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

ukcarper

GunJack wrote: »

so back then your mortgage was half-a-week's salary.... I wish...
not only that, you would have benefitted since from massive house price inflation


In fact,I remember my wife saying her and her siblings were forced to not continue education past secondary school but to get a job to contribute £20 a week each (3 of them) so £240 a month, when her parent's mortgage was all of £25 a month :mad:

I bought my first house in 1972 it was £8000 my mortgage repayments were £44 a month joint take home pay about £150 a month. A similar property sold last year for £215,000 a mortgage on that would be £1032 a month at 4%. In similar jobs you would take home about £3000 a month.

IveSeenTheLight

We bought our first flat when I was 26 and the wife was 21.
We married a year later (I had stipulated we needed to get a property and live together before marrying. Far easier to establish we could live together before marrying)

thorsoak

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?

My generation did. Born 1943, left school (with A levels) in 1961, started work in accountant's office, married in 1963 to OH (born 1940). He'd served an apprenticeship with BP at 17, attending p/t college for engineering apprentices, gaining ONC and continuing to study for HNC. Bought newbuild 3 bed semi in Essex for £3,250 on a combined income of just under £1,000. Deposit scrounged from savings, small amount of support from both lots of parents and moved in 3 weeks after our wedding. Most of our neighbours were newly weds in first/second jobs.

My father worked in the Post Office, mother was typical sahm of the 50s/60s and I had 3 younger sisters. OH was an only child of maintenance engineer and another sahm. Nothing middle class about them - although both sets had "aspirations" - both families living in council houses which they bought not long after us under first rght to buy scheme.

Percy1983

LydiaJ wrote: »

Indeed. Somebody at my work is getting married this year. We were discussing how different weddings were back in the early 90s when I got married. I said the whole process was a lot cheaper. One example I gave was that hen parties didn't involve going away for a whole weekend (mentioning hen parties rather than stag parties merely because she and I are both female). She said she thought it was quite reasonable of women to have a whole weekend because the stag parties are like that. I explained that back in the day, such parties were a single meal out somewhere for each gender. It didn't seem to have occurred to her that things had ever been that simple. Then she started telling me that really they were economising a lot. She explained various strategies for taking flights at odd hours and to random airports so as to save on the flights to afford nicer hotels on the honeymoon. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it had never crossed our minds to include either flights or hotels at all on our honeymoon (well, apart from the first night in a hotel). I don't grudge it to her - she and her fiancee have decent jobs and earn enough to be able to afford these things if that's what she wants to spend her money on, whereas we were students on grants (he an undergraduate and I a post-grad). But I did find it funny how much she assumed that things had always been the way they are now.

I do remember when I was getting married how a girl I work with couldn't see how we were getting married for £3k, the first thing she said was the dress would cost that much, errmm no...

Had a nice honeymoon in the lake district, went llama trekking with Lily (the llama), I can honestly say more money doesn't make it any better, more for show I am sure but we withdrew from that rat race a long time ago.

mayonnaise

Percy1983 wrote: »

Had a nice honeymoon in the lake district, went llama trekking with Lily (the llama),

That sounds like a truly exhilarating experience.

Percy1983

mayonnaise wrote: »

That sounds like a truly exhilarating experience.

It was, I would recommend it.

Get karma with a llama!

supermassive

Put it this way: When my parents were married at the end of the 70's, they immediately bought their marital home for £6000.

If I wanted to do the same, for the exact same house today, I'd be set back £95,000.

The difference in our household incomes? We're on around £2000 pcm and they were on what would, these days, be around the same amount.

It's a symptom of the "let's crush the youth so we can stay in control" attitude of this country's middle aged rich right wingers.

I didn't even read the thread, just needed a rant tbh.

ukcarper

supermassive wrote: »

Put it this way: When my parents were married at the end of the 70's, they immediately bought their marital home for £6000.

If I wanted to do the same, for the exact same house today, I'd be set back £95,000.

The difference in our household incomes? We're on around £2000 pcm and they were on what would, these days, be around the same amount.

It's a symptom of the "let's crush the youth so we can stay in control" attitude of this country's middle aged rich right wingers.

I didn't even read the thread, just needed a rant tbh.

You will get your chance to do something about it in a few months.


In 1979 average house price was £20k so they found a cheap property.

IveSeenTheLight

supermassive wrote: »

Put it this way: When my parents were married at the end of the 70's, they immediately bought their marital home for £6000.

If I wanted to do the same, for the exact same house today, I'd be set back £95,000.

The difference in our household incomes? We're on around £2000 pcm and they were on what would, these days, be around the same amount.

It's a symptom of the "let's crush the youth so we can stay in control" attitude of this country's middle aged rich right wingers.

I didn't even read the thread, just needed a rant tbh.

Rant away, but ask yourself what that achieves.
There are plenty of youth who are able to buy properties.
How is it that they can get on the housing ladder whilst others can't?
what are they doing that you are not?

Number of first-time buyers soars by a quarter and average size of mortgage reaches £128k

More than 30,000 mortgages were handed out to first-time buyers in July, up 3 per cent from June, and 25 per cent higher on July 2013

http://www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/4103

Lending to first-time buyers

First-time buyers saw a month-on-month lending increase, with 29,900 first-time buyer loans in October - 12% more than in September, and 14% up on October 2013

First-time buyer affordability changed fractionally, with first-time buyers typically borrowing 3.39 times their gross income, compared to 3.40 in September. The typical loan size for first-time buyers fell slightly month-on-month to £125,800 in October, down from £126,000 in September. The typical gross income of a first-time buyer household changed slightly to £38,820 in October from £38,714 in September.

First-time buyers in October paid 19.5% of gross income towards covering capital and interest payments, little changed from 19.6% in September but still significantly less than the recent peak of 24.8% in December 2007.

elantan

was married at 17.5 had a kid just before i was 19 bought our first house when i was 21 have since sold that one and bought another one, went back to a new 25 year mortgage so that we could afford it, son bought his first house at 20 , 3 years ago ( so younger than me and his dad)

He saved his backside off from 18 till 20 saving £20,000 for a deposit, the house was valued at £85k he offered £65k they accepted, he put £20k deposit down and has a tiny mortgage with a not too bad 3 bedroom house, he rents out two rooms which pays his mortgage and bills and he works his backside off,

It can be done if your in the right place and have the ability to make it work for you