' like shiney stuff and are influenced by culture and advertising. Just look at that fool blowing a year's savings on a VCR! If I said i spend a years savings on an iPhone or a mac, i'd probably get lynched round here.

You need to look at these questions:
Is it easer now, or was it easer in the 70s, to find a job that would give you enough salary to pay for a home?

Sure, an equivalent salary from 'then' would probably buy you a house now (after HPI and salary inflation).. but would more, or less people have been able to get that salary?

I don't really think people have changed that much but the way we live our lives has. For instance it's no good complaining people are buying houses later when they start work get married and have children later, very few single people bought houses in the 60s/70s. I've said many times that good jobs are the problem, although they have been in the past, but most people on here who do complain are fixated on house prices which I don't see as the main problem.

cats_ahoy

MobileSaver wrote: »

It seems to me it's the other way around... young people grumbling that they should be entitled to a 5 bedroom mansion and how dare anyone suggest they sacrifice their expensive iPhone, Sky subscription, Nike trainers, overseas holidays, Pret A Manger lunches and weekend benders so that they can afford it.

Great sweeping generalization of all 'young people' there :T

Generali

ukcarper wrote: »

I don't really think people have changed that much but the way we live our lives has. For instance it's no good complaining people are buying houses later when they start work get married and have children later, very few single people bought houses in the 60s/70s. I've said many times that good jobs are the problem, although they have been in the past, but most people on here who do complain are fixated on house prices which I don't see as the main problem.

In fairness, very few people at all bought houses in the 1960s.

ukcarper

Generali wrote: »

In fairness, very few people at all bought houses in the 1960s.

I do wonder when young single people started to buy property in any numbers, I would imagine it was after the boomers.

Generali

ukcarper wrote: »

I do wonder when young single people started to buy property in any numbers, I would imagine it was after the boomers.

AIUI, the boom in property ownership was really down to Right to Buy. Until then barely half of Britons owned their homes.