Who are buying all the new houses?

It’s often financial necessity rather than passion for a career that keeps most women of child-rearing age in the workforce. Sure, young women leaving school now are eager to pursue education and build careers, but when it comes time to start a family, the majority would prefer to stay home with their children if finances allowed.

I fall into that demographic, and among the women I know, the overwhelming sentiment is the same: if their income wasn’t essential to covering the mortgage or running the household, they’d choose to be at home in a heartbeat. The daily routine of rushing to get kids to and from school/creche, working 40+ hours a week, and still managing housework, dinners, homework, ferrying kids about, etc is exhausting. It’s a full load, and many feel stretched thin trying to do it all.

Good on you

So home ownership has collapsed in the 25-39 bracket in the space of a generation because those people are just stupid now and don’t know how to budget and save and waste their money instead. That’s all it is, there’s nothing else at play.
You bought a house in ‘06 yourself so the Housing crisis is actually a myth. Personal experience of one person trumps all else.

You’re not interested in evidence though so we can leave it there.

There are none so blind as those will not see

I think some very good points here. The only thing I would take issue with is the idea that reducing immigration and increasing housing stock are inconsistent objectives. The reason I take issue with it is that immigration is not a homogenous quantity. What is needed is more focused immigration based on the needs of the country.

Edit: did not see @Sunny Disposition 's post when I wrote the above.

Sorry it’s not that they’re too stupid to understand saving and knuckling down, it’s the Netflix and the iPhones, that was it

I don’t know best but I do know there is a housing crisis in the country and that it consistently ranks as the #1 concern amongst the voters of this country, so safe to say it’s not something we’re all imagining in some “groupthink” collective madness

Off ya go so 👍

Don’t waste your breath

I’ve provided all the figures and evidence - that’s irrelevant in the face of their biases and couple of anecdotal examples from their personal lives.

They’re not interested in the factual realities, only in affirming their own self serving biases.

You can lead a horse to water and all that..

I mostly agree with you, but I’m curious - were the two young women in your office living at home while saving? I do think it’s less of an achievement when someone is able to stay at home and save, compared to someone who’s had to cover living expenses from a young age.

Living at home often means avoiding high rent, utility bills, and food costs. They might not need a car either, with lifts readily available and no car needed to be going up and down to home. On the other hand, someone from, say, the country might have started paying rent from the age of 17 when they had to leave home to go to college – in most cases covered by their parents - and continued paying rent themselves once they started working. By the time they’re even in a position to think about buying a home, they’ve already spent thousands on accommodation, and their parents may have dipped into their savings to help along the way, so are in less of a position to help with deposit, etc.

But absolutely hats off to them if they bought a house while having to pay rent, etc.

Not necessarily. It could just be that employers now can't get workers to move from EU countries anymore due to high housing costs here so they get permits arranged for non-EU staff. I know of a company that, as a matter of (unwritten) policy, only hired non-EU for factory work.

I think the test of whether a country is hiring essential workers is whether it is easier now than a few years ago to get medical, education, housing and other services. Most people, I think you will agree, would say that these things are harder now than before. Yet we have a high level of immigration. We can safely conclude that our immigration policy is not based on prioritising essential workers.

Getting this back on to the topic, there's a balance to be made. Everyone we bring in requires housing and therefore will push up housing costs for those already here. At a time when housing costs are extremely high, we need to make sure that those we do bring in are genuinely essential to the country. An employer wanting to keep wages down should not be considered a valid reason in and of itself, to have a work visa issued.

I love the logic you use for these calculations.

Firstly, not everyone qualifies for the full 30k of HTB.

You're using figures above the average wage and are taking absolutely 0 expenses away from them. So this couple have no rent or bills to pay?

Our 2 bed terraced cost 385k, how is a single person affording that?

You don't live in the real world, your children are beyond privileged with you giving them sites to build on, having no rent or bills to pay and having you manage their builds for them.

Stop shiting on others when you really have no clue.