And boomers wonder why millennials are bitter towards them..

[Haggisman]

Also a millennial and will become a homeowner (once I find somewhere I like, saved up my deposit ). But I'm also aware I'm incredibly lucky that my skillset happened to become one of the most in demand ones, allowing me to become a high earner before I was 30. And I know not every young person in this country is as fortunate. So I'm able to put myself in their position (also in the position of the boomer who didn't need to be a very high earner before 30 to buy a home).

Oh definitely, I have 2 kids and I know things are going to be really tough for them if nothing changes. At the same time, screwing over people like you and I who are recently on the ladder is not the way to fix it.

Much as I acknowledge there is a problem that needs to be addressed, I also resent the fact that I'm seen as part of that problem purely by virtue of having worked my arse off and sacrificed some of the best years of my life to get to the position I'm in at the moment

 

[Woden]

I'd have nothing to worry about, i am a long term landlord with absolutely no desire to turf anyone out, and my houses are very well maintained and i'd usually respond and resolve anything same day, personally, if i at all can - i'd sign up to a 10 year AST if someone wanted, with minimal rent increases, as it gives me reassurance of that income for a long period (Stability works both ways, i really do want anyone renting from me to be happy).

What a landlord does need to be able to do, however, is to be able to liquidate anything if they did need to. While i hope that our financial situation is stable, the idea that a tenant has a right to remain in my property beyond our signed AST is a worrying thought, and i truly do not think can be right. The fact remains that it isnt their house, it is the owners house, it is owned just as much as someone's main residence is, this should never be muddied.

You are confusing business assets and personal assets.

 

[HACO]

Oh definitely, I have 2 kids and I know things are going to be really tough for them if nothing changes. At the same time, screwing over people like you and I who are recently on the ladder is not the way to fix it.

Much as I acknowledge there is a problem that needs to be addressed, I also resent the fact that I'm seen as part of that problem purely by virtue of having worked my arse off and sacrificed some of the best years of my life to get to the position I'm in at the moment

You're a millennial so you get a free pass

 

[Bear]

What you are doing is blaming a generation for taking advantage of an opportunity that was available to them in the post war years which isn't available to you now, while simultaneously ignoring the opportunities which are available to you now which were not available to them. It is almost the suggestion that it is somehow a conscious decision by one entire generation of people to intentionally persecute another generation forty years hence - which is nonsense.

About the only thing they could have collectively done to have a positive effect on house prices would be not to procreate - which I suspect would suck even more for the millennials.
It's this sort of attitude that stereotypes millennials as "selfish whiners" which is also a concept I find misinformed and short sighted.

If in 50 years millennials are being held accountable for the destruction of the planet due to excessive consumerism of technology, I doubt it would stop an entire generation from upgrading their 'phone or PC today.

I'm not a boomer, but the assertion they are implicitly responsible for the state of the housing market is non sequitur.

Exactly and that’s the thing, you take the opportunities that are in front of you. If the same opportunities were available to millennials they would take them too, to think they are some virtuous generation is laughable.

The boomers are your parents or grandparents and parents tend to build as much wealth they can to hand over to their children when they pass away, the ones I know certainly do.

 

[Kenai]

Exactly and that’s the thing, you take the opportunities that are in front of you. If the same opportunities were available to millennials they would take them too, to think they are some virtuous generation is laughable.

The boomers are your parents or grandparents and parents tend to build as much wealth they can to hand over to their children when they pass away, the ones I know certainly do.

I think what people find frustrating is the attitude of denial and the undercurrent of being accused of being lazy and entitled because apparently cancelling your £10pm Netflix sub and not eating avocado will get you well on your way to that £25,000-£40,000 deposit you'll need and it's just your **** poor attitude that makes you think this is in anyway more difficult to achieve than saving up and buying when a house was 4x your wage rather than 10x.

If we think it's bad now, goodness only know where we'll be in another 25 years - the pyramid surely can't keep growing out of kilter with wages at the rate it has been - at some point a generation will literally just give up on the idea of buying property entirely and that could have huge knock on consequences to everything propped up on the foundation of ever increasing property value.

 

[Jez]

You are confusing business assets and personal assets.

I’m not confusing anything, I don’t have a business nor is a business mentioned anywhere in this thread

 

[Bear]

I think what people find frustrating is the attitude of denial and the undercurrent of being accused of being lazy and entitled because apparently cancelling your £10pm Netflix sub and not eating avocado will get you well on your way to that £25,000-£40,000 deposit you'll need and it's just your **** poor attitude that makes you think this is in anyway more difficult to achieve than saving up and buying when a house was 4x your wage rather than 10x.

If we think it's bad now, goodness only know where we'll be in another 25 years - the pyramid surely can't keep growing out of kilter with wages at the rate it has been - at some point a generation will literally just give up on the idea of buying property entirely and that could have huge knock on consequences to everything propped up on the foundation of ever increasing property value.

To be fair it’s a mixture of both. There is absolutely no doubt that house prices are rediculous and prices out people on low wages, but there is also some lazy and entitled people moaning and not making sacrifices. Where I contract for a firm in Edinburgh, there are plenty of graduates that have finished their 2 year graduate scheme and go on to buy a home after with partners they met at work and this is buying in Edinburgh which isn’t cheap so it can be done and these are in their mid 20s

 

[Woden]

I’m not confusing anything, I don’t have a business nor is a business mentioned anywhere in this thread

If you are a landlord, that's a business.

 

[Mr Badger]

Oh definitely, I have 2 kids and I know things are going to be really tough for them if nothing changes. At the same time, screwing over people like you and I who are recently on the ladder is not the way to fix it.

Much as I acknowledge there is a problem that needs to be addressed, I also resent the fact that I'm seen as part of that problem purely by virtue of having worked my arse off and sacrificed some of the best years of my life to get to the position I'm in at the moment

Why would you be screwed over?

 

[Jez]

I think you are the confused one Those terms and the relationship between assets to which you refer has a very specific meaning, especially when it comes to property holding. It has no bearing on me at all, everything I have is personal asset bought with personal money.

If you are a landlord, that's a business.

 

[Haggisman]

Why would you be screwed over?

Because we're the people who would be put into negative equity if house prices were to suddenly drop

 

[dowie]

Oh definitely, I have 2 kids and I know things are going to be really tough for them if nothing changes. At the same time, screwing over people like you and I who are recently on the ladder is not the way to fix it.

It's more of an issue for millenials, granted with a growing population then this aspect of living standards will probably take a knock relative to say boomers, it's hardly the end of the world if people are a bit more pragmatic about it. We're still doing very, very well and in a whole load of other areas we've got it so good compared to previous generations.

Gen Z might have less of an issue, some of the younger gen z have those child trust funds, the current crop of 18 year olds today are the first... some will have up to circa 70k in those things, granted that's at the high end but any parent who puts aside a bit for their kid lets them have the benefit of compounding over 2 decades... and that's huge!

https://www.ft.com/content/2b1b4d18-d383-4269-8d3f-4bcc836ff3f2

Happy 18th birthday to the first cohort of child trust fund recipients who, from September 1, stand to access investments of up to £70,000 that their parents have made on their behalf.

The initiative of Gordon Brown, the Labour chancellor in 2002, parents of about 6m British children born between September 2002 and January 2011 were given at least £250 in the form of a voucher to open a child trust fund (CTF). Lower income families received £500

 

[FoxEye]

Why would you be screwed over?

Because house prices are supposed to rise and rise and accumulate in value, thus being the great investment they're expected to be from day1.

They're supposed to be risk free and guaranteed earners. And that's how the dream is sold. And all the people who busted their ass to buy into that dream are really, really invested in protecting that dream at all costs. At any and all costs.

He talks of home owners losing "hundreds of thousands" in a crash. Most unlikely, unless you're a) a BTL landlord leveraged to his eyeballs with a massive portfolio or b) living in a mansion worth millions.

I'm not sure how the housing market is supposed to crash so badly that a 200k house loses "hundreds of thousands" from its value. If you're living in a house worth £700k and you do lose "hundreds of thousands", you're not going to starve, even if you have to downsize.

He asked that I have sympathy for home owners who could in theory end up in negative equity. Others talk of millennials not "buying £1k iPhones and eating out".

It's funny that in a crash, it's the the home owners that will just have to cut out some luxuries.

At the bottom end, it's a question of paying the rent or eating.

And he says sympathy is due in equal amounts to both groups. Despite the fact that a) a crash hasn't happened and likely won't and b) the consequences to one group are a lot more dire than the consequences to another. Can you guess which is which?

e: I should also say that in a theoretical crash, you can do the same as when stocks crash. Just hold on to them and wait for the price to rise again.

Being in negative equity doesn't automatically mean you've permanently lost money.

 

[Mr Badger]

Because we're the people who would be put into negative equity if house prices were to suddenly drop

Who said a sudden drop was required? If you're not looking to move that isn't really a problem anyway and if you are looking to buy a more expensive property then a drop in the market would more likely help you.

It's strange this view that houses must always go up in value when it's obvious that they are already increasingly unaffordable. Interest rates have been incredibly low for a long time. What do you think will happen if (say) they shoot up next year?

 

[Woden]

Because we're the people who would be put into negative equity if house prices were to suddenly drop

You still have your home as long as you keep paying the mortgage, that doesn't change.

Unless you see your home as more of an investment than a home. In which case you know investments can go down as well as up and is a risk you were willing to take when you got the house.

 

[FoxEye]

You still have your home as long as you keep paying the mortgage, that doesn't change.

Unless you see your home as more of an investment than a home. In which case you know investments can go down as well as up and is a risk you were willing to take when you got the house.

That ship has probably sailed. We've had too many years now where house prices have just risen and risen and continue to do so, give or take the odd blip in some areas due to Brexit. But the expectation is firmly established that house prices just rise. They just do. Rise and rise.

The most likely (yet still unlikely) help for younger generations might arrive in the form of increased regulation in the rental market.

The Tories won't do this tho. And in fact it doesn't look like Labour had any plans to either. Scotland seems to be leading the way, following the example of Germany et al.

I talk about this a lot and get angry about it a lot, but realistically it's a hopeless fight in this country. We hate anything that could be called "socialist", and having rental regulation is just too much like something those pesky socialists would want.

Just let people make money, dammit! Any way they see fit. Let the markets decide everything! Down with regulations and that sort of thing.

And I think a lot of people privately look at the Victorian era, and see that as a way forwards for the UK outside the EU. Lots of money being made and invention and people getting rich. And lots of poverty and inequality, but through this a way to compete with other countries equally willing to exploit their citizens for profit. China, etc.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Also a millennial and will become a homeowner (once I find somewhere I like, saved up my deposit ). But I'm also aware I'm incredibly lucky that my skillset happened to become one of the most in demand ones, allowing me to become a high earner before I was 30. And I know not every young person in this country is as fortunate. So I'm able to put myself in their position (also in the position of the boomer who didn't need to be a very high earner before 30 to buy a home).

That simply isn't true millenials have some kind of idea that previous generations could simply breeze into a home for no money at all, if you were working class you were lucky to get a council house and they were an improvement on the slums and tenements that previous generations lived in - middle class types put down on a house if you could my father worked in the mortgage business so was able to secure one but my lord money was tight when I was a kid. The only time there were low prices were directly after the war when so many properties were abandoned or bomb damaged thats how my grandparents got theirs they rented it first and the people who owned it said do you want to buy it cheap as they wanted shot of it and somehow they found the money to put down but they were never rich it was kind of like the Weasly's house in Harry Potter - ramshackle, old and falling apart at the seams I remember they never had any money to do it up. People these days have no idea how lucky they are (raises wizened old finger)

You still have your home as long as you keep paying the mortgage, that doesn't change.

Unless you see your home as more of an investment than a home. In which case you know investments can go down as well as up and is a risk you were willing to take when you got the house.

Well thats it isn't it a house is seen as a investment that has to go up in price rather than being somewhere to live - and people wonder where the housing bubble and associated prices came from - that wasn't always the case I remember, it was sometime in the 80's everything changed and went boom -

 

[Kenai]

It's more of an issue for millenials, granted with a growing population then this aspect of living standards will probably take a knock relative to say boomers, it's hardly the end of the world if people are a bit more pragmatic about it. We're still doing very, very well and in a whole load of other areas we've got it so good compared to previous generations.

Gen Z might have less of an issue, some of the younger gen z have those child trust funds, the current crop of 18 year olds today are the first... some will have up to circa 70k in those things, granted that's at the high end but any parent who puts aside a bit for their kid lets them have the benefit of compounding over 2 decades... and that's huge!

https://www.ft.com/content/2b1b4d18-d383-4269-8d3f-4bcc836ff3f2

Stick the knife in

Now Millenials aren't just competing with BTL millionaires, there's a glut of cash rich trust fund kids about to rock up to the party with £50k in their pocket before they even start

 

[bainbridge]

A lot or millenials don't seem to have that hunger that we all seemed to have in our youth. Things like passing your driving test and getting a car were a huge deal when I was young, they just don't seem that bothered now.

Maybe it's a smaller world and less of a big deal.

 

[Haggisman]

Some very interesting mental gymnastics going on in this thread, I've posted that I would be concerned about my home going into negative equity because we need to move in the next few years, and that somehow gets translated into me feeling I have the right for my "investment" to increase in value.