"Generation rent" - did ppl really marry in their 20s and buy a house?

michaels

LydiaJ wrote: »

Almost all of my friends from uni did. We graduated in the early 90s. The vast majority got a secure graduate job, and within a year or two had bought a house, especially the ones who got married or were otherwise in a couple with somebody to buy a house with.

My brothers (graduated in the mid-80s) all got degrees, got secure graduate jobs, and bought a house (or in one case a London flat) within a year or so, on a single income each (although if the property was big enough they had lodgers while they were single and didn't need the space). They didn't get married until later, at which point they pooled resources with their wives and bought bigger nicer houses in nicer areas.

Buying a house was just the next thing graduates did after getting a degree. It isn't quite like that any more.

I wonder if you were in the typical demographic even for graduates of that period?

Perhaps the same pool of graduates can afford houses at the same point now if they choose to buy. Don't forget the graduate pool now not only still contains the 14% of graduates who used to go to less prestigious unis and polys a couple of decades ago but also another 35% of the population who didn't go to uni at all in decades past.

shortchanged_2

It doesn't help these days that there is a lack of good affordable social housing.

ruggedtoast

slopemaster wrote: »

I have seen in a few places lately the statement that people used to marry in their twenties and buy a house - whereas now people cannot afford to buy until much later (if at all).

As far as I can see, this never was the norm - at least for people of my class (upper working class...)
Perhaps for the middle classes?
Or perhaps for a brief period when they were giving mortgages away with cornflakes?

I was thinking through four generations of my extended family and cannot think of anyone who married in their twenties and bought a house!

Mothers parents were in private rented until in their 40s, when they got a council house, where they stayed until they died.
Father's parents owned a 2-bed terrace with outside toilet, bought in their 40s. My parents moved in there when they narried. They had one bedroom, his mum and sister shared the other. (Sister later married, and lived there with her mum all her life.) After 5 years my parents moved to a rented flat, and after another year they moved to a council house, It took them the next 10 years to save a deposit - by which time they were in late 30s.

One aunt lived in a council house down south - too expensive to buy in Hampshire - and only bought her own place when they retired to Wales.
Many of the others lived in council places. An uncle was a sparks (good money) and the woman he married was considered posh; I think she might have had an inheritance to use as deposit when they bought a brand new place . But this was most unusual.

My generation didn't expect to stay with our parents once grown up, so we moved out into crummy bedsits, and gradually rented better places. I married at 30 and we bought a house in our mid-30s. I think it was similar for most of my cousins - they may have married younger, but were in their 30s before they could buy anywhere.

My son is mid-thirties and has recently bought his place.
So what is it that's chenged so much?
Why are we always being told that it should be normal for everyone to buy a house pretty much as soon as they start work?

People who consider themselves middle class have never spent a lot of time in crummy bedsits. It was normal for them to own a house.

Then society changed completely, Thatcher destroyed the majority of working class jobs and the houses and communities that anchored them in place.

The payoff for this was meant to be that everyone had a university degree and got to do a snazzy middle class job.

What has actually happened is that two generations of people have graduated the system being told they are socially mobile white collar information age workers with various degrees and student loans to prove it, and found they can't get a permanent job, can barely afford their rent, and will never own a house.

Some people like to complain about them bitterly, with their liberal arts degrees and their outrageous expectations for existence that leads to them expecting more than an outside toilet and a tin bath each week.

Those same people will become incandescent with rage if their £7.99 a month broadband line fails and someone in a UK based help desk, most probably a temp worker on minimum wage, doesn't immediately answer the phone and sort the issues out using the skills from the degree they got.

N1AK

slopemaster wrote: »

As far as I can see, this never was the norm - at least for people of my class (upper working class...)
Perhaps for the middle classes?

I was thinking through four generations of my extended family and cannot think of anyone who married in their twenties and bought a house!

It might be a generational thing. Your son is my age, and all of my or my partners parents generation bought in their 30s. Or potentially it was area, or attitudes of different familes.

Dad was a sailor from 15, then was a copper. Mum did ironing for other people. They were living in a mortgaged home before having me in their mid-20s. It was a 3 bed-semi worth around £250,000 now.

In-laws both owned seperately, but moved into together before having kids still in their 20s. Still live in the same 3 bed house in a nice village, which would cost ~£400,000 today.

The other 5 Aunts/Uncles all bought in their 20s except one who worked/travelled until he settled down in early 30s. Ironically he is almost certainly the most financially secure.

Most of my friends in my generation have also managed to buy in 20s. However the houses they've bought tend to be cheaper than the properties their parents bought. They are also generally doing higher paid work vs the average income. In our case the house we bougth cost half as much as my parents house is worth now, and we earn 2-3x as much as they did vs the average wage for the time.

the_flying_pig

it's obviously not the case that there's been such a seismic paradigm shift that [say] thirty years ago the average FTB age was [say] sixteen and now it's [say] sixty, but, yes, there's been a fair-sized change, certainly.

see the chart below, e.g. a 1960-born 25 year old was about as likely to own a house as a 1980-born 3- year old. extrapolating current trends it seems likely enough that 1960-born 25 year old home ownership rates won't be matched by people born in 1985 until this group is say 35 or so.

this despite the fact that the 1960-born people were a good deal more likely to be able to get council housing.

one thing that won't ever [or at least for the foreseeable future] change, of course, is [particularly female] fertility rates. they've always dropped off a cliff after the mid 30s & presumably always will do.

lazer

The difference is that people IMO tended to stay at home until they got married (and hopefully saved!).


My parents didn't own a house until they were in their 50's I was brought up in private rented, I bought at 29 (on my own), brother is buying now at 34 with a partner.


My mum has 9 siblings and out of the 10 of them, I am sure at least 6 rented when they got married, 1 stayed at home, 1 built on family land, and 1 moved into a house my grandparents moved out of (1 - I a not sure off!, this was late 70's, early 80's


A lot of my friends are still in rented and some still with parents

Out,_Vile_Jelly

My parents were born working class, but my dad went to grammar school and then university, before becoming an engineer. They got married at 21 and 20 and were owners of a 4 bed, 3 bath detached house in Dorset by the time they were 30, moving from a 3 bed down the road they bought in their mid twenties. I believe they joined the middle classes in the late 80s, when we went on holiday to Center Parcs.

Masomnia

My grandparents bought in their 20s in the 1950s, but they were very much not the norm I'm sure.

lisyloo

I wonder if you were in the typical demographic even for graduates of that period?

Job prospects were very good in the early 90's.
That's partly because only about 20% of the population went to uni as opposed to 50% now.
We also didn't have student debts.

Perhaps the same pool of graduates can afford houses at the same point now if they choose to buy

Now there is a much bigger pool, fewer good jobs and higher debts.

Percy1983

It seems my parents, inlaws, auties and uncles all got married early 20s and bought a house.

We had to leave it to late 20s.