Myth: Generation rent is worse off than home-owning parents.

GwylimT

My son recently bought a house, a three bed semi with front and back garden and off road parking for 2-3 cars, he is mortgage is £470 a month, although he over pays. He had a deposit of £23k, the house was £130k.

He had been renting on the same street in an identical property bar decoration and he was paying £1100 per month. He is very lucky as he is able to put away the difference each month, so this brings a saving of around £7k per year.

He and his partner are hoping to sell in the summer after living in the house for three and a half years, so they will have around £25k saved up, along with their original investment and a small amount of equity.

The house type they are looking to buy seems to be around £2400 per month to rent and there aren't many so this also pushes prices up. Unless prices are drastically different in the next twelve months he can see his mortgage increase by around £170 per month. So he will still be able to save a significant amount of money each month.

Obviously owning brings repair costs etc, but I very much doubt these would come to £7k a year! While he was saving he was spending very little after rent and utilities, but for many this wouldn't leave enough to save a decent deposit in a decent time frame.

Bufger

I've had my place 6 years, the mortgage has come down and the rental estimates up. When first purchased i would have been around £100
Better off per month renting, now with my mortgage rate I'm £200 better off owning. That's a little over 3 years for it to be more beneficial.

My mortgage will keep coming down (overpayments, snowballing etc) where the rental market seems to only go one way.

Renting is something you do if you don't have the means to buy, I can't see any way it's a financial benefit to rent (in either med-long term cash flow and certainly in net worth)

Generali

Mistermeaner wrote: »

Or die soon

I can't decide whether to say one can but hope or say that you are being rather mean.

As a result I am doing both!

Let's see what Martin thinks of my vacillating approach to this. Martin?

:money:

Ah yeah, he agrees. Good lad.

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

Of course people can.
Do you think people don't know they can commute to London?

I don't agree with you that people forego the right of complaint everytime they do something. It may be that all the choices have some downside and that's what life is like for most people.

I'm not sure why you personally are not sympathetic to people making difficult choices?
Is it just you think it's a first world problem? or some other reason?
It would be really good (for me) to understand where others are coming from on this.
I realise it's a first world issue (not that much for me personally as I'm relatively comfortable), but I honestly expected a little more milk of human kindness from like minded people.

Choice is a relative thing and if the choice is between renting in London or buying outside and commuting why do they deserve sympathy. You make your own decision based on what you feel is best for you at the time, unless you are very lucky life is always about compromises.

When I got married back in the 70s I made the decision to move 20 miles further from work as I could not afford to buy in the area I worked it's a decision I made because I wanted to own I certainly didn't expect sympathy.

lisyloo

Choice is a relative thing and if the choice is between renting in London or buying outside and commuting why do they deserve sympathy. You make your own decision based on what you feel is best for you at the time, unless you are very lucky life is always about compromises.

I think most people who have to (or choose due to house prices) to commute into London deserve sympathy.
It's extremely overcrowded, you usually get hit or stood on in some fashion and often pick up coughs and colds.
It might have been better when you did it, but because so many people have chosen to move out, it is largely absolutely awful.
Of course if you can shift your hours then you might be able to improve it somewhat, but not everyone - for example those with children, can travel at off-peak times.
I don't know what your commute was like but I suspect it was a great deal better in the 70's.
I expect many of your family and friends were sympathetic if you had to make any compromises in other areas - it's not clear whether you did beyond a commute.

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

I think most people who have to (or choose due to house prices) to commute into London deserve sympathy.
It's extremely overcrowded, you usually get hit or stood on in some fashion and often pick up coughs and colds.
It might have been better when you did it, but because so many people have chosen to move out, it is largely absolutely awful.
Of course if you can shift your hours then you might be able to improve it somewhat, but not everyone - for example those with children, can travel at off-peak times.
I don't know what your commute was like but I suspect it was a great deal better in the 70's.
I expect many of your family and friends were sympathetic if you had to make any compromises in other areas - it's not clear whether you did beyond a commute.

I mainly mainly drove and I'd say the road were just as bad,the times I did go in by train the trains were extremely crowded. I don't know what the Waterloo and City line is like now but I can remember queuing to get on tube and tube staff pushing last passengers so that the doors would close. Perhaps it's because I had nothing and very poor accomadation when I was young that I appreciate what I have got. As for friend and family being sympathetic there were pleased that I could buy.

Sapphire

lisyloo wrote: »

We are not choosing to move at the present time as we have 88 year old parents who can't look after themselves. MIL has a sister who's 92 so will most likely survive another few years. She may go into a home at some point which will leave us free-er of commitments, but at the current time we have to feed and pick her up off the floor etc. (if an elderly person falls but is indoors/comfortable then sometimes paramedics take 4-5 hours to arrive if they have higher priority calls - again not a complaint - just stating the fact that family often need to step in).
I'm not sure whether others here would "up sticks" and abandon their parents or whether the outspoken people here lack the milk of human kindness or just like to play devils advocate, but abandoning our parents at this stage when they will either die, lose thier independence or end up in hospital i.e. at their greatess hour of need is not something that WE would do.
I'm not trying to deliberately make that emotive - that's just the way it is.
I expect the parents needs to increase as MIL increaingly loses the use of her legs and it won't get better until she goes into a home (or dies).

I think what you are doing is very commendable, lisyloo. We have similar issues in my family and some people haven't a clue how difficult it is to cope with such truly terrible situations, which are actually receiving very grudging help outside what some families provide. I dread to think what is happening to people who have no family willing to help them (there seem to be many such cases).

In one recent case in my family it has taken six months for the local services to get around to sorting out payment for a 90-year-old who has had a stroke and cannot speak, and cannot really walk or fend for himself at all (his wife has Alzheimer's and cannot sort out anything like this). (In fact, the payment part is still not completely sorted out.) There seemed to be several people involved in dealing with his case, and each one passed the buck to another. It's only because these people were contacted every day for weeks that something was sorted out at all. All very time consuming and exhausting for the people involved…

lisyloo

As for friend and family being sympathetic there were pleased that I could buy.

I'm sure they were, but I'm sure they would also be sympathetic if they knew you were being pushed and shoved every morning, rather than just saying - tough it's a consequnce of your decision and therefore you deserve to be shoved in the tits* every morning (* apply relevant body part).
I personally think people should complain about being treated like cattle despite it being a consequnce of their own choices not to illicit sympathy but to make things better for others. I hope people did complain in the 70's and therefore made things better in a relative sense for us now (better than how they would be if no-one complained).
My family and friends are pleased for us too. They come up to London and enjoy the good times with us whilst sympathising about the downsides (it's possible to do both and that's what normal people do).

I can easily afford to live in London so it's not a big issue for me, but we have a very inequitable situation. I think we should be able to complain about it, for others and not just ourselves. I do appreciate that posting on forums does nothing directly to help the situation although it can help form views and therefore result in action - such as passenger action groups who engage with train companies.

Perhaps we should leave it as neither of us are going to change our minds, but I do believe people have a right to try and change things for the better and I also believe that if there were no action/pressure groups, things would be worse.
I accept that complaining on it's own does nothing.
You appear to think that everyone should put up with rough treatment (like being shoved everyday) and that's just tough and I don't agree with that.

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

I'm sure they were, but I'm sure they would also be sympathetic if they knew you were being pushed and shoved every morning, rather than just saying - tough it's a consequnce of your decision and therefore you deserve to be shoved in the tits* every morning (* apply relevant body part).
I personally think people should complain about being treated like cattle despite it being a consequnce of their own choices not to illicit sympathy but to make things better for others. I hope people did complain in the 70's and therefore made things better in a relative sense for us now (better than how they would be if no-one complained).
My family and friends are pleased for us too. They come up to London and enjoy the good times with us whilst sympathising about the downsides (it's possible to do both and that's what normal people do).

I can easily afford to live in London so it's not a big issue for me, but we have a very inequitable situation. I think we should be able to complain about it, for others and not just ourselves. I do appreciate that posting on forums does nothing directly to help the situation although it can help form views and therefore result in action - such as passenger action groups who engage with train companies.

Complaining about things your feel are wrong is one thing and I would always be in favour of that, but that's not the same as expecting sympathy.

lisyloo

I don't need sympathy but I think it's a normal human reaction - from the vast majority of people I meet - not just friends and family, but say strangers on the bus.
If I told a stranger on the bus I'd been stung by a wasp they'd be sympatheric not say "it's a consequence of having a garden" (which BTW I already know).

I will be looking for a job outside London, but I expect to find many, many, many more jobs available in London and it's surrounds.