General Chat

In 1975 a typical builders estate starter home in southern England was around £ 11 000. Large numbers of people had no trouble buying these houses. As I remember the mortgage repayments were around £ 120 month. The mortgage was based on 2.5 times my pay and a half of my wife.

Today around Southampton a small 3 bed house in Lordshill or Hedge End is a bit over £ 200 K - 20 times 1975. Starting money for, say, junior engineers is around £ 22 K . Thus in real terms houses have doubled in price even outside of London. It is much the same in Nottingham and Sheffield.

There are several reasons why this has happened but it is not the fault of the baby boomers. The two driving forces have been builders who sit on their land banks and commercial banks willing to lend unsafe mortgages at low interest rates. Private landlordism has not helped either. The market is rigged.

It would not take a lot for the whole merry go round to come flying apart. Millenials with big mortgages could even end up winning if sterling dropped enough. For baby boomers an effective cut in their house value of over 20% would be stressful. Yet commercial banks have been subjected to stress testing for that scenario and worse.

enjoy brexit if and when it happens

I cant recall the actual cost but for example the price of a double bounty bar after decimalisation (1971)was a covert price rise after conversion!

think it was originally 9d after decimalisation became 4p...= 10d