Heh. I was arguing a few weeks back with someone about this. They were going on about how todays young simply aren't motivated enough and this is why they cannot afford to buy houses. Loads of 'back in my day' was said, and it turned out the persons opinion was that they gave up 'luxuries' and were able to buy their house in 2 years. They paid around a grand for their house but rightly pointed out that wages were much lower back then. I was kind of intrigued so asked a few questions, turned out that before moving into their bought house, she lived with her parents and her soon to be husband lived with his whilst saving. The 'luxuries' they gave up were things such as cinema visits, going to 'dances', going to the pub...basically what they saved on were trips out.
I asked what they earned at the time, and instead of telling me to piss off and mind my own business they told me between her and her partner they made 25 pounds a week. So 1300 a year ish.
So the house cost less than a years wages. Pretty much exactly a years wages for the to be husband, as he made 20 pound a week where she made 5.
So I used average house prices and average household incomes to make this point...£240,325 for average house cost and average household income £23,556. Obviously its clear where I am going with this...10x the average wage to buy a house. And thats the full income amount. Obviously people would still need to eat, and would have to rent a house in the meantime too as its very unusual to be able to live with your parents far past school age. So, average rent is apparently £921 a month. So around 11k per year. Leaving around 12k.
Say people spend 80 quid a week on shopping for 2 (as I had a hard job finding average shopping costs) thats 4k a year.
So now we have 8k. Lets assume that all of that 8k goes on 'treats' that can be cut out easily...rather than being sensible and acknowledging that there are more living costs than rent and food. So these 8k of treats are cut out. It would still take
30 years to buy a house with that.
It was just a ridiculous conversation really, as anyone with an ounce of sense knows that its much harder for todays young when it comes to things such as buying houses. And that so many of them, no matter how hard they work and how hard they save, will never own their own homes. I actually don't know anyone under the age of 40 who owns a house bar one person who inherited it when his parents died. I know only 2 people with mortgages...and LOADS who have been turned down for mortgages. Bar managing to get a mortgage, winning the lottery or inheriting, they have no chance realistically. But its still their fault for being lazy and unwilling to save. Save meaning, not go to the cinema for a year and so on...well its just a bit silly to assume cutting down on cinema trips would mean someone can buy a house
But so many older people STILL think this way.
Kinda offtopic but your post brought this back
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