Boomers at my work boasting of property wealth

ruggedtoast

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

You never give up, do you? Yet another post clearly steeped in jeaousy and or ignorance comparing chalk with cheese.

Why would anybody go through a thought process that involved adding up how long a few young so-called 'graduates' would have to work to pay cash for a house owned by someone who has worked for 40-odd years longer?

Us boomers didn't do anything special at all. We had incomes which in real terms today would have people running off to DWP for benefits. We also 'drooled' at the houses occupied by people even less than a generation older than us. But we did a couple of really key things. Like recognise that we must try to get on the property ladder early. Like never go entering commitments like children/renting 'decent' properties because in doing so, you are permanently denying yourself an opportunity to buy. Like saving as if there were no tomorrow, and then buying any sh[thole that we could afford. And move in with a second hand bed and one kitchen table as furniture. Like getting married at a cost nearer to £300 rather than the £30,000 Caribbean wedding of today.

After that, ordinary house price inflation takes care of the rest, together with the odd up-sizing.

There is nothing in that behaviour that today's younger people cannot emulate. There is nothing to say that HPI will not follow the same track for the next 40/50 years as for the last.

Wealth is cumulative. Particularly property wealth. It doesn't get destroyed. It passes on. To postulate that any generation - on average - is going to be worse off than the one before them defies any rational mathematics. It defies common sense.

Each 'boomer' has been through 3 or 4 recessions/bad patches. So will your generation.

There are rich boomers, there are poor boomers, and there are very rich boomers. The reasons for this [for any one person] will easily be traced to things like education, choices, lifestyle, and financial behaviour over 40-odd years. When all of us are busy turning in our graves, your generation will reach retirement, and I can guarantee you will discover the reality of a wealth profile far higher than today's boomers enjoy.

With your attitude and totally unrealistic perceptions of 'how wealth works', I can make my own predicitions about where in that wealth spectrum you might sit. But I'll keep it to myself.

Wind it in Pops. Firstly you love these threads because it gives you something to rant about, and secondly it's already been proven that's it's mathematically impossible for Gen X and Y to amass the wealth of the boomers through property.

As is always being pointed out, the youngest boomers arent that old and I certainly can't aspire to their lifestyles in a few years, even though I am paid more than them.

As far as working hard for homeownership, well that became a lot easier when Thatcher gave every boomer a council house.

Where is mine?

PasturesNew

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Thatcher gave every boomer a council house.

Where is mine?

I always wondered where mine was too. I lived in an area that had no provision for single people...they all went to couples and families. After I'd been on the list 18 years I asked them "how long...." and they said "we can probably offer you a room in a shared house in 20 years' time".

Not everybody can get a council property in every area. I think it's cities that mostly have single person places. In the villages/countryside 1-bed places were built as bungalows for the elderly/disabled and they didn't tend to move out of them.

moneyistooshorttomention

I spent some time wondering where mine was too. I was seriously advised to get pregnant in order to get given a Council property:eek:. I obviously wasn't going to do that. I obviously couldn't wait until I was a pensioner before I had somewhere decent to live.

Sheer blimmin' luck got me mine - ie allocated a public sector place - ie just for a very very brief window of opportunity the Council made places available to those who were neither parents nor pensioners and I nipped in and got one. That was just in time before that "window" closed and it was back to being parents/pensioners and the sheer !!!!less - leaving hardworking childless people without a hope again....

A very very narrow squeak indeed, as that "window" was probably only open for a matter of months.

Jon_B_2

You only have to look at the mortgage free wannabe board to see what is wrong with housing stock.

Most seem to be intent on buying a second home to let out. There needs to be legislation to stop this. A house should NEVER be an investment, as incrementally it prohibits other people from owning their own house and maybe becoming mortgage free at some point in the future.

I like the idea of renting out a second property, but in socially aware enough to know that it is not in societies interest for me to do so.

lisyloo

Meanwhile the Gen X'ers and Millennials had their heads down, seething or just mulling over despair.

I dont' dispute that earlier generations have been very lucky.
However at least half of Gen X have had the chance to buy a house and have it paid off by now and get a decent pension. Some of my friends are lucky enough to have final salary pensions as well.
Sorry but if you're in Gen X you have nothing to complain about.

I do see a problem but some whinging also.

ukcarper

audigex wrote: »

To those on this thread asking for evidence that the current younger generations are any worse off than previous generations, I'll put this simply: house prices and rental rates have absolutely annihilated wages in terms of growth over the last 30 years.

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Or with a more complicated discussion/rant:

Find a sensibly sized geographical area: one holding perhaps 250,000 people, so we have enough people to filter out any irregularities. Now compare the median salary for 20-40 year olds with the median house price in that area. In fact, compare it at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentile.

Go ahead, I'll give you a minute. Right, now go and do the same thing for 1980.

I rest my case, your honour.

The simple fact is that the young are being priced out of the market, because boomers have bought all the property up and are now doing very nicely indeed out of renting them back to the same people who should be buying them but can't afford to.

If Fred Fiftysomething has 1.5 million quid's worth of property, and a fairly typical yield of 5-8%, he's making 75,000-120,000 a year. So every year or two he can afford to go and buy another house, and he can easily outbid Joe Twentysomething trying to save a deposit while paying £500 a month to rent one of Fred's houses.

The fact is that the person renting is paying more towards their landlord's next house, than they are towards their own. If I can save £200 a month towards my house, and am paying my landlord £800 a month, he can outbit me every single time.

So not only can I not afford to save for a house, because I'm renting from Fred, I also can't afford to outbid him. So he gets to buy a new house to sell to me.

Housing in this country is a major problem. I mean, I'm in a relatively good position compared to most my age (25). I have a £15k deposit, I earn a couple of thousand above the average salary in the UK, live in one of the cheapest areas for houses (£120k for a 3 bed semi detatched will get you a fairly nice one...), and under my own steam I can still only just about afford to buy an ex-council end of terrace which needs a bit of TLC. I'm about to buy a house, but only because I'm able to "inherit" equity as a parent downsizes from a 3 bed semi to a 2 bed terrace, and because I've returned home to live with parents at the age of 25 in order to save... not everyone is so fortunate.

I was in a similar position to you in 1972 I was earning just above average earnings and could not buy a 3 bed semi. The house I bought a 3 bed terrace was 5x my earnings and I could not have bought it on my own. Prices have not increased in a linear fashion and there have been times in the past when prices have been high.

duchy

Expectations are different.
In the seventies it wasn't uncommon for married couples to live with one set of parents or another until they could afford to buy -often this included children before they moved on to their own places. Don't think the boomers didn't pay their dues -Many did this rather than take up council house places as they were considered not meant for those who with a bit of effort (and living with the in laws) would be able to afford to buy. Social housing wasn't regarded as a right

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

I dont' dispute that earlier generations have been very lucky.
However at least half of Gen X have had the chance to buy a house and have it paid off by now and get a decent pension. Some of my friends are lucky enough to have final salary pensions as well.
Sorry but if you're in Gen X you have nothing to complain about.

I do see a problem but some whinging also.

Property prices in relation to earnings were the lowest they have been between 1991 and 2001. The youngest Gen Xer would have been about 20 in 2001 but the oldest 40.

lisyloo

The youngest Gen Xer would have been about 20 in 2001 but the oldest 40.

What definition are we using here for boomers and Gen X?

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

What definition are we using here for boomers and Gen X?

I was using 1961 2001, 1961 seems a bit early to me but there seems to be no standard. This is why the whole thing seems stupid to me early Gen X probably have more in common with late boomers than late boomer have with early boomers.