A Millennial Speaks out

triathlon

westernpromise wrote: »

No they don't. They pay less tax, even including student loan repayments.

I graduated in 1985 and paid more in tax and NI then than I would now on the comparable salary.

I remember people having to leave the UK tax was so bad, it was not just the rich, middle earners were hammered far worse than today

westernpromise

triathlon wrote: »

That's one thing I am a little lefty about, I would massively increase inheritance tax. I take my hat off to someone educating and working their way out of the gutter off their own only to be priced out by someone being handed everything on a plate.

Why is the state more entitled to my money than my children?

triathlon

westernpromise wrote: »

Triathlon is probably someone off HPC who posts what he imagines a BTL landlord thinks, so that he can later jump up and down and whoop about how he said all those awful things, and nobody on MSE criticised him, so he wins. Or something.

WOW!!

Some of the imaginations on this board:)
Please, I am fascinated to know how you came up with that, honest I will not retaliate, I just have to hear this.

westernpromise

steampowered wrote: »

OK, so here is a graph showing average earnings against average house prices.

As you will see, the average house price was about 3.75x average earnings in 1975. That has increased to more than 8x average earnings today.

So why was the incidence of home ownership lower in the past?

triathlon

westernpromise wrote: »

Why is the state more entitled to my money than my children?

I have an inheritance coming my way as well as a lot of money going to my children when I peg it.
You think how you want and leave me to think how I want, I will help them as much in life as possible while enjoying my own, they will at least get one house out of me.

phillw

ukcarper wrote: »

It!!!8217;s possible to save £32k on £40k a year after all if they saved £10k a year they would still have £20k a year to live on. Her problem would be finding a property for £200k.

It's not hard to find a property for less than £200k, just not where she wants it. Instead of thinking what she wants, she needs to think about what she can afford. Before she can't afford to pay rent either.

westernpromise wrote: »

So why was the incidence of home ownership lower in the past?

Because it's easier and cheaper to borrow the money to buy the house than it was in the past, even after the affordability checks were brought in.

My dad owned a yacht, but he couldn't get a mortgage to buy a house until he met someone high up in a building society out sailing one day & became friends. He was employed as a foreman on building sites but because the work could be affected by the weather, they didn't consider him to be in full time employment.

GreatApe

One important factor in house price graphs that ate not taken into account is that the average home today is better than the same home was in 1970

For instance if I look at the house I live in its about 100 years old.
But since its first build it has had a top quality central heating and hit water system
It has had a good quality kitchen fitted
It has had two additional bathrooms fitted
It has had high quality floors fitted
It has had a 20sqm extension built
It probably didn't have electricity when it was first built but of course it does now
Its front drive had been improved
Etc

So some factor needs to be taken into account for the general improvement in the housing stock

I would say at least 0.5x income has been added to the average house maybe even 1x
Of course some homes have had 0x income improvement since 1970 but on the other hand some have had 5x income spent on them in improvements

Graham_Devon

GreatApe wrote: »

One important factor in house price graphs that ate not taken into account is that the average home today is better than the same home was in 1970

For instance if I look at the house I live in its about 100 years old.
But since its first build it has had a top quality central heating and hit water system
It has had a good quality kitchen fitted
It has had two additional bathrooms fitted
It has had high quality floors fitted
It has had a 20sqm extension built
It probably didn't have electricity when it was first built but of course it does now
Its front drive had been improved
Etc

So some factor needs to be taken into account for the general improvement in the housing stock

I would say at least 0.5x income has been added to the average house maybe even 1x
Of course some homes have had 0x income improvement since 1970 but on the other hand some have had 5x income spent on them in improvements

Houses have improved, yes.

But the trade off now, with new homes, is a lot less space.

While houses have improved, the actual space you buy today compared to a home built in the 70s/80s has fallen quite dramatically.

So while your improvement argument is valid in terms of technology (alas, technology always improves), what you get in terms of space and outdoor space has fallen dramatically. I don't see that as an improvement.

Though granted, you may have tripple glazing instead of single....your window will be half the size too

Cakeguts

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Well, my wife is a nurse. Her wages are not 3x those of a nurse in the North East! Maybe 10% because of her London allowance. At work she's regarded as posh because we live in St Albans, lol.

At the time of buying, I was earning ok, £27k - but I doubt my salary, in a similar job, would have been much lower than £25k. Entry level salaries in 'graduate' jobs aren't *that* much higher in London. There's just a lot more graduate jobs.

This is exactly what I was referring to earlier. People don't check whether what they will earn will be enough to live in a certain area. This was common knowledge and a factor taken into buying a house in the 60s, 70s and 80s when I bought my house. What people used to do was to work out whether they would be better off by taking a particular job in a particular area. So for example no one would go to London for a "graduate" job if they could get a non graduate job paying more in an area where they would have more disposable income.

I moved around 30 miles to buy a house and moved jobs because the area that I started working in was too expensive for me to buy in. I didn't stay there in the expensive area and complain because I couldn't afford a house I moved to another area got another job and bought a house in a cheap area of a cheaper town.

I think that the majority of the people who are complaining in the media and in places like on here are the ones who haven't done the calculation of whether their earnings will support them living in the place of their choice so they chase the "graduate" job because they feel they are entitled to a "graduate" job that pays a "graduate" job level of pay but they don't realise that they would have more disposable income if they took a non graduate level job in a cheaper area of the country even though the job has a smaller salary.

The people who are not complaining are the ones who have got a "real" degree from a top university and are earning the salaries that go with that or have salaries in non graduate jobs that are enough to fund a lifestyle in the place that they want to live. We never hear from them because they have done their sums before deciding where to get a job.

Basically while people continue to take jobs in areas that they can't afford to live in there will always be people who can't afford to buy a house. Most towns have expensive areas where the average worker will never afford to buy a house because the houses are too expensive. So should the country build more houses in the expensive areas so that everyone can afford a house there?

Some people might aspire to live here http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-51110679.html but for a lot of people it is just too expensive. The argument on here is that if somewhere is too expensive the country should build a lot more houses in that area in order to bring the price down so that anyone who wants to can afford to buy there.

London is the expensive area of the UK a lot of people who aspire to live there can't afford to. It has always been expensive apart from a short time in the 1990s when there was a dip in prices. If you can't afford to live in the most expensive part of the UK you find an area where you can afford to live and you get a job there.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Houses have improved, yes.

But the trade off now, with new homes, is a lot less space.

While houses have improved, the actual space you buy today compared to a home built in the 70s/80s has fallen quite dramatically.

So while your improvement argument is valid in terms of technology (alas, technology always improves), what you get in terms of space and outdoor space has fallen dramatically. I don't see that as an improvement.

Though granted, you may have tripple glazing instead of single....your window will be half the size too

The house I built in 70s was not much if any bigger than equivalent 3 bed houses now, the building density on estate was not so high meaning my garden was bigger. Nowhere near as well equipped, no central heating, no white goods, carpets, single glassing. House size have varied over the years the house I was bought up in built mid to late eighteen was smaller than most modern houses, two up two down and I mean two rooms upstairs two rooms down stairs no bathroom or hallway.