General Election - 4th July 2024

[bluenova]

an idea that falls apart on day one - as I said is was a SPAD's fever dream coz his boss was indoors crying

But aren't the majority of young people going to be doing a civil service in a uniformed profession?

Prison officers wear uniforms.

Clearly a feature, not a bug

 

[metalblue]

I bought my first house in 1983 - I was on decent money fpr a 22 year old - about £11k pa plus my bride to be was earning 9k pa - according to Hansard the average pay then was £18.5k - my mortgage was £11k.

Last year the average was was £32.300 the average house price was £295k.

You can't drink that much booze nor can you do an apprenticeship that would earn you the deposit for an average house in the time scale you are talking about - unless its an apprentice Oil Sheikh I suppose

That’s the nail on the head. An average house used to be affordable on an average wage. Now you need to be in, what, the top 10%?

Unsustainable, it should be, yet somehow it has been.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

I bought my first house in 1983 - I was on decent money fpr a 22 year old - about £11k pa plus my bride to be was earning 9k pa - according to Hansard the average pay then was £18.5k - my mortgage was £11k.

Last year the average was was £32.300 the average house price was £295k.

You can't drink that much booze nor can you do an apprenticeship that would earn you the deposit for an average house in the time scale you are talking about - unless its an apprentice Oil Sheikh I suppose

Precisely the uni/no uni argument is totally irrelevant for the purposes of house-buying. On average the life time earnings of somebody with a degree is about 100k higher than not having one. For some degrees like medicine, it can be up to 500k higher. And yet young people still struggle to get on the housing ladder.

The amount anybody might save by not going to university is an absolute drop in the ocean when it comes to how much it costs to buy a house. A few beers in exchange for living a life of frugality on an apprenticeship paying £9 an hour is not making the difference.

 

[inbetween]

I bought my first house in 1983 - I was on decent money fpr a 22 year old - about £11k pa plus my bride to be was earning 9k pa - according to Hansard the average pay then was £18.5k - my mortgage was £11k.

Last year the average was was £32.300 the average house price was £295k.

You can't drink that much booze nor can you do an apprenticeship that would earn you the deposit for an average house in the time scale you are talking about - unless its an apprentice Oil Sheikh I suppose

Basing this on average house prices is flawed. £295k is the average house price across everything and not just the houses that young people actually want.

Somebody aged 21 can never expect to afford an averagely priced 3 bed semi with a garden for example. If I was 21 then I would want a small flat and there are tons of flats going near me for £120k or less.

Is £120k now also not affordable?

 

[I'm With Stupid]

The university system is the greatest marketing scam of the last 50 years. It has made parents think that without a degree their kids can't be successful and a degree is critical to get the top jobs, it's not true. The biggest companies are begging for kids with experience, skills and a good attitude, they do not care about degrees because they'll pay for them to do degrees if it's really needed.

It's not really true though. Loads of companies advertised the fact that they no longer required a degree for certain jobs. When someone ran the numbers, they found that they still overwhelmingly hired people with degrees for those jobs.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Basing this on average house prices is flawed. £295k is the average house price across everything and not just the houses that young people actually want.

Somebody aged 21 can never expect to afford an averagely priced 3 bed semi with a garden for example. If I was 21 then I would want a small flat and there are tons of flats going near me for £120k or less.

Is £120k now also not affordable?

A quick Google suggests that mortgage lenders will lend you £120k on a salary of around £30k. I've been out of the UK for a while, but that seems like quite a bit for a 21 year-old kid to be earning. According to the Times, the average salary for an 18-21 year old is £22.693. So yeah, I'd say £120,000 would be a big push for the vast majority of 21 year-olds, before you consider the deposit (which ironically, by the time you've saved it, might no longer be enough because the house has increased in price faster than you can save for it).

Average house prices don't mean the person buying is buying the average house, it's just a way of demonstrating how much house prices have increased compared to wages. Young people might be buying the cheapest house, but they'll also typically have the shittest wages.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Basing this on average house prices is flawed. £295k is the average house price across everything and not just the houses that young people actually want.

Somebody aged 21 can never expect to afford an averagely priced 3 bed semi with a garden for example. If I was 21 then I would want a small flat and there are tons of flats going near me for £120k or less.

Is £120k now also not affordable?

Its the nationally accepted measure - "near you" means nothing. What about in Londons Docklands and say Heywood or say Maidenhead. You have to go on averages of income and price to compare over the years

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Its the nationally accepted measure - "near you" means nothing. What about in Londons Docklands and say Heywood or say Maidenhead. You have to go on averages of income and price to compare over the years

I’ve just checked on a couple of real estate websites, and in my entire town (which is in Essex) the cheapest property available that isn’t in a retirement residence is a leasehold, single bed flat about 5 miles out of the town centre for £150,000. And my area is more rural than metropolitan. Not that different from parts of Cheshire.

If you manage to get a 90% LTV (unlikely) that’s £15,000 deposit plus a salary of pretty much exactly £30k per year. The average salary for a 22-29 year old according to ONS is £26k, so if you’re earning the average you need a £33k deposit. If you’re earning less you might need £50k.

Given the average person on £26k can save very little, I’d love to know how people expect them to mount up about 1.3x their annual salary in the space of a few years.

Are young people in the south just expected to live some kind of nomadic lifestyle until they hit the lottery finding a cheap house 200 miles from home in Wales or deep Lincolnshire?

 

[domalino]

an idea that falls apart on day one - as I said is was a SPAD's fever dream coz his boss was indoors crying

10% is nuts though, during vietnam, 3,500 out of 570,000 men called up got imprisoned for draft dodging - 0.6% - and that was to actually go fight in Vietnam for 2 years.

 

[domalino]

Its the nationally accepted measure - "near you" means nothing. What about in Londons Docklands and say Heywood or say Maidenhead. You have to go on averages of income and price to compare over the years

Exactly - People have to live where the jobs are. The entire country’s 16-25 population can’t move up north to cheap housing.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

10% is nuts though, during vietnam, 3,500 out of 570,000 men called up got imprisoned for draft dodging - 0.6% - and that was to actually go fight in Vietnam for 2 years.

I think we are now firmly into the time when the govt realises it's so unlikely to get re-elected and have to deliver that they can say any shit.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Tomorrow is the first day when the National Service Policy meets the atmosphere outside CCHQ and Sunak will have to answer questions on it. From there on in it will fall apart like a cheap suit when questions of cost and how it will work are put to him so hold on to your hats and wait for the next mad policy by Thursday - as previously Monkey Tennis may be next

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I think we are now firmly into the time when the govt realises it's so unlikely to get re-elected and have to deliver that they can say any shit.

Worked for Brexit.

Who knows these days.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

I’ve just checked on a couple of real estate websites, and in my entire town (which is in Essex) the cheapest property available that isn’t in a retirement residence is a leasehold, single bed flat about 5 miles out of the town centre for £150,000. And my area is more rural than metropolitan. Not that different from parts of Cheshire.

If you manage to get a 90% LTV (unlikely) that’s £15,000 deposit plus a salary of pretty much exactly £30k per year. The average salary for a 22-29 year old according to ONS is £26k, so if you’re earning the average you need a £33k deposit. If you’re earning less you might need £50k.

Given the average person on £26k can save very little, I’d love to know how people expect them to mount up about 1.3x their annual salary in the space of a few years.

Are young people in the south just expected to live some kind of nomadic lifestyle until they hit the lottery finding a cheap house 200 miles from home in Wales or deep Lincolnshire?

Not sure you need to go into such detail, mate, it’s quite obvious that younger people cannot afford to get on the ladder and are being fleeced for standard rental.

 

[Chappie]

I think we are now firmly into the time when the govt realises it's so unlikely to get re-elected and have to deliver that they can say any shit.

No different, to what all opposition parties do, when they are not in power.

 

[Johnny Mars Bar]

I think we are now firmly into the time when the govt realises it's so unlikely to get re-elected and have to deliver that they can say any shit.

Exactly. I said the same thing as soon as they announced it. You can make up any old crazy shit when you know you won’t be in government. It’s like when Corbyn said he was going to nationalise the internet and make it free for everyone.

 

[oldius]

My dad insists that houses were just as unaffordable in his day.
We did some calculations.
His first home cost 90 weeks of net pay.
90 weeks of net pay at the current UK median salary is 46k.
That house is now 300k.

I don't think people want that much: reasonable pay to afford a reasonable life. If I work full time, I should be able to afford my own place. I should be able to heat it, insure it, buy my groceries, and afford travel to and from work. If I am ill, I should be able to see a doctor, or a dentist. And in my dotage, having paid in all my life, I should be able to retire with enough years left to enjoy and some money in my pocket. I should feel safe. If these are our only objectives, we need to work at the reasons why we are so far adrift from it. Demoralising young people and then trying to solve it with national service is surely the wrong way around.

 

[bluethrunthru]

You can't fine the parents of an adult who doesn't do what you ask of them. What next? Your mum gets bailiff's round taking her car off her because you in your car have an unpaid parking charge? Your Dad being fined because your dropped some litter? Totally unworkable and they know it.

 

[threespires]

Tomorrow is the first day when the National Service Policy meets the atmosphere outside CCHQ and Sunak will have to answer questions on it. From there on in it will fall apart like a cheap suit when questions of cost and how it will work are put to him so hold on to your hats and wait for the next mad policy by Thursday - as previously Monkey Tennis may be next

Won't there be a Chris Eubank based initiative before we get to monkey tennis? Though in fairness Chris snr has always struck me as too sane to get involved with that lot.

 

[threespires]

My dad insists that houses were just as unaffordable in his day.
We did some calculations.
His first home cost 90 weeks of net pay.
90 weeks of net pay at the current UK median salary is 46k.
That house is now 300k.

I don't think people want that much: reasonable pay to afford a reasonable life. If I work full time, I should be able to afford my own place. I should be able to heat it, insure it, buy my groceries, and afford travel to and from work. If I am ill, I should be able to see a doctor, or a dentist. And in my dotage, having paid in all my life, I should be able to retire with enough years left to enjoy with some money in my pocket. I should feel safe. If these are our only objectives, we need to work at the reasons why we are so far adrift from it. Demoralising young people and then trying to solve it with national service is surely the wrong way around.

I think the reason we are so far adrift from it, is that whilst what you describe might be the objective for the majority of the population, there is a much smaller percentage for whom accumulation of vast wealth at the expense of others is their main objective. This has probably always been the case; but for decades we have allowed policies and created a culture where this greed and favouring of capital has rolled back the progress we made in the 20th century in creating a more equitable society. Worse than this we've encouraged a culture where those a bit further down the ladder from the super wealthy are also able to exploit their fellow citizens without being viewed as social pariahs.

The groundwork was laid for this in the 1980s and we're now reaping as we sowed. Unless something catastrophic happens to wake us up or people consciously decide that they don't want to live in an increasingly inequitable society I fear little will change. Electoral reform might help a bit but ultimately we need to recognise what type of society we are allowing to be created in our name. Inequality of the type we increasingly tolerate isn't some sort of definitive end point of social Darwinism, it's a cultural choice.