“The OAPs of today got houses for the price of chips, so why not donate to help the new young get homes?”
For two reasons:
Firstly, nobody “donated” anything to me to get my house so I don’t see why I should reciprocate..
Secondly, my house was not as cheap as chips. I had to pay some spiv a month and a half’s salary for him to secure me an “endowment” mortgage. For younger readers, these were interest-only mortgages with the capital being (supposedly) paid off by the maturity of an endowment policy. I was lucky, my endowment covered the sum. Many were not and after 25 years found themselves needing to find the funds to pay off their loan. As well as that, for the first few years of the mortgage that Mrs NJ and I had secured, one of our two salaries was insufficient to make the mortgage repayments and the endowment premiums. Basically, one of us was working for less than nothing. That eased for a while, but then recurred when mortgage rates hit double figures. I have not seen too many of today’s poor, impoverished souls having to put up with that.
“The issue is, a young person can work hard, and save even harder, but it will still take them over 6 years to save for a mortgage.”
What? Six whole years? What a disgrace! However, there was a couple in the press a few weeks back who, by doing what we and our contemporaries did as a matter of course (lived with parents, ran an old banger only if necessary, stayed in and didn’t take a holiday) saved for their deposit within twelve months.
“I'm just saying instead of having 2 houses both of which cost you about 9K,...”
How many people do you know who have two houses which cost them £9k each? When houses were £9k it was as much as you could do to buy one (see above).
“I know someone who bought a terraced house 20 years ago for 7K.... They sold it only TEN years later for 150K.”
Tell me where you could buy a terraced house (in useable condition) for £7k in 1998, spathi, especially one which sold for £150k in 2008.
“There are more people in this world which is why there is more of a demand for housing...”
Finally you’ve hit the nail on the head. Just a slight adjustment. You might have said “There are far too many more people in the UK which is why there is more of a demand for housing...”
“It is a fact that buying a house is harder now than it was 20 years ago.”
No it’s not. The problems are different. And they were different 20 years ago to 40 years ago, and so on. People have to cope with the prevailing conditions and not expect everybody else to dig the out of their perceived mire.
“Doubt it.. But if an OAP paid my house deposit i'd do their gardening for a couple years no questions ask'd.”
Very generous of you (assuming it was likely). Lets say four hours a week for the four months that intensive gardening is necessary. So around 60 hours or so for each of the two years. At a (very) generous rate of £20 per hour (more than twice the “living wage”) a little under £2.5k. Not a bad deal.
You do talk a load of botox at times, spathi. But it’s always amusing to see you become ever more frustrated as your arguments are shot down in flames. But one thing you (and most politicians) should remember: you will never make the poor richer by trying to make the rich poorer.