Relative values, becoming very introspective.

Do you have regrets LovelyLady that you gave up ‘living the life you might have enjoyed’ for bricks & mortar?

Houses are built on land and that is a limited resource - they’re not making any more of it.

Years ago you could buy a house on 2 and a half times the man’s salary plus a tiny percentage of your own.

No longer, even with wages as high as they are.

Like most here, we struggled to pay for our home. We didn’t have holidays or meals or coffee out. We survived on the very basics and unemployment resulted in moving for work. We had 17% inflation and mortgage.
When I hear the youngsters say that you only paid £60000 for your home and it’s worth £x now. I do get cross because we did struggle and life was not improved by the greedy government. We still have a fairly frugal lifestyle because that’s what we’ve become used to. I’d love to go on a cruise or have a ‘flash’ car. Not for us now.

Interesting.
I'm moving house to the other side of the country. We bought this present house just over 10 years ago, it has been put on the market for just under twice what we paid for it... Not just inflation from then to now, is it?

In the early 1960s my husband was a medical doctor and I was a teacher. As newly weds, we worked overseas for 4 years to save for a deposit for a house in the UK. We did not participate in the usual expat activities, lived in a basement flat and expended the minimum.
After 4 years we had saved £3250 and found a house in Kent on the market for £3750 We went back to the BS with which we had saved to ask for a £500 mortgage. They turned us down
We continued to save for a further 5 years back in the UK and managed a deposit on a house in the south of England ( about £8950 I think.
It was interesting that could we have managed £1000 more at the time we could have bought a house + 1 acre of land in the centre of the town Most of the garden was immediately sold on for £1,000,000 and a new estate immediately built

It all depends upon where you buy what

The restaurant I went to on Saturday evening charges £35 for a fillet steak but it does include a large mushroom, a stem of roasted vine tomatoes and chips.
A sauce is extra but can’t remember the price.
We didn’t indulge.
My GD had a salad and I had posh fish and chips both £15.
It was lovely.

gulp!!

Just back from Las Vegas where a 8oz fillet steak was $80 and the chips were extra. Wonderful trip but horrendous prices .
All you could eat breakfast $30, my appetite couldn’t justify that price

HettyBetty

My income fluctuates as I'm self employed but on a good couple of weeks I can earn what my parents paid for their large 3 bed house in the 50s.

Astonishing, isn't it? Wages have truly gone up.

Any of our children could purchase our home using a weeks income.

My income fluctuates as I'm self employed but on a good couple of weeks I can earn what my parents paid for their large 3 bed house in the 50s.

I remember when I was expecting my first son I had a walk every day and stopped at Tesco for yogurt that cost 6d.
A few years later we bought a house for £4000. It had 3 bedrooms a good-sized garden anda driveway. We sold it 10 years later for £21000.

Witzend

A friend who’s a little bit older, told me that when she was in her early 20s her mother urged her to buy a house - a Georgian or Queen Anne (forget which) terrace - in an area of London that was a bit rough (and despite gentrification, still is, in parts.)

At the time (probably mid 1960s) they were going for £1000.
But she didn’t feel like buying then.

A year later they’d gone up to £2000, so she thought her mother had been right, and bought one.
She still lives in it.
Obviously it would have needed a lot of modernisation, but it would now sell for around £1m.

Brilliant example.

We've owned and lived in our home well over 60 years. Very fortunately we've never had the expenses of moving house to relocate for a job. Our mortgage was paid over 35 years ago. We could've never afforded a different mortgage.

Our very old home has required modernisation, revision of loft for 2 bedrooms and storage, adding an oversize conservatory, work on trades entrance/ laundry. Original 1950s price of £1800 then adding costs listed above - we've spent nearing £20K for a modest home on an enormous piece of land. Seemingly reasonable to prices today.

A friend who’s a little bit older, told me that when she was in her early 20s her mother urged her to buy a house - a Georgian or Queen Anne (forget which) terrace - in an area of London that was a bit rough (and despite gentrification, still is, in parts.)

At the time (probably mid 1960s) they were going for £1000.
But she didn’t feel like buying then.

A year later they’d gone up to £2000, so she thought her mother had been right, and bought one.
She still lives in it.
Obviously it would have needed a lot of modernisation, but it would now sell for around £1m.

Norah Moving house is not necessarily a waste of money. We have moved 4 times in 55 years and the current value of the house we now live in is more than twice the current value of our first home - and is twice the size. We use every inch of it

I am not sure that earnings have risen quite as fast as house prices, certainly around here anyway. My DD is earning just under twice what I was when I bought my house (sold when I bot married). I bought it on my own, a 2 bed end of terraced, and still managed to pay commuter fares. This same house has now gone on the market with a few improvements, but no extensions, for 10 times my DD's annual salary.

I know what the OP means though; every now and again, for no apparent reason, I will remind myself that I have just paid 16/- for a Mars Bar, or a week's housekeeping for some when I have paid for a simple lunch for two.

We were just talking to our granddaughter and her boyfriend about this. They are 22 and both have good jobs. We told them our first house cost £9000. They were saying they have very little chance of buying a property.

ParlorGames

pascal30

I was absolutely horrified yesterday to see that a cup of coffee in my localcafe now costs £4.70

Blimey pascal.....you can buy a box of teabags for less!

I know.. I was staggered and certainly didn't/couldn't pay those sort of prices

pascal30

I was absolutely horrified yesterday to see that a cup of coffee in my localcafe now costs £4.70

Blimey pascal.....you can buy a box of teabags for less!

Bellanonna

*pascal*, that really is horrifying. I was surprised to pay £3.50 last year for a coffee in London but I think that’s more or less standard now.

My parents paid £600 for their first home. It’s now worth £500,000.

Inflation is a funny thing. Works in 2 directions.

"Median average salary for those working full-time is £33,000."

Wages have inflated as well.

My husband earned £500 annually at his primary job in 1958.

pascal, that really is horrifying. I was surprised to pay £3.50 last year for a coffee in London but I think that’s more or less standard now.

My parents paid £600 for their first home. It’s now worth £500,000.

I was absolutely horrified yesterday to see that a cup of coffee in my localcafe now costs £4.70

I agree Iam
As the OP of this thread , when we moved into the house I referred to, I had £6 a week housekeeping, out of which I paid my bus fare to week and saved for things like presents and special occasions.
My mind just can’t quite take it in now.

The cost of food, fuel and heat is the thing I’m constantly shocked by.

This chat propelled me into Googling our first house, a a 2.5 bed, s/d cottage bought for just under £10,000 in 1974 and so small we renamed it Wren Cottage. We moved 3 years later as our family was growing and we couldn’t get planning permission to extend. It now has 3 bedrooms and an extra bathroom but is on exactly the same footprint and last sold for £675.000. Funny old world.

When I started work in a bank in 1969, 16 years old, women staff didn’t get a pension. Instead there was a ‘marriage gratuity’, which you could have if you worked for 5 years before marriage. It was £200, and back then where I lived, it would have paid for a deposit on a house.

Fast forward 5 years, by then, the gratuity would probably have bought a three piece suite, but not a house deposit.