Wealth of people in their 30s has 'halved in a decade'

[m4DD0gg]

I would advise against help to buy schemes at all costs. They are ok when the going is good but if the chips are down they can leave you in a house you are not allowed to sell and if you try and force a sell you will have to cover the toxic debt created by the negative equity via a loan of some description.

[GazzinderFox]

8 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

Wrong that people choose to rent, right that people don't save like they used to.

 

you need 5% with help to buy.  A lot of people can use that, more could if they got their shit together.

There's good evidence to suggest that help to buy has helped to artificially inflate the market even further out of the reach of the average earner. That's one of the reasons it's being stopped.

 

As for saving money. A) they don't have the money to save. B) what's the point in saving when you're only going to get 3% on those savings?

 

we need a mass house building project specifically aimed at 18-34 year olds. And not for people in their 50s and 60s who want a second home in order to carry on milking young working adults so that they can live in a house way bigger than they need and go on 3 cruises round the med every year. The very same people who incidentally don't want you to build 200 houses on that field behind 'their' house!

[Thracian]

9 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

Ridiculously ignorant statement Thrac.  Do you honestly think most young people would choose to rent if they could afford to buy a house?  Most of us rent because it's fiscally impossible to get on the ladder.

Your defeatist comment is quite sad.

 

Do you not think my generation winced at the expense of buying a house and saving the deposit?

 

I look around and see whole communities of incomers living in houses - in fact virtually all the "cheap" terraced houses surrounding the inner city and wonder how it came about. But, renting or buying, they live there and would seem to be one step ahead of many people who were born here.  

 

Maybe they got together and found a way and a banking/benefits system that helped. There's a lot of incomers in council housing too which means many must have got ahead of  the locals, however that's worked out, because  I never could get a list showing me the distribution of such housing.

 

You're right that I'm "ignorant" of the system Carl because, as very much a working class lad (brought up in a caravan)  I and my pregnant girlfriend, did two jobs each for a while, saved our deposit and were in our house as late teenagers so I've no idea how "the system" today works because I've no need to.

 

If I couldn't afford my own house I'd club together with other family members to buy one and live in part of it. Alternatively i'd buy a caravan to save on a mortgage for a while....whatever it took..I'd even live in a van or mobile home if I had to and have coped with such things many a time (including a ridge tent for four months). 

 

Finnaldo mentions the problem of getting work. What problem? More people have a job in this country than ever before and there's even the protection of a minimum wage (misguided as it is). I left school because I saw a job at the Mercury advertised and which I fancied more than sitting in a classroom. No I wasn't paid middle income to start - I didn't expect it - but they soon seemed happy with me and the pay improved.     

 

I've three sons who've grown up in modern times and none found the slightest difficulty getting a job. Where I started - fruit picking as a schoolkid - there are even features on television now saying they'll be begging for help if the foreigners can't come in to help. So that outlet's still there and many more if you don't chose to create your own work which is easy enough.

 

I remember a friend of my son starting off with no qualifications I was aware of with an electric mower and a few gardening tools. He now has a wondrously thriving garden maintenance and improvement business with a council contract as well and all sorts working for him. He did it all from scratch and with determination and hard graft.

 

I've run my own auctions, antiques business and been a market trader so there's work everywhere and for most anyone if you're prepared to do it - and every opportunity to save if you chose to.            

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

      

[Thracian]

2 hours ago, m4DD0gg said:

I would advise against help to buy schemes at all costs. They are ok when the going is good but if the chips are down they can leave you in a house you are not allowed to sell and if you try and force a sell you will have to cover the toxic debt created by the negative equity via a loan of some description.

Yes, I've seen the effect of that on a friend of mine and it's appalling and exactly as you say. My friend is still paying a now-comparatively massive mortgage on a tiny house she must have paid for several times already and must have cost a pittance to build.

 

Don't get me wrong, to a great extent she got into the mess herself. But people do hit setbacks in life and they do make mistakes. And when they do there are always folk ruthless enough to take advantage. You need to be pretty disciplined to go down that road - and lucky enough not to hit or create snags.  

[Trav Le Bleu]

14 hours ago, Thracian said:

If we didn't keep importing thousands of people more than we can properly accommodate every year, the housing problems could be much more easily managed and our own needier people could probably get to the top of the housing list as well, like they used to. 

We could employ immigrants to build housing?

[Webbo]

1 hour ago, GazzinderFox said:

There's good evidence to suggest that help to buy has helped to artificially inflate the market even further out of the reach of the average earner. That's one of the reasons it's being stopped.

 

As for saving money. A) they don't have the money to save. B) what's the point in saving when you're only going to get 3% on those savings?

 

we need a mass house building project specifically aimed at 18-34 year olds. And not for people in their 50s and 60s who want a second home in order to carry on milking young working adults so that they can live in a house way bigger than they need and go on 3 cruises round the med every year. The very same people who incidentally don't want you to build 200 houses on that field behind 'their' house!

3%? Let me know where you bank.

[Trav Le Bleu]

39 minutes ago, Thracian said:

Your defeatist comment is quite sad.

 

Do you not think my generation winced at the expense of buying a house and saving the deposit?

      

So, your generation.... nobody rented and everyone bought, right? My dad worked all his life and we lived in council housing. Most of the people in our street did, but very few even entertained the idea of owning their house. It was beyond the reach of the vast majority of working class people.   

 

So if you're calling my dad, and a lot of other people's dads, a lazy slob (which incidentally, you are), then I suggest you never identify yourself in my presence, you smug, self-righteous, odious, prig.

 

Take a dose of reality Thracian.

[Thracian]

15 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

We could employ immigrants to build housing?

 

16 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

We could employ immigrants to build housing?

Why would we need to do that when the country's struggling to cope with the population already here?   

[Rob1742]

It is a real shame for the young today. In my day, easy to get a mortgage, so everyone was accumulating wealth as they paid off their debt. It was virtually a given.

 

Renting is wasted money, but you can't do anything about it as most young people have to accept it.

 

As a landlord, yields aren't great, but it's better than in the bank and where I pick my properties there is very few void periods as the young are searching for good rentals.

 

The good news is that when the current aged people die, they will be passing money onto their siblings still, but there is a real risk that at some point this will stop if renting becomes the norm. 

 

You cant though blame the current government, everybody I knew lived to their credit hilt and got lucky, and you just didn't realise how wrong it could potentially go. Everyone wanted a house bigger than they could afford and everyone wanted a nice car on the drive.

 

I still think that most older people are living on the edge. You wander around most normal  older housing estates and it is littered with cheap extensions, and houses that could generally do with upgrading that they can't afford. The big difference though is most have equity in their properties that the Young of today can only dream of.

 

Really do feel for the younger generations and feel it's a sad situation. 

[GazzinderFox]

59 minutes ago, Webbo said:

3%? Let me know where you bank.

Indeed. You can tell I'm paying off a hefty mortgage can't you!

[Thracian]

17 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

So, your generation.... nobody rented and everyone bought, right? My dad worked all his life and we lived in council housing. Most of the people in our street did, but very few even entertained the idea of owning their house. It was beyond the reach of the vast majority of working class people.   

 

So if you're calling my dad, and a lot of other people's dads, a lazy slob (which incidentally, you are), then I suggest you never identify yourself in my presence, you smug, self-righteous, odious, prig.

 

Take a dose of reality Thracian.

 

 

Your insults serve as far more a reflection of your outlook than mine.

 

I don't know your dad so why you'd think I'd even dream of  "calling" him, for any reason, I don't know. 

 

Furthermore the word "lazy" wasn't said, implied nor did it ever enter my head. It's your invention. 

 

Lots of people I knew in Braunstone, New Parks and other council housing estates in Leicester bought their homes and widespread comment on the very issue of disappearing social housing has referred to the problem countless times so ownership wasn't beyond all but the "very few" at all.

 

In some cases - again to my knowledge - it was a matter of choice based on all sorts of considerations.

 

What I was talking about, in the main, was taking initiatives and looking for other ways of doing things if one way presented a dead end. 

 

Again, I'm not even sure where "laziness" comes into anything. Nerve and a willingness to step outside the box might be more accurate.     

 

For instance choosing to work for yourself takes nerve and belief rather than money. 

 

I know so called "working class" (it's an appalling and totally demeaning handle which I loathe) people who actually bet for a living. They study form to such a degree searching for their banker choices that it takes up hours of their life yet they hardly leave their chair in a grafting sense (the gardener I mentioned was simply a true life example of a particular course of action I knew to be successful).  

 

Others have organised things like dating agencies on the internet or sellling sites which all take time but are successful because of the concept and a willingness to make it happen rather than any blood, sweat and tears in the traditional sense.

 

Anyway, we clearly see things from totally opposite poles - as I'd imagine we always have done on here though I've never bothered to notice - so there's little point in continuing this debate.

 

And as for your bad-mannered and totally contrived insults, I don't need them either, so I'll take my leave of this place and do without them thanks. And if you see me at the games by all means let me know. You won't need your friends, with me being close to 70, and can let it all out in any way you wish!   

 

 

 

 

 

        

[SMX11]

7 hours ago, ozleicester said:

Capitalism and neoliberalism have got out of hand.

Too many people making too much while not caring about those left behind.

We don't have capitalism or economic liberalism in the pure sense. Propping up broke banks, companies and failing public institutions coupled with monetary central planning cannot be described as capitalism.

 

The concern I have is that when this collectivised crony capitalism collapses again (not long looking at the state of some of the big banks) some people will diagnose that we need the state to control over everything again and repeat the madness of the most of the 20th century.  

[Bayfox]

3 hours ago, Webbo said:

3%? Let me know where you bank.

I've just had a letter from Lloyds saying all my accounts are gonna get paid at wait for it. 

 

0.25%

 

I guess I may as well just spend anything I have on beer and football

 

I have no idea of my actual wealth. But I am I have a company which has some assets.

 

Last week I went to place 25k on deposit for 6 weeks. The grand total that they can make me in interest. About 23 quid.

 

What's the point.

[m4DD0gg]

6 hours ago, Thracian said:

Yes, I've seen the effect of that on a friend of mine and it's appalling and exactly as you say. My friend is still paying a now-comparatively massive mortgage on a tiny house she must have paid for several times already and must have cost a pittance to build.

 

Don't get me wrong, to a great extent she got into the mess herself. But people do hit setbacks in life and they do make mistakes. And when they do there are always folk ruthless enough to take advantage. You need to be pretty disciplined to go down that road - and lucky enough not to hit or create snags.  

I have seen it happen again to so many people. What a lovely ethical government we have.

 

Better yet a lot of these help to buy schemes are run by private companies....not hard to work out really.

[jonthefox]

8 hours ago, Webbo said:

3%? Let me know where you bank.

santander 

[Webbo]

2 minutes ago, jonthefox said:

santander 

Not anymore.

[Manwell Pablo]

Bizarre how this even turned into argument about generations tbh, although some of what Thracian has said about inclination bravery and initiative being the best way to earn money is true, it's clear from the beginning of time to the current day there have always been people capable of "doing better" in an assets since than others and there are a million factors involved in that from work ethic intelligence creativeness ability to deal with people , luck, read political situations and possibly even possession of a special talent. For all his hard work if Jamie vardy was as good at football as me  he'd still be putting stethoscopes together for fuk all , but he's not. this topic seems to have offended a few and I've no idea why, how well off you are in life is what you get out of it and money is nothing but a small part of that, that's why occasionally you find people with a lot of it dead in a hotel room or hanging from a beam in their garage.

 

but back on topic we aren't talking about a generation gap here, it's a decade, 2006, not the 70s, 80s, or even 90s. seems like yesterday to me, absolutely nothing has changed, we are roughly the same generation of people but a lot happened in those 10 years that separate us.

 

being 32 now I can tell you people's attitude towards material goods and general demenure towards what quantifies success has not changed that much in ten years, people were still buying Hp cars and living beyond their means, if attitudes have changed it's certainly not enough to warrant anything like the reductions in wealth above. People my age have been hit with all kinds of problems in accumulating wealth from the introduction of the student loan to recession and and the global economic crisis. I'm on the property market, in fact I'm hoping to buy my second house soon and I've got a good whack behind so I've no need to moan, but by using the above criteria I'd be much better off if I hadn't had to borrow 9k to educate myself and suffer through lean economic times as oppose to the boom those slightly my elder enjoyed.

[Carl the Llama]

9 hours ago, Thracian said:

Your defeatist comment is quite sad.

 

Do you not think my generation winced at the expense of buying a house and saving the deposit?

 

I look around and see whole communities of incomers living in houses - in fact virtually all the "cheap" terraced houses surrounding the inner city and wonder how it came about. But, renting or buying, they live there and would seem to be one step ahead of many people who were born here.  

 

Maybe they got together and found a way and a banking/benefits system that helped. There's a lot of incomers in council housing too which means many must have got ahead of  the locals, however that's worked out, because  I never could get a list showing me the distribution of such housing.

 

You're right that I'm "ignorant" of the system Carl because, as very much a working class lad (brought up in a caravan)  I and my pregnant girlfriend, did two jobs each for a while, saved our deposit and were in our house as late teenagers so I've no idea how "the system" today works because I've no need to.

 

If I couldn't afford my own house I'd club together with other family members to buy one and live in part of it. Alternatively i'd buy a caravan to save on a mortgage for a while....whatever it took..I'd even live in a van or mobile home if I had to and have coped with such things many a time (including a ridge tent for four months). 

 

Finnaldo mentions the problem of getting work. What problem? More people have a job in this country than ever before and there's even the protection of a minimum wage (misguided as it is). I left school because I saw a job at the Mercury advertised and which I fancied more than sitting in a classroom. No I wasn't paid middle income to start - I didn't expect it - but they soon seemed happy with me and the pay improved.     

 

I've three sons who've grown up in modern times and none found the slightest difficulty getting a job. Where I started - fruit picking as a schoolkid - there are even features on television now saying they'll be begging for help if the foreigners can't come in to help. So that outlet's still there and many more if you don't chose to create your own work which is easy enough.

 

I remember a friend of my son starting off with no qualifications I was aware of with an electric mower and a few gardening tools. He now has a wondrously thriving garden maintenance and improvement business with a council contract as well and all sorts working for him. He did it all from scratch and with determination and hard graft.

 

I've run my own auctions, antiques business and been a market trader so there's work everywhere and for most anyone if you're prepared to do it - and every opportunity to save if you chose to.            

      

It's not defeatist at all. I don't know if it's changed since your day but when you get a mortgage now you either pay a large deposit and get relatively low monthly repayments or you pay a small deposit and face high monthly repayments (and indeed in most cases the repayments increase quite drastically after the first couple of years of low interest that the banks use to lure you in in the first place) and the fact of the matter is that when you're just starting out in the working world you're not likely to have a large enough amount in savings to put towards a big enough deposit to ensure you of a monthly payment you can actually afford (we're talking 50k plus to have a noticeable effect) nor are you likely to have the means to pay a low deposit and put aside upwards of 1.2k or so each month and continue to live anything resembling a comfortable life, certainly if you're a teenager these days.  So people are forced into the rental market just to be able to afford the monthly cost of keeping a rood over one's head even if we all know that the money spent each month is effectively lost to the ether rather than being an investment in a more comfortable future.  House prices have skyrocketed relative to average income since your youth so your I'm alright jack approach and anecdotes about the benefits of working hard just make you sound like a human being entirely devoid of compassion or any sense of the realities of modern life for people aged 16-35 or so trying to live independent lives.

[jonthefox]

20 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Not anymore.

The 123 account does. Although you do pay a fiver a month for the pleasure .

[jonthefox]

6 minutes ago, jonthefox said:

The 123 account does. Although you do pay a fiver a month for the pleasure .

Edit. You are correct . Looks like I'm even more skint . 

[Webbo]

6 minutes ago, jonthefox said:

The 123 account does. Although you do pay a fiver a month for the pleasure .

I have a friend who took one of those accounts out just before they reduced it. I think it's around 1.5% now.

[fuchsntf]

Up the Revolution...

You live in a country that gives more recognition to Estate Agents than Engineers or technicians.

Estate Agents move money from A to B within the country. Engineers and Technicians create and build,

the Bbone of export and import. UK has  nothing to sell thats its  own...Thracians and my generations

Execs and Uk big businessmen sold, our industries to the highest foreign bidder instead of re-investment

No real moral support or real investment for encouraging and creating classical handcraft Aprenticeships.

Even our top Civ.engineers struggled to find an UK firm to work for.

We have some great entrepenuers, but they employ the few.

A country can only be successfull as the lowest to the avg have a good education and longterm jobs.Its not the few,

who can keep a country ticking over, the masses if there is no decent payable work, then their is no or not enough  vat, tax or

Consume...that can help to keep govt.koffers rolling.

Poor pay, wealthy businesses paying high bonuses to a few, and hardly paying corporation or other tax=Austerity.

A word that has been the permanent companion to the whole UK electorate since the 1960s.

Where in 60yrs have we seen any developement, improvement within the UK, or one politician of any "faith"

that has  improved anything .. From derelict buildings, roof over the heads for their constituents, 

schooling, education, health  system, nor are they protecting the citizens from local Criminal nor questioning

why the ASBO problem has shot out of the roof. The rich have got richer.Politicians keep you quiet by

giving you comparisons with naturally poorer countries, where you should be harder like Disgrunted customer

in shops, Restaurants or businnesses.They should be working for you..you are paying for it ...

You are not paying for other countries but for the UK to act in your interest, more nationally than internationally.

Comparison have no relevance.. A country can help others tremendously, if it stays stabile  and has financial

strength from within...but if the electorate are kept from information and shown no respect then corruption takes hold,

and becomes accepted. Then other countries are given the blame,to hide inside failures....

 

Once more.... ,  re-sign the proclamation of the deep thoughts of Guy Fawkes, retake the pillars and Bastions of civilization,

The honourable member should be re-kindled and challenged to hold on to its truths.

I love a good revolution, we havent had one for centuries...too much complacency has set in..... blow true and loud and break through the barricades of deceit.

Dont forget if we win, we can keep boxing day games, and return to full fixtures on saturday...

 

[m4DD0gg]

5 hours ago, fuchsntf said:

Up the Revolution...

You live in a country that gives more recognition to Estate Agents than Engineers or technicians.

Estate Agents move money from A to B within the country. Engineers and Technicians create and build,

the Bbone of export and import. UK has  nothing to sell thats its  own...Thracians and my generations

Execs and Uk big businessmen sold, our industries to the highest foreign bidder instead of re-investment

No real moral support or real investment for encouraging and creating classical handcraft Aprenticeships.

Even our top Civ.engineers struggled to find an UK firm to work for.

We have some great entrepenuers, but they employ the few.

A country can only be successfull as the lowest to the avg have a good education and longterm jobs.Its not the few,

who can keep a country ticking over, the masses if there is no decent payable work, then their is no or not enough  vat, tax or

Consume...that can help to keep govt.koffers rolling.

Poor pay, wealthy businesses paying high bonuses to a few, and hardly paying corporation or other tax=Austerity.

A word that has been the permanent companion to the whole UK electorate since the 1960s.

Where in 60yrs have we seen any developement, improvement within the UK, or one politician of any "faith"

that has  improved anything .. From derelict buildings, roof over the heads for their constituents, 

schooling, education, health  system, nor are they protecting the citizens from local Criminal nor questioning

why the ASBO problem has shot out of the roof. The rich have got richer.Politicians keep you quiet by

giving you comparisons with naturally poorer countries, where you should be harder like Disgrunted customer

in shops, Restaurants or businnesses.They should be working for you..you are paying for it ...

You are not paying for other countries but for the UK to act in your interest, more nationally than internationally.

Comparison have no relevance.. A country can help others tremendously, if it stays stabile  and has financial

strength from within...but if the electorate are kept from information and shown no respect then corruption takes hold,

and becomes accepted. Then other countries are given the blame,to hide inside failures....

 

Once more.... ,  re-sign the proclamation of the deep thoughts of Guy Fawkes, retake the pillars and Bastions of civilization,

The honourable member should be re-kindled and challenged to hold on to its truths.

I love a good revolution, we havent had one for centuries...too much complacency has set in..... blow true and loud and break through the barricades of deceit.

Dont forget if we win, we can keep boxing day games, and return to full fixtures on saturday...

 

A lot of this is bollocks we are one of the worlds biggest financial powerhouses, that is our biggest export by a long stretch.

 

The days of building things or producing a tangible good in a trade such as engineering are long gone, why try and export something that can be had from a BRIC's country for 1/5th of the price.  In modern day Britain the services sector is the place to be whether that be financial, IT related through a system integrator or a vendor (certainly not as a developer) or as a contractor in either of those industries where you can easily earn up to £500-700 per day.

 

One of the biggest problems is english people are lazy as fcuk, many not willing to relocate to better themselves and all to ready to turn down a job that will often be gladly snapped up by an immigrant.

 

If you believe a politician from the UK or any other country for that matter you only have yourself to blame.

 

The UK is a very easy place to make a fcuk tonne of money you just have to go out and do it and not be a whinny bitch expecting everything on a plate like most folk from the UK expect to happen.

[The Guvnor]

Interesting comments from posters. I personally feel there is definitely a different outlook to life and lifestyle than say 30 years ago when I got married.

I started work at 16 as a apprentice commercial vehicle mechanic and believe me my pay was shite, at 19 I moved into a rented one bedroom flat, and yes you had to pay rent, at 24 I was married and secured a mortgage on our first house.

My dad had always said time and time again you cannot spend what you don't have, no credit cards for me I had a bank account and you kept it in the black or you paid ridiculous interest. I still managed to save enough over 8 years for a 10% deposit on the house, that was very difficult, I had a part time cleaning job so finish a hard days graft in the garage and a cleaning job 3 nights a week 3 hours a night, a frugal lifestyle but managed to save a little. My car was a Morris 1100 which was about 20 years old yes I was a mechanic by trade and it was mechanically sound but it was definitely a no frills car, second hand furniture, a holiday for a week in Devon if I was lucky.

 

Now I am not going to generalise about all youngsters but I have a young daughter in rented accommodation 3 holidays a year, new HDTV telly, new furniture, Gym memberships latest mobile phone, convertible car, very socially active with their friends drinking most fri sat nights etc etc. but can't raise 15k for a mortgage deposit although she earns 24k and her fella earns more.

I'm now in my early 50's and I have all the things I wanted as a youngster, lovely house, convertible car, sports bike, nice holidays latest mobile phone and yes a Gym membership. This is not a criticism of anyone as you should live your life as you see fit, living for today is fine but you have to consider tomorrow.

 

 

[Charl91]

The people who think that anyone can easily save for a house deposit are absolutely clueless.

 

When I think about the people who graduated from University with me, there's only me and two others I know that have a house. In my case, it's because I got a substantial loan off my parents to pay for my 5% deposit (which still gives me huge monthly repayments). And in others, it's because they lived with their parents for an extra 3/4 years rent-free, so they could afford a deposit. The rest of the people I know don't have the luxury of owning their own homes, because they can't afford to.

 

Rent is expensive. So are cars, which are needed for work. Then there's energy bills. By the time you've factored all that in, then your savings are going to be very little. Especially when you're then hit by all the other unexpected bills, which seem to crop up at the worst times. My salary is about £22,000, and I live relatively frugally - I don't go for nights out, and other than my gym membership, I don't have expensive hobbies, and my car is 10 years old. Even so, I'd be lucky to have saved a couple of hundred quid per month. Assuming a 10% deposit, I doubt I would've been able to save up for a mortgage deposit for at least 7 years, while renting. And that's on a relatively respectable salary straight out of university, and presuming that house prices also didn't go up in that time. And that's a best-case scenario - I still haven't managed to get out of my overdraft post university (though mainly due to the mortgage repayments on my 5% deposit, and a little bad luck)

 

Yeah, there is a little animosity in this thread from us of the younger generation. It's probably due to the (ignorant) assumption that the only reason people can't afford to have their own house is because they either don't work hard enough, or waste all their money on shiny new things. Maybe some people do waste their money. I know lots of people who do. Doesn't matter though, 'cus even if you live on a tight budget, you're still fvcked when it comes to trying to get onto the property ladder. Things are just more expensive now. My grandparents were both teachers, and could easily afford a house. Me and my partner both teach, and we'd have been buggered without outside help.

 

It's a lot more difficult to get onto the property ladder now then it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. That is an indisputable fact.