Young people around the country are desperate to buy their own homes but just can’t. Trapped in a cycle of a mercenary private rental sector and eye-watering house prices, young people are forced into bizarre housing situations. They might have to put up with black mould or have to pay half their rent in cash to a strange woman every three months in return for a flat with no living room.
But whether the housing crisis that faces young people is because we’re too busy wasting money on avocado lattes and OnlyFans subscriptions or because it would take over 50 years to deal with our housing deficit, what’s clear is we really need some advice on buying homes.
And who better to ask than old people?
Ed Campbell went to the oldest place in Britain to find out.
Reporter: Ed Campbell
Camera: Harry Ainsworth
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My deposit was 2 and a half thousand I got a two bedroom house and two acres of land what you’re paying for a cup of coffee or five I don’t know whatever but you can go home and put the kettle on can’t you I don’t think we put onto this
Earth to to scrimp and save and do practically nothing until you know we get a deposit for a house young people around the country are desperate to buy their own home but just can’t trapped between a mercenary private rental sector and ey watering house prices we’re forced into bizarre housing
Situations we might have to put up with black mold or have to pay half our rent in cash to a strange woman every 3 months in return for a flat with no living room I should know that’s literally my current living situation but whether the housing crisis facing
Young people is to do with our addiction to only fans and avocado lates or to do with the fact it would take 50 years to tackle the housing deficit what is clear is we really need some advice on buying homes and who better to ask than old
People 35 .8% of British homeowners are over the age of 65 that’s why I’m in North norfol North norfol is the oldest place in the country the average age of people here is 54 14 years older than the national average I think just by being here I’ve brought the average age
Down a few months somewhat unsurprisingly more people in North Norfolk own their homes outright than anywhere else in the country which makes it the perfect place to ask how can I buy a house wow I bought my first house when I was 23 yes I think so I bought my first one
When I was 18 when did you first buy your old home well it was my mom’s and um so I came by that when she passed away in 2011 do you mind me asking when you got in the proy ladder 1972 And what do you remember what your deposit
Was my deposit was 2 and 1 half thousand ah BL me well we bought our that was our coun house we bought and I think the whole thing was only 25,000 when we bought so I don’t think we had there was about 3,00 2,000 something like that we
Didn’t put much down and what did you get in return for that I got a two bedroomed house and 2 acres of land yes I how many bedrooms ET was it uh three bedrooms and a large garden that sounds quite important it is impossible this stage well this is it
That was when the conservatives sold all the council houses off and haven’t redone them which is mean why the uh housing situation so bad at the moment they sold all the stock off and do you know how much that property would be worth now well I just sold it about well
Just sold I sold it 20 years ago and it went for 650,000 and isn’t that crazy that’s that’s extraordinary no that was not extraordinary when you look at the prices but oh the the the change the changing price there that’s also it seems Seems like a fairy tale nowadays
That story it is a fairy tale for most youngsters isn’t it do you both Own Your Homes no no no they’re both social yeah yeah is have you wanted to own your home or you has it something you’ve aspired to um yes originally I was gone to but I could get
A mortgage for health reason so uh that was the only reason you haven’t owned one do you feel sorry for young people people trying to get on the housing ladder oh yes yes it’s a big struggle for them and you know if they are in a
Situation where in the end they have to rent um and then how do you how do you rent a property and save at the same time we think that the local housing associations could do a little bit more to help the younger generation but the problem of it is when there’s
A hous Association house come empty they seem to be ox them off instead of opting to give them to a young family who want start off you know the kind of the conventional wisdom given to a lot of people is by people advising people to buy their own homes stop was wasting
Money on takeway coffees or avocado and toast what do you make of things like that I tend to agree i’ probably not be popular for saying so but no I mean years AO I mean you did have to save and you you you know a lot of people just buy coffees
And that as a matter of they go to work they buy take away coffee take away lunch and things like that I mean I can remember I used to take my own sandwiches and take the flask things like that we didn’t have all this cost of coffees and things like that I mean
Quite honestly what you paying for a cup of coffee or five I don’t know whatever but you can go home and put the kettle on can’t you yeah yeah go to the young people her single parents they don’t have advocado on toast they’ll probably be lucky if they get a piece of toast
Never mind advocado so no no that’s rubbish if people should we say cut down on perhaps three uh takeaways a week how much they would save even then I think the average housing deposit for a three bed flat in this country is about 34 Grand so I
Think I to my opinion cutting out a takeaway a week actually really wouldn’t really make much of a dent in that no no I just you know I think it’s all like pet said I think Co have learned a lot of people some big lessons and we’re
Still recovering from the from a kick up the backside if you like from it it’s a difficult one isn’t it because I suppose we we come from a generation that expects people to have discipline and that equals social discipline as well which means that if you want something
You’ve got to work for it and save and and generate it yourself but of course the uh the situation has to be built I should say by the government in a way to allow that to to take place and uh so yes I’d expect we do see a lot of young
People about who are probably spending perhaps when they shouldn’t be and should be saving but one still has to live and one still has to enjoy the best years of your life which in a lot of times are when you’re younger and uh I don’t think we put onto this Earth to to
Scrimp and save and do practically nothing until you know we get a deposit for a house I can’t give him any advice what do you say to them yeah you know go and get a job there are no jobs go and get higher wages they don’t pay higher
Wages you go to university you come out of University they all expect high paid jobs they’re not there and the food that are there are snatched up on the the creme de creme everyone mentions in news or you fed in the news all about the the
Boats and that kind of thing and they worry about uh is there enough housing for every everyone and then we’ve got people coming into this country that aren’t from this country and you know does that put more of a a burden on the local authorities to provide housing um when
Even some of our Armed Forces struggle to get housing when they leave I’m ex forces myself so it’s I feel for everyone who’s concerned everyone should have a right to have a home you know um whether that’s rented um provided or whether that’s you you fund it yourself
To a mortgage so um that’s a basic principle everyone should have a home however um obviously there’s just not enough housing around there’s not enough money around and um people struggle which is um it’s very sad to see do you own your own home I do yeah when did you
First get on the property ladder well I was in the armed forces so again I I rented from the Armed Forces rather cheaply for uh most of my career so it was great and then coming onto the property Market I realized actually that um I struggled a bit because I didn’t
Have a house all the time I was in the military so paid if you like top dollar for a house but I have in the sort of 10 15 years since I’ve left managed to move several times to get into what I think is a house sort of commensurate with my
Affordability enjoyment and needs if you like with a with a young family Etc and of course one thing we haven’t spoken about is is rents and and and rentable value uh this uh you know as as I can see is a such a difficult area isn’t it
For for for young people that have got to this have to find this huge amount of dead money uh to just keep living and find you know to have a roof over their head not to mention the state of some rented properties as well you hear some real
Horror stories indeed we’ve been lucky enough we’ve never had to rent but uh I do feel for the youngsters if yeah if they um just cannot get on that housing it’s so easy to to say to the young people where you’ve just got to work harder well to the the government really
Has to create the you know a firm uh grounding to allow them to do that so they’ve got to have the jobs they’ve got to have the ability to to go promotion through through throughout their companies generate more cash so they can actually save and and
Amount to that and then of course you know we want them to you know they need to have to to build a Bedrock of a of a house um sustainable bed rot so they can have children which the country is built on without the young younger generation having children and the children having
Children we there’s no country to to speak of in the future so there’s you know there’s a lot to be said about generating that Bedrock isn’t that quite frankly isn’t there at the moment I don’t know if you knew this but North norfol is the H is the oldest area in
The UK as in people the average age here is much higher than other places I do know that yeah does that affect the area in any way I think it do I think probably there’s not enough entertainment for the youngsters um there’s not enough really much for
Them at all here is there so yeah I suppose yeah I do think it affect them we live in a in an area beautiful area of Norfolk that um is uh primarily the the the the the jobs here are tourism and farming neither of which are paid
Particularly well and course the so the the indigenous um younger generation have little to no chance of Ever Getting onto the property market and uh it’s a it’s a problem for our age I think isn’t it yeah has there anything that surprised you to about getting older um
Put like it’s on 26 but uh oh sorry yeah no no no it’s the fact is it’s always been an old area you know it’s a unfortunately probably uh a retirement area for people coming from all parts of the country uh because of the Tranquil lifestyle we leave
Lead and uh yeah and too many second homes going back to um you know housing situation this country tends to to work in fouryear cycles and a lot of these problems and the one we’re talking about today is not a four-year problem it’s a 20y year or a 30-year problem this is
How you know and it’s got to be cross party you know this is these these issues have got to be looked at in a long term not four years but 10 20 years planning building houses 20 30 years that’s what we’ve got to do and I think
We’re so into short termism it’s uh frightening in some ways
48 Comments
Yes! I stopped buying £5 coffee once every couple of years, now I own a boat!
Put in place a law where you cannot own more then 2 houses per person. A married couple can have 4 which is more than enough.
Only way you can own more than two houses = you spouse passed away and you inherited the extra 2 houses. Or you built new houses.
Anyone who has 100 houses right now should be forced to sell 98 of them within 2 years. And if they want to hold more than 2 houses they can build new ones.
Times are not that different from the 80s and parts of the seventies.. rampant inflation and high interest rates. And some crazy taxes in the 70’s. LEARN TO SAVE HARD ! these people came through those times and so will you . Stop complaining because it was never easy for many of these working class people.
Wait, can you inherit a house?? I thought they taxed it out of your hands.
So stupid the blue jacket man. Youngsters must blow all their money so they enjoy their youth and govt must do something so they have more money. It's this kind of thinking that your country is drowning. Idiots!!!!
The comments here from young people are so nasty and disrespectful that I have to say you all deserve the difficulties u are facing now. Why should the older comfortable generation care about you rude and disgusting young people… I know I don’t 😂
Made sure i have frozen pizza in the house for when I'm tired and would want to order takeaway and stopped earing out. Am saving alot more money, but also hard in a busy house with two working parents.
My wife and I are immigrants in Norway and we recently bought our first apartment here. The apartment is 68 square meters and was built in 2002. It has two bedrooms, a separate kitchen, a living and dining area, a bathroom, and two storage spaces. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with a garage and is located 50km away from the center of Oslo. It takes me an hour and ten minutes to get to my workplace, but luckily my wife works just 15 minutes away from home. The total cost of the apartment is approximately 306,500 euros out of which we paid around 55,000 euros for equity and other purchase expenses. We plan to pay the remaining amount back to the bank over a period of 25 years, which will result in a total payment of around 505,000 euros. I'm civil eng. and all this is just insane, but you have to live somewhere.
Are housing deposit and prices out of control yes. Is it ridiculous how much people spend on coffee take away etc nowadays also yes. I literally know a people living with parents and working who said she spends 1000 a month on food! Thats clearly on the ridiculous side but even the coffees and occasional take away is gonna ad up to what £25 a week thats still an addtional £1200 you could of saved up in the year. But ultimately everyone lives how they want to. All being said yes fix the damn housing market.
The comments on this thread from Politics Joe lifers demonstrates two things:
1. You all want something.
2. You’ll kill the messenger for telling you that you’ll have to do something about it.
Good luck little children!
We can have a minimal chance of saving for a mortgage, or we can actually have a life.
Starbucks
£3.25 for a cup of tea yesterday 😮
There isn't enough houses because the population is growing faster than available housing and has been for decades.
Despite many green field sites being concreted over
Much of the housing stock is dilapidated.
Politics Joe and its supporters choose parties who favour unfettered net immigration.
Stop moaning then about lack of housing
Yes buy cheaper coffees. We need to encourage people to do cafes and restaurants for cheaper. That all starts with landlords. They should publically say they are doinf cheaper coffees because the landlord isnt greedy and wants a better future.
Everyone will yes but landlord has family and mortgage bla bla but its got to start somewhere and people will get behind people
All the finance books telling people who already own homes to be super stingy and never spend money at local business like cafes and restaurants and then try to buy all the properties for themeselves. Just think about that world. No one spends money at business so people then have no money and theres no business opening. And then the people buy all the available houses. This creates a country where people have no business and no money but then even worse no house to live in
My mam – “Yea we were like you when we had to save for our house deposit”
My mam – borrowed 2k off my auntie for a deposit, got a 2k back off the bank which she returned to my auntie.
Me – Saved with my GF for 7 years work,gym,sleep, smashed a decent wedge off the mortgage in 8 years now.
Great points made, particularly the short term veiw on the countries needs
I worked with customers in the “horse bank” 🏦 for 15 years and I’ve seen all sorts of dealing with money. For young people out there I would say STAY WITH YOUR PARENTS and work. Have an agreement with your parents to pay a little rent and save but BE DISCIPLINED and don’t be tempted by tick tock spending. My daughter started saving at 16, paid for her driving lessons, bought her first car, then another, and her first apartment in London at the age of 21. I couldn’t give her any money as I’m a single mother but I made it as comfortable as possible for her to save. It’s possible x
The problem with Norfolk is old people from London keep moving here forcing up house prices. It didn't used to be like this. There's nothing in Norfolk for young people now except low wage jobs looking after old farts from London.
Some very insightful answers except that coffee stuff. Yeah obviously coffee is quite dear but I don’t buy it often because a lot of time i can make better at home but at the end of the day you need to live and socialise a bit.
I think evidence of paying rent for a couple of years should be considered by banks regarding buying a house.
Governments should allow coucils to build homes and lots of them but they know they will lose votes as prices may come down as a result.
Best thing is getting more young people to vote and engage in this
At 5:38 really good insight
£5 x 365 x 155yrs = c£282k (roughly the average house price). Considering the working age is 16-64 currently, i would have to work slightly over three lifetimes and save £5 every day to afford the current average house price. Conclusion: have your £5 coffee 😂. Who tf has a £5 coffee everyday anyway?
this is the first time generational wealth hasn't passed on. people joke that you need an inheritance to buy a house, or inherit a house. Its literally what most of these boomers did. Rich boomers holding onto huge houses and wealth that a new couple needs far more. Be kind to your grandchildren or they'll abandon you.
Come on utd 0:10
If you want a house get yourself out of Joe Media and join the private sector, you could work in communications. If you don’t do this except poor housing choice it’s very simple
Those coffin dodgers need putting out to pasture pronto. Go on, off to heaven with ya's. Say hello to Jesus for me and gimme your house keys while you're at it.
you can go to the pub and spend a fiver on a pint or you can get a 2 pound bottle of cider at home. bet the old people still go to the pub 🙂
Yeah, when renting a room costs £750 a month.
This is the same conversation as in the U.S….I had to move to the middle of the country to afford a home out of California.
Makes for great content, but we should be angry at the situation and the implication that young people simply lack control.. How can people be so blissfully ignorant. These people reaped all the reward, now berating young people for buying a coffee.. It's makes me sad and pissed off. The political system is absolutely broken and we've been turned against each other.. so we don't push for a system which truly represents us.
Generally i feel that older folk have empathy. They were lied to by our run down instutution runners
when they are all dead in that district and all the houses are empty as no one can afford to buy them, maybe the prices will fall, but that will take 30 to 40 more years
Bit of topic but music speeding up and slowing down is jarring…😬
Ultimately immigration is to blame here… High house prices/rents due to increased demand… Low salaries because of the oversupply of cheap labour
6 years ago my house was valued at 80 000 euro, I was making 2000 euro a month. Now it is valued at 140 000, I am making 1500 euro a month.
Unless you have someone in your life who can help you to get the deposit together for a mortgage then it's impossible.
Hahaha cancelling netflix saves £120 a year, whats the min deposit for a mortgage in 2024 again?
Lets do a little quick math
This was filmed in Norfolk, so for the sake of argument lets base it around there, they could argue well younger people could leave Norfolk to live in cheaper areas, but we all know that would be detrimental to the county economy . The average cost for a semi-detached house is £273,652 according to sites such as Zoopla, which can find out rough averages for what properties sell for.
So if someone was for example bought a coffee each day for £5, that's £1,825 a year (5 x 365). If I divide that but the average cost for a semi-detached house it means even if someone was to stop buying a coffee a day it would still take then 149.9yrs to save up for a property if their income remained the same and houses prices somehow miraculously stopped inflating.
We as a generation cannot buy properties and are stuck on the renters market. I was born in the mid 80's and it was hard for me, even I'm stuck in a renting loop. I know for a fact it's even harder for people in younger generations.
It's such a moot point.
i never bought one of those expensive coffees in my life. why should i be anyones money slave?
I was pleasantly surprised by some of those interviewed. They understand what's happening.
these people are just a joy to listen to, I'd listen to them talk all day long.
£5 coffee is to blame pml 😂, thats like saying don't go out for a pint after working 48 hours a week cause it's £5 a pint
i'm in first year of uni, i got the minimal maintenance loan. I get 4,600 grand roughly. This ONLY pays my rent which is 105 p/w. I am already 13,600 (from first year) in debt which after 3 years will increase to 40,800. I have to work during my summers (due to not being able to work whilst doing my course, because 1. no one hires students, 2. i have a learning disability, this hinders the focus on my work) in order to buy food/necessities/rent for the whole year. My parents do not support me financially if you are wondering. They only give me money (20 quid) for a food shop for a month IF I desperately need it. My parents are elderly and renovating their own home which of course takes a lot of money.
I do not buy coffees or snacks at my workplace, yet, even to get a average paying job and a good profession, I already have 40,800 debt. I am also planning to go to another University after this one to do Veterinary Medicine which is another 4 years hence increasing my debt to something extortionate like 100k. How are young people meant to buy houses or get onto the property ladder if this is an issue? I feel as if we are being taken advantage of and easily disposable. Old people preach about how we should care about the new generations and all that bullshit, yet they never mean it or do anything. How are we supposed to have "fun" if we are worried about money even at such a young age.
I blame the drugs … too many young people
Now just sniffing
4:47: Advocaat on toast > 'Advocado' on toast > Lucky to get Piece of toast
I don’t eat out, I don’t drink coffee, I don’t buy handbags, I use drugstore makeup. I still can’t afford a house and struggling to pay my bill and I own a BEng and a MSc. 🤷♀️
Why don't you ask young people why they can't afford a house?
I worked at a company full of boomers who worked in financial sector right after high school( yup no uni to work there) , I' d hear them talking having multiple cars( even vintage ones) , multiple houses even when they were young af. and now this generation owns most of housing and rents these properties out , if you look at certain holiday homes in Scotland , they charge 1000 a day for their airbnb , how out of touch with reality boomers are 😂