Home Ownership By Age

[Guest]

My retired mum-in-law (of sorts) is convinced that house prices have risen since the 2009 crash (not that she mentions there ever being a crash!) simply because of high and increasing demand. I was keen to know who the perceived demand is coming from. I found this slightly out of date graph which shows that property ownership has risen only amongst baby boomers... which I expected. So demand for houses has fallen amongst FTBs, and those with young families .... which means the price increases are caused by something else.... the long list of government props perhaps?

Source http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/

Edited October 16, 2015 by Guest

[hans kammler]

Boomers selling to each other and boomers getting in on the buy to let game.

[Motor_Blade]

Foreign investors, boomers buying second/holiday homes, boomers buying for their children & BTL would be the quick answer. Those with the ready cash or access to IO mortgages squeeze out those without.

[zugzwang]

Comedy duo Osborne and Carney.

[Cosmic Apple]

Comedy duo Osborne and Carney.

Given the trend starts in 2001 and this data runs until 2011/12, how are Osborne and Carney responsible?

Edited October 16, 2015 by My Name Is ??

[FreeFall]

Don't you also need to bake life expectancy into these numbers - it doesn't say anything about home buyers, just owners. So, if people are living longer then it stands to reason that ownership will increase in the older population and reduce in the younger (inheritor) population.

[The Knimbies who say No]

I very much doubt sizeable numbers of the cohorts at the upper end of the housing ownership scale were dependent on inheritance to buy their homes in the first instance. Famously, they had to save up for as long as 2 years or something.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Cry and Regret

[FreeFall]

For those interested: average life expectancy has risen ~ 6-8 years since the 70's, so this would definitely skew the figures - no idea to what extent though

[Dorkins]

I came across this graph recently:

It's interesting that home ownership has even started collapsing among people aged 35-54 who in theory were old enough to buy when prices were still somewhat sane.

[davidg]

I should think there is still demand from younger people, just a lack of ability to compete with the prices bid by the boomers.

[Guest]

Don't you also need to bake life expectancy into these numbers - it doesn't say anything about home buyers, just owners. So, if people are living longer then it stands to reason that ownership will increase in the older population and reduce in the younger (inheritor) population.

I'm not so sure... The graph looks at percentage of age bracket, not actual volumes.

[Timak]

I very much doubt sizeable numbers of the cohorts at the upper end of the housing ownership scale were dependent on inheritance to buy their homes in the first instance. Famously, they had to save up for as long as 2 years or something.

A relative of mine lives in a house that would easily sell for £1m.

He likes to tell the story of how he woke up on the night he moved in and went downstairs to have a stiff drink as he couldn't believe how much of a risk he'd taken buying it.

He'd had to borrow huge amounts of money and interest rates were rising every month.

In reality he'd had to borrow about 1.5x his salary for the mortgage and his wife wasn't working so they could have easily afforded it whatever happened. He was 40 at the time of moving into a 4 bedroom detached house with a huge garden on the outskirts of a very expensive city and had an equivalent to £35k a year job.

[long time lurking]

Boomers selling to each other and boomers getting in on the buy to let game.

This boomers swapping equity and withdrawing it to finance BTL it`s glaringly obvious around my neck of the woods ,whether this is the same for the rest of the country i don't know

[StainlessSteelCat]

I came across this graph recently:

It's interesting that home ownership has even started collapsing among people aged 35-54 who in theory were old enough to buy when prices were still somewhat sane.

Probably a few reasons for that including:

Divorce

Taking longer to settle down

Delayed career starts due to higher education

Higher debt load due to student loans for the younger end

Spells of unemployment as a result of recessions in 80s/90s

Less inheritance to due parents living longer

Getting stuffed by the late 80s boom/90s crash

In essence, if you missed a small window in the mid to late 90s (or as late as early 2000s in some areas) - you were still stuffed. I've mentioned before that the people of my age (early 40s) who did best out of the housing market - didn't go to uni, stayed in their home town and settled with a long term partner and bought in their early 20s. In other words, the exact opposite of you'd probably expect. The only others I know who have bought under the age of 40 are BoM&D all the way.

FTB age is about 40 now, isn't it?

Edited October 16, 2015 by StainlessSteelCat

[Dorkins]

FTB age is about 40 now, isn't it?

I'd say "FTB age" is becoming a less and less meaningful statistic now that the majority of people born from 1980 onwards will likely never buy unless house prices fall dramatically. The media like to use it because it fits with their model that almost everybody (80%+) will buy eventually. There is very little recognition among most journalists/politicians/voters that UK housing is shifting dramatically away from owner occupation in a way that will still be affecting people's lives in 30-40 years, just like the dramatic shift towards owner occupation did from the 1950s-1990s.

[spyguy]

This boomers swapping equity and withdrawing it to finance BTL it`s glaringly obvious around my neck of the woods ,whether this is the same for the rest of the country i don't know

Mine too.

What could possibly going wrong with putting you un-cashed winning on the UK HPI roulette table for the second time, in your 50s?

[Sandwiches33]

A relative of mine lives in a house that would easily sell for £1m.

He likes to tell the story of how he woke up on the night he moved in and went downstairs to have a stiff drink as he couldn't believe how much of a risk he'd taken buying it.

He'd had to borrow huge amounts of money and interest rates were rising every month.

In reality he'd had to borrow about 1.5x his salary for the mortgage and his wife wasn't working so they could have easily afforded it whatever happened. He was 40 at the time of moving into a 4 bedroom detached house with a huge garden on the outskirts of a very expensive city and had an equivalent to £35k a year job.

There is actually a good ad on scottish TV for a bank I think. It has james cosmo on it and he uses this line

"back in your parents day you could buy a house for the price of a half decent mountain bike"

In the Ad the bloke is struggling to get a mortgage and is being pressured to move out buy his parents. I just think that line says it all really.

[zugzwang]

Given the trend starts in 2001 and this data runs until 2011/12, how are Osborne and Carney responsible?

The OP says post 2009.

Osborne's been in charge since 2010, spending like a Venezuelan Marxist while pretending not to be; while Mr Nought Percent has been around since 2012, the central banker who never once put up interest rates.

Result: an endless succession of house price subsidies... and floods of cheap money to bid up every sale.

Edited October 16, 2015 by zugzwang