How can people be so greedy?

teabelly

It's not that houses are too expensive, it is that wages are far too low. Average wage has gone up by only 3k in 10 years! This is pathetic. Cost of living is really going up about 5-10% pa. Average house is 190k so average wage should be about 35k. The main problem is the govt lying about inflation to keep wages low. What is worse tax credits have appeared to subsidise low wage employers so they can get away with paying less than a living wage. A minimum salary should be around £15k then most couples could afford the majority of first homes which are usually 120k-140k or so.

margaretclare

I am not about to add to the 'we had it hard in our day' which has been so much criticised. But I will not stand by and see my generation so much slagged-off as in 'older people shafted their children'. There was no such thing.

My generation (born mid-1930s) lived our lives as best we could. To my knowledge, I and both my husbands (late and present) have shafted nobody. It appears that there has been a huge jump in house prices (values?) in the last few years, the present century in fact, it wasn't a gradual increase over time as previously. The local estate agent, whom I've known quite well since I bought this bungalow from him in 1990, was at one stage re-valuing houses upward by the week. I saw him a few days ago, and he's now busy revaluing them all downwards. This has all happened in an incredibly short number of years. Next door have had their modernised 1930s 2-bed bungalow on the market since before Christmas, they're asking £220K for it and to the best of my knowledge they've had one viewer in that time, one only.

Buying our own house in 1962 was something outside of our experience. I came from a desperately poor family and no one ever considered anything but renting. Houses for rent then were owned by rich families and often given as a dowry or a pension for an unmarried daughter. DH bought his first house in the mid-1960s, mortgage £1000. His family had always rented.

Buying a house then was seen as a place to live, no one talked about 'getting on to the property ladder' or buy-to-let in lieu of a pension, or buying up village houses as 'holiday cottages'. Personally I think that all these things have contributed to the present dire situation. I would be absolutely happy if the property I live in now - bought for £58K with mortgage of £45K, now supposedly worth approx £190K - would lose £100K of that 'value'. I wouldn't shed a single tear. DH and I would still have a roof over our heads. I'd like to give the holiday cottages back to the local people to live in, sons and daughters who grew up there. No one should own more than one home, especially not having to borrow on a BTL mortgage to do so.

As regards university, I went there as a mature student in 1978 and yes, I did have a full grant, but I also worked night shifts for 14 weeks every summer. Going to university did not advance my career one iota. What I should have done was to change direction completely. I see that now, but I didn't then. We were told that nurses/midwives should be graduates, but as a graduate midwife I was still made redundant in 1992 coincidental with widowhood and no life assurance - he 'didn't believe in it'.

In my lifetime we have seen all the jobs that were formerly available simply disappear, be shipped off to foreign countries. As a current BBC series is saying - see a 'Radio Times' article last week - no wonder the white working class of this country is feeling disgruntled, not listened to, disenfranchised and alienated.

Education was always seen as a way out of the working class, a 'better job', not to have to do such hard and unpleasant work as our parents did. Apparently that's no longer true, although university is now pushed at all young people as the be-all and end-all. For many, it is just a route into lifelong debt.

However, I don't know who is to blame for all of this! Certainly, a lot is wrong with my country today, and I feel very sorry for young people. But it was not us who 'shafted' you. All we did, was to do our best for our children as we saw it at the time.

Margaret

neas

ixwood wrote: »

Diddums. Lifes not fair is it?

People are talking like property is never going to be affordable. It's a cycle!! Houses go up, houses go down. Stop the self pity, bide your time and prepare for the opportunites that are going to appear over the next year or 2.

I see i've been reading the house price crash thread and I see what you are talking about. I guess the fact that FTB cant/wont enter the market will help houseprices drop.. and when house prices drop people wont be able to remortgage, mortgage rates will increase and more will loose house?

So this should mean houses dropping down a little over time? And if I save money in a high interest account the gap that i see now will close over a few years?.

At least theres some 'light at the end of the tunnel' for me.

Thanks, I can hope now that this house price crash happens, so I can actually afford my own 2 bedroom house .

neverdespairgirl

carolt wrote: »

Totally sympathise, but just to add - you can have kids in rented accommodation - I have 3; you don't have to put your life on hold, just because of what house prices may do. Enjoy your life - you sound financially sensible.

A very sensible post - we have a 2 year old son, and are getting on with our lives very happily in rented accommodation. You don't have to buy!

neas

LittleTinker wrote: »

You know.....I was at Uni, not so long ago, as a Mature Student and I left Uni WITHOUT any debt. How did I do that?? I went to work. I didn't go living it up night after night in the student union, I didn't buy new clothes every two minutes and I didn't feel as though I HAD to take advantage of the loans available to me.....Younger generations just seem to want want want but are NOT prepared to live with any discomfort to get what they want!! .........By the way......your Uni education didnt do much for your spelling and grammar did it?

Why do people always bring spelling and grammar into online forums where everything is relaxed....

I could highlight the spelling mistakes in your post but that would be petty...

Wasn't really fair.

Benefits_Blagger

neas wrote: »

Quote:

I wont go on benefits I haven't worked my !!! off through full time education from 11 years old to give up!. I dislike people who sponge off soceity as much as the rest of people.

its called looking after no 1. its what's society has become, i dont like it but I have been forced to adopt the attitude to improve my own standard of living just like everyone has.

take my student loan for example that goes up by RPI (about 4%), but if im working my wages go up by CPI (about 2%). so my so called inflation proofed student loan is getting bigger realtive to my wages should i work. if i dont work, i dont pay a penny back.

to be better off working than on benefits, i need to earn £300 a week to be better off and owning my own would still be an impossibility, so whats the point ?

im not proud of my situation, but neither am i ashamed.

yes, i have given up, im not the first but neither will i be the last

Davesnave

Very hard to compare 'then' and 'now.'

When I stayed on till 18 at school in the 60s, most people were leaving at 16 and going into 'good' jobs with banks etc if they had 5 GCSEs (!) I went into a well paid job at 18, but that was the hippie era, so it wasn't long before I was out of selling my soul and into higher education to get that piece of paper which would give me a 'meaningful' life.

Eventually, gaining the then much coveted degree at the age of 23, I returned to the real world. By then, some of my schoolmates were married & had their own houses, but I was still penniless.

I finally got on the property ladder at the age of 29 because, although I achieved the fulfilling job, my degree didn't buy me a massive salary. I remember having to join a building society queue to get the mortgage too (with a 10% deposit of course.) By then, some of my school friends were on their second or third house. ie they had a semi or a detached, but mine was terraced.

When people, possibly my early schoolmates, were buying up all these cheap properties in the early 90s, I was still bringing up a family & paying off the mortgage on my second house; the semi I still live in today, so I certainly couldn't have gone out and bought another one. Despite driving old cars, not having foreign holidays, nor any expensive habits, I have always had debts, until recently. Now,at last, it's all paid off.

I'm not grumbling; just pointing out that uni and a degree wasn't necessarily a dream ticket in the past either. I feel responsible for what I chose & I wouldn't change any of it.

If students today feel that they are getting a lousy deal, they should do what we did and bite the hand that feeds them. Students now seem very passive and, having two of my own I know why; they're far too busy keeping their financial heads above water to become political animals! That's the one difference I do see: students now work harder than we did.

In a couple of years, houses will be cheaper in relation to average salaries, just as many others have pointed out, but it won't be all milk & honey; global warming and rising food, energy & materials prices will see to that.

LittleTinker

neas wrote: »

Why do people always bring spelling and grammar into online forums where everything is relaxed....

I could highlight the spelling mistakes in your post but that would be petty...

Wasn't really fair.

It is not something that I would usually point out but we were talking about being at Uni and running up so much debt. I was illustrating that the money did not seem so well spent.

ixwood

teabelly wrote: »

It's not that houses are too expensive, it is that wages are far too low. Average wage has gone up by only 3k in 10 years! This is pathetic. Cost of living is really going up about 5-10% pa. Average house is 190k so average wage should be about 35k. The main problem is the govt lying about inflation to keep wages low. What is worse tax credits have appeared to subsidise low wage employers so they can get away with paying less than a living wage. A minimum salary should be around £15k then most couples could afford the majority of first homes which are usually 120k-140k or so.

I agree with most of it, but if avergae salaries were higher then the houses would be proportionally higher too. Prices are priced to the very maximum of (current/previous) affordibility due to the speculation that's been driving the amrket for at least 5 years.

Things will change, the boom is over, prices WILL come down in real terms, either by falls, or stagnation/inflation.

neas

margaretclare wrote: »

But it was not us who 'shafted' you. All we did, was to do our best for our children as we saw it at the time.

It was a generalisation, I'm sorry. Just i feel frustrated at the landlords I've used who usually pipe on about their 10+ properties, how hard it is to manage them and how they can only 'sell' one a year or something along those lines.

Im sure everyone knows at least someone who owns more than 1 house and rents the other(s) out to lesser beings like myself .