Would It Be A Good Idea Now Or In The Future

[emmie]

to let 16, 17 year old have the vote, this was from a
Debate on Matthew Wright show this morning.

[Jackdaw33]

I agree with every single word of Deskdiary @ 20.05.

[THECORBYLOON]

NJ 16-year old can leave school, https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school

[Mamyalynne]

How rude - a question about teenagers voting, why wouldn't you mention young family members.

I did.

[New Judge]

Yes you can leave school at 16 but the alternatives are virtually the same as remaining at school.

“…but it must be somebodies fault of our generation.”

Sorry you find this hard going, garaman. I’ve said where I believe the fault lies. The reason young people are finding it difficult to buy property is supply and demand – too much demand for too little supply. I’ve also mentioned why I believe there is too much demand and the reasons for that are nothing to do with the majority of people here. Successive governments presided over allowing demand to outstrip supply.

The argument about voting is not tautological, ummm. The alternatives on offer who would undertake to restrict immigration were not only unelectable but their viewpoints were not acceptable to the majority of people. They received few votes not because “they didn’t stand a chance” but because people found their policies unacceptable. The politicians of all main parties (and indeed a lot of their supporters) wouldn’t hear of restricting immigration. I was akin to heresy. Well we’re now seeing the result of that folly. And it’s not my fault so I don’t want to be accused of making life difficult for young people today. I’ve done nothing to exacerbate their problems and there was nothing I could have done to prevent those who did.

[Garaman]

NJ, most people my age didn't complain about the housing shortfall because we were doing very nicely out of it. In fact house price growth has been the talk of the dinner table for our generation. In my book, that makes us responsible for the fact that youngsters now can't buy a home, though clearly not in yours.

[waterboatman]

I think it should be 21. How many 16 and 17 year olds have any real experience of the way the world works?

[emmie]

i am torn either way, certainly seems to have raised a few hackles.

[New Judge]

You may have benefited from it but you were not responsible for it nor could you do anything about it, garaman. It's also arguable whether you did that nicely from it. Unless you downsize, sell up completely or move to a less expensive area (which means you can never return) then house price inflation does not do you many favours.

[Garaman]

I have more than one property, NJ, and have certainly benefited from it. Many people in the UK have more than one property, thanks in part to the availability of buy-to-let mortgages, though I have never had one of those. However, many people who only have one property have gained a lot at the expense of today’s youngsters.

A typical example of what has happened over the last forty years or so:

A couple buy a house thinking that it should be a safe investment as well as a home. However they soon find that, due to housing shortages etc, prices start to go through the roof (pun intended), and they realise that the house won’t just hold its relative value but will be worth around five times its relative value on their retirement. They decide to ‘release a bit of equity’ to buy a new car and fund the long-haul holiday they have always dreamed of. They then sell the property on retirement, downsize as they always intended to do anyway, but have a much bigger pot than they envisaged to top up their state pension. So where did all the money come from? Of course it came from the youngster who had to pay five times the price for the house, so the youngster funded their new car, holiday and their extra pension. Now it happens that they have two youngsters themselves so you might think they would be a bit embarrassed about all this, but no not at all because they can just blame government policy.

[New Judge]

So what were they supposed to do with their asset? Flog it for a fifth of the going rate?

We won't agree on this. My view is that people take advantage of the prevailing situation. Others have to make the best of it. When I wanted to buy my first property I could not get a mortgage. I had a decent deposit and could meet the repayments. It's just that cash was not available. I had to pay a "mortgage broker" to get me the loan; at points during its term I was paying 15% pa in interest. I didn't blame anybody for it. Those were the conditions prevailing at the time and I just had to get on with it.

[Garaman]

//So what were they supposed to do with their asset? Flog it for a fifth of the going rate?//

No, but we were supposed to prevent it getting to that stage.

//We won't agree on this. My view is…When I wanted…I could not get …I had...I had to...I was paying…I didn't blame anybody for it…I just had to get on with it.//

No we won’t agree on this, and you have explained why better than I could.

[New Judge]

Just explaining that whilst the problems suffered by young people today are different to those which occurred earlier, current homeseekers do not have the monopoly on difficulties. To listen to many people, you might think that they did. Life's tough and you have to get on with it.

[emmie]

NJ
so you do, have to get on with it. No one promises you anything, you have to do it for yourself.

[Garaman]

...and I am just explaining that ummmm's son is correct in saying that our generation caused that particular problem.

[emmie]

danny
an old flame told me he joined at 16 that was where i got my info from... so you can now.

[New Judge]

So just lastly, then, if we accept that somebody is to blame for the plight of today’s young homebuyers, is this generational persecution just a feature of life today? Presumably somebody was to blame for the difficulties I described of thirty or forty years ago. Who was to blame for them? Was it those victims’ predecessors or was it the people who faced the difficulties themselves? Or was it nobody’s fault? I’m struggling to understand how it can be older people’s fault for the situation today but I don’t recall any such blame being attached to any group in particular in the past.

[Garaman]

I think every generation has made its mistakes, NJ, but the ability to put a roof over our heads is a very basic need and is bound to raise emotions more than most other issues.

I don't think that the problems you mention fall into the same category though. All of us of a certain age have seen interest rates vary, we have paid a high price at times and benefited on other occasions. We have experienced times when it was hard to get a mortgage and times when banks were trying to force them on us. That is just part of the economic cycle. This is different as the house price to inflation ratio has been increasing for forty years or so, and is forecast to carry on increasing for another forty more.

We should have imposed some measures to stabilise things. As you mentioned, restricting immigration and allowing more homes to be built would have helped. We could also have imposed more tax on people like me who have more than one property. The problem for The Government is that house price inflation gives the majority of voters a positive feeling so curbing it wouldn’t be a vote winner – that’s were ‘we’ come into the equation as most of us haven’t wanted it to stop.

[New Judge]

Cheers for a lively debate, garaman!

[Garaman]

Cheers, NJ.

I have the Listener crossword to tackle now, at least I might have a chance of solving that:)