Number of middle renters doubles in a decade

[Ah-so]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-43504015

Number of middle-aged renters doubles in a decade

Forty-somethings are now almost twice as likely to be renting their home from a private landlord than 10 years ago.

Rising UK house prices have left many middle-age workers unable to afford a first home, or as "accidental renters" after a relationship break-up.

Analysts say a focus on young first-time buyers means older tenants, often with children, risk being ignored.

Concerns have been raised about the economic and social impact of these tenants in years to come.

Future 'strain'

Data analysed for and by BBC News shows:

• The proportion of 35 to 54-year-olds who live as private tenants has nearly doubled in 10 years since 2006-07
• Renting among all age groups is now more likely to be from a private landlord than from a council or housing association
• A particular rise in renting among 45 to 50-year-olds, sometimes as a result of death, debt or divorce
• Single parents with children who rent are a major concern among debt charities

"The danger of all this is the social inequality it will create between the haves - who are homeowners - and the have nots," said Paula Higgins, chief executive of the Homeowners' Alliance.

[Ah-so]

This group is very much that which would have been getting over the past 10 years.

They are the ones that has been most hurt by the rise of BTL and people who may be kept renting for the rest of their lives to satisfy others' greed. 

Others may argue that it's their fault because they've been wasting their money on iPhones, avacado toast instead of seizing the opportunity to move to some heroin town 300 miles away where houses cost  £80,000.

[spyguy]

17 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

This group is very much that which would have been getting over the past 10 years.

They are the ones that has been most hurt by the rise of BTL and people who may be kept renting for the rest of their lives to satisfy others' greed. 

Others may argue that it's their fault because they've been wasting their money on iPhones, avacado toast instead of seizing the opportunity to move to some heroin town 300 miles away where houses cost  £80,000.

'The proportion of 35 to 54-year-olds who live as private tenants has nearly doubled in 10 years since 2006-07 '

Nah.

Wasting their money on sterident, stair lifts and Weathers toffees ...

 

[winkie]

I would suggest that one of the main reason for this happening is because of the breakdown of relationships/divorce.......the mortgaged home is sold = two renters......rarely could one income buy out another at today's prices.?

[crazypabs]

my situation exactly, 35ish divorce, 3years coach surfing at my mums, past 7years renting a below market rent s'hole because I can't afford to save a deposit and rent a half decent place at the same time. As a professional in the city i earn a decent wage but i still can afford to buy my own house. I don't eat avocado, i dont need a stair lift, i dont eat werthers anymore, (my grandad used to give them to me), i don't drink alcohol, i don't waste money, yet i am still a long way off buying my own place.

btl has a lot to answer for. The sooner section24 is rolled out to ltd co, trusts, llp's and an increase on second homes taxation is introduced the better.

if the quality of new houses is going to be like the rabbit hutches being built at the moment then I won't be looking at them as an option when I do decide to buy.

[papag]

The main reasons are the three Ds Debt Divorce and Death.

 

[Ah-so]

17 minutes ago, papag said:

The main reasons are the three Ds Debt Divorce and Death.

 

Nonsense. They have always been with us and if anything, divorce is down. 

The problem is house prices - the clue is in the name of this website. 

[winkie]

2 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

Nonsense. They have always been with us and if anything, divorce is down. 

The problem is house prices - the clue is in the name of this website. 

Today two wages are required to buy......two people who buy a place together married or not split up neither can buy solo with one wage.......people are therefore forced to pair up to buy.?

[Ah-so]

4 minutes ago, winkie said:

Today two wages are required to buy......two people who buy a place together married or not split up neither can buy solo with one wage.......people are therefore forced to pair up to buy.?

True, but I think that you'll find that the main reason for the spike in 35 to 44 year olds is that they have never bought, not that they once did and have now sold. 

People used to rent in their twenties and then buy and settle down. Many of those who would have done have been kept out by house prices and BTL. 

[iamnumerate]

22 minutes ago, Ah-so said:

True, but I think that you'll find that the main reason for the spike in 35 to 44 year olds is that they have never bought, not that they once did and have now sold. 

People used to rent in their twenties and then buy and settle down. Many of those who would have done have been kept out by house prices and BTL. 

Very true, from 97 to 2006 anyone saving to buy would have found it hard (even living rent free) to save more than prices went up

[Freki]

It's not like the solutions to solve this problem are targeted towards a specific population. I've yet found any policy which would discriminate on age. The fact that the problem is advertised through the millennial lens is only because it has affected them disproportionately and they are an important proportion of the demographics. 

Also that those people are entering the crucial time of creating the next generation with very little housing security

[Noallegiance]

I've got the solution.

We need to take on more debt as responsible adults to assist the economy and current house/mortgage owners.

Move over Carney. I'm taking your (non) job next year.

[sisyphal]

35 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Very true, from 97 to 2006 anyone saving to buy would have found it hard (even living rent free) to save more than prices went up

That was me.  Left Uni 98, probably could've bought around then, but I was early twenties and too young to settle. 

Made redundant in dot com crash, so could only get low paid work in early 2000s.  2003 to 2006 paid debts and saved like mad.  Got £20K for a deposit together, but prices were outstripping what I saved.  Bought at 2006 peak just before crash, then negative equity for the next 8 years before selling at a loss.

 

[Locke]

37 minutes ago, sisyphal said:

That was me.  Left Uni 98, probably could've bought around then, but I was early twenties and too young to settle. 

Made redundant in dot com crash, so could only get low paid work in early 2000s.  2003 to 2006 paid debts and saved like mad.  Got £20K for a deposit together, but prices were outstripping what I saved.  Bought at 2006 peak just before crash, then negative equity for the next 8 years before selling at a loss.

 

You must be lying; "You can't lose on bricks & mortar!"

[longgone]

saved up from 1999 to 2003 bought a new built flat for 165k borrowed 100k  

sold it in 2006 for 185k, so only up 20k in 3 years take away mortgage payments council tax service charges legal fees. and i worked out that i would have been 10k better off just staying at home and saving the £550 a month my mortgage was + the loss of interest on my savings. 

[sisyphal]

37 minutes ago, Locke said:

You must be lying; "You can't lose on bricks & mortar!"

All about timing and timescale.  Buy at the top and it could be a decade before you're above water.  Buy at the right time and the value of the house goes up faster than you can earn. 

Within a 10 year period it could prove to be a bad, but over 10 years you should come out ok, assuming you can weather that period.

Wish I'd found this forum in the early 2000's, only found it after I'd made my bad purchase though.  Hard to generalise for all cases, but looking back the way I see it:

Late 80s Good time to buy
90 - 95 Bad
95 - 05 Good 
06 - 09 Bad
10 onwards good, but at some point that changes.  It may be that it's already changed and anybody that bought 2016(?) on, is in for a difficult time.

[Wayward]

I'm am mid 40s and rent...I could buy but choose not to...we do exist.  I treat distorted markets with caution and the UK housing market is the mother of all tortured and distorted markets reliant on a host of contrived supports that could collapse at any time.  Buying now is an extremely risky proposition.  This unsatisfactory state of affairs has been created deliberately - that is the most annoying thing.

[lostinessex]

3 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

Very true, from 97 to 2006 anyone saving to buy would have found it hard (even living rent free) to save more than prices went up

That's me - finally got a job where I had spare cash enough to save as well as rent in around 2000. I would have been at the tail end of my Twenties. At the time i estimated on my salary I could get the deposit together in around 3 years if I didn't want to stretch my borrowing multiples beyong 3.5x salary. Three years of 20% plus hpi in London later - even though I'd exceeded my savings target I was further away from affording anywhere than when I'd started. I often think back to how different my life would have been if I'd got that promotion just a year earlier and could have got on train before it all went crazy.

I now have a deposit larger than the the price of the properties I was looking to buy at the time (which was North london around Crouch End Zone 2/3) - but I'm priced out of not only London but the dull Essex commuter town where I now live.

[iamnumerate]

1 hour ago, sisyphal said:

All about timing and timescale.  Buy at the top and it could be a decade before you're above water.  Buy at the right time and the value of the house goes up faster than you can earn. 

Within a 10 year period it could prove to be a bad, but over 10 years you should come out ok, assuming you can weather that period.

Wish I'd found this forum in the early 2000's, only found it after I'd made my bad purchase though.  Hard to generalise for all cases, but looking back the way I see it:

Late 80s Good time to buy
90 - 95 Bad
95 - 05 Good 
06 - 09 Bad
10 onwards good, but at some point that changes.  It may be that it's already changed and anybody that bought 2016(?) on, is in for a difficult time.

I disagree with 95-05 as being good affordability changed massively in that time, what you could buy on 3x average wage in 2005 was nothing compared to 95 or 98.

I would say 95-98 or 99 good

98 or 99 - 04 bad

04-08 very bad

08-11 bad

11-onwards very bad again  !!!

[scottbeard]

13 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

I disagree with 95-05 as being good affordability changed massively in that time, what you could buy on 3x average wage in 2005 was nothing compared to 95 or 98.

I would say 95-98 or 99 good

98 or 99 - 04 bad

I'd push it slightly more: the real game changer wasn't in 99, it was the *huge* increases in the new millennium that was fuelled by more lax lending and using two incomes not one.  Between 1 Jan 2002 and 31 Dec 2004 UK house prices went up about 65%.  Basically if you bought before that, I think you did OK.

[iamnumerate]

1 hour ago, scottbeard said:

I'd push it slightly more: the real game changer wasn't in 99, it was the *huge* increases in the new millennium that was fuelled by more lax lending and using two incomes not one.  Between 1 Jan 2002 and 31 Dec 2004 UK house prices went up about 65%.  Basically if you bought before that, I think you did OK.

In London* in my experience the rise was a bit earlier than that.  My flat went from 60 K to almost 100K from 98 to 2001 (when I bought it) and then another 60 went I sold it.

I once calculated that if price had gone up with inflation from 97 to 2001, I would have saved £105k in total - so in my case buying in 2001 cost me a lot of money.  (Not as much as others lost I know).

*Even in London some places rose before others, sadly the cheapest often rose first.

Edited May 11, 2018 by iamnumerate
Clarity

[winkie]

On 11/05/2018 at 08:28, Ah-so said:

True, but I think that you'll find that the main reason for the spike in 35 to 44 year olds is that they have never bought, not that they once did and have now sold. 

People used to rent in their twenties and then buy and settle down. Many of those who would have done have been kept out by house prices and BTL. 

Agree......there is a combination of reasons why more older people are now renting than before......so the question is who will pay the rent when unable to pay the rent...ie, too old, too sick, no work, or work that will cover debt rent and living expenses till death? Did no one think of that, think of the children.....?

[Maynardgravy]

On 11/05/2018 at 11:59, Wayward said:

I'm am mid 40s and rent...I could buy but choose not to...we do exist.

Ditto

On 11/05/2018 at 11:08, longgone said:

+ the loss of interest on my savings.

What is this strange tongue you speak with and what from what strange land do you hail?

[PopGun]

On 11/05/2018 at 14:01, scottbeard said:

I'd push it slightly more: the real game changer wasn't in 99, it was the *huge* increases in the new millennium that was fuelled by more lax lending and using two incomes not one.  Between 1 Jan 2002 and 31 Dec 2004 UK house prices went up about 65%.  Basically if you bought before that, I think you did OK.

+1

[“Nasty Piece of work”]

On ‎11‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 07:10, spyguy said:

'The proportion of 35 to 54-year-olds who live as private tenants has nearly doubled in 10 years since 2006-07 '

Nah.

Wasting their money on sterident, stair lifts and Weathers toffees ...

 

I am 53 and have never bought any of these.  Does this mean all my teeth will fall out in the next year?