The boomers married and bought homes in their twenties. When Gen X reached that point in their life they chose to delay marriage until their thirties. It was a social shift brought on by a number of factors including the higher percentage of Gen X obtaining university qualifications, which set things back some years.
They chose to rent, but homes and apartments were still needed - someone had to buy them, so the boomers and many gen X did buy them.
Again, what would you have done differently? Gen X had a great opportunity to buy in the nineties but they didn't. Then the events of 911 happened, the world stimulated to get over a terrorist induced slump, and then China came along. In every mining boom we have a boom in house prices because some people have access to high wages, and they bid up the price of properties.
It's really much easier to buy a house now, than it has been in most of the past decades, but house prices are high, I agree with you on that. I think that our prices are correcting right now. In South East Qld homes are much cheaper than in Victoria and Sydney, so the homes that I see on the market around me in Brisbane aren't that highly priced for a country still being affected by a mining boom.
If you live in Melbourne or Sydney then you will have to be patient. I think that Melbourne will correct over the next 1 to 2 years, although Sydney appears to be quite different.
Wherever you are, I hope that you find a house at a price that is acceptable to you.
Peter, you made the point that people are the same but the circumstances they face might lead them to make different decisions. Are you asking me what I would have one differently to make the point that I would have done the same thing? If so, I agree with you.
But then why do you use language that implies that the situation faced by gen xers was due to their own choices? Eg, Boomers didn't "choose" to get married. They just "married and bought homes," because their circumstances dictated that was the best thing to do. But gen x "chose to delay marriage" and "chose to rent" and had "had opportunity to buy but didn't."
Did they make those choices despite their circumstances, or because of them?
being able to buy cheap tv's really makes up for not being able to afford a house stinkbug - great logic and poor thinking.
We are in a post-tv era, an era of multi-way communication, exchange and sharing... something hated with a passion by governments and traditional corporations alike because they lose the power of the message and lost the power over distribution.
Are you married? Have kids? I used to have a great standard of living when I was single.
Now, I get to pay higher school fees than the Boomers or my parents.
I get to pay more tax on groceries that I buy to feed my children.
I get to pay higher utilities bill so the Boomer managers can get their 200K per year.
If I want to buy a house for my family, I get to pay almost a million dollars for the priviledge.
On the upside, GenX got the benefit of greater access to tertiary education, and I am encouraged that X by and large took advantage of that, even though it's unlikely you will get to use it as your job is outsourced to India. Education broadens the mind however, and we will need a new generation of thinkers to sort out the mess the Boomers will leave behind.
Clothes are cheaper because of the change in the terms of trade, so I have some poor Chinaman working to 12c per hour to thank for that.
Opportunities for advancement in the corporate world have been thin to non-existent, so it's discouraged me from putting in long hours, meaning I get to see my children. I often feel sorry for Boomer children, they seem to be the abandoned generation.
So yeah, swings and roundabouts. But that's the past. Future generations are still yet to receive the bill the Boomers rung up for their two decade long party, and part of paying off that invoice will be lower standards of living for everybody.
I am married, have kids, and am 36.
You and I clearly have very different situations, because I would say my standard of living now is vastly better than it was either when I was growing up, or when I was single.
I pay higher taxes on groceries, but I earn far more than my parents did in real terms, and have more disposable income.
I have heaps of career opportunity, partly because I had a great tertiary education (undergrad and postgrad), and work in a job I like that pays very well. If I want to earn more, I can work a bit harder, but frankly I'd rather my weekends off.
There's no doubt that boomers have a sweet deal with superannuation - I'll definitely concede that point!
Perhaps my view is a bit warped, because I bought my first home 10 ten years ago when I was still mid-twenties, and then bought a number of other properties as well. Timing has helped me here, for sure, but I still had to resist the siren song of travel, cars and fine dining...
The thing that concerns me the most about the whole debate is the way the populist press gives some people a sense of entitlement.
I mean, we people who don't have a sense of entitlement (tongue in cheek here) are irritated by people who do have a sense of entitlement, but in fact a sense of entitlement is most damaging to the person who has it.
We can argue all day whether boomers or X-ers or genY have/had it toughest. (In my view it has been tougher and easier over the years, but it is a cyclical rather than a secular thing), but what I don't remember from the 80s when it most certainly was very tough to get into property was the constant background whine from the popular press and ACOSS and anyone else who wanted a bit of coverage about housing affordability. I think in those days the general attitude was "it's supposed to be tough. Suck it up and get on with it."
I fear the propaganda may persuade some people to just have another beer and wait for Aorta (as in "Aorta do something about it") to do something about it. Here's the news. They ain't gonna do someting about it. And even if they try, it won't have much good effect. Some possible policy changes (like the constantly threatened abolition of negative gearing) would have short and medium-term effects, most of them not to many people's liking, but in the long term they will be a blip, and if you wait for them you'll just get older.
I think one thing the boomers and earlier had in their favour when they got into housing is that in those days it was the expectation that you work towards it almost from the day you got your first job. You started out with shitty economic circumstances, and they just got shittier for a while while you collected a mortgage, kids, etc. Nowadays people don't do those things until later and can get used to a decent disposable income before they start investing. In other words, GenY (and to a lesser degree GenX) has to *go backwards* if they want to get into property. This has nothing to do with tough or not tough, it has to do with lost years (to investing at least) between entering the workforce and gathering "responsibilities". If you are renting a dwelling at the standard you can afford and you want to buy property, you have the choice of (a) buying something less salubrious and going backwards, (b) buying something equivalent and seeing your housing cost double or (c) staying where you are, buying a fleapit and negatively gearing it and doing it tough while your rate of saving goes through the roof. (to my mind (c) is the best step financially, but the worst from a quality of life point of view. Various government concessions distort this as well.) This is very hard to do, especially while your mates are still eating out and buying a coffee whenever they want it and sporting the latest iPhone and driving a nice car. When I was a kid we ate out at a restaurant once or twice a year, but that was perfectly OK because everyone else we knew was the same. (OK. that rich b***** Geoffrey got to go five times a year) And I can still remember what I ate at every restaurant meal I had before I left high school, so arguably we got more value from it as well.
Being poor is one thing, but it ain't nothing compared to being made to *feel* poor. And that is minor stuff compared to the fraud of being made to believe that something can/will/should be done to make things easier. The only thing you need to know is that it won't, and the only thing you need to do is act on that.
I think in those days the general attitude was "it's supposed to be tough. Suck it up and get on with it."
That was an excellent post! The part highlighted above resonates as well, and I think is very true. In fact, Malcolm Fraser once famously quipped publically when he was Prime Minister "Life wasn't meant to be easy!" - imagine the outrage today if the PM said something like that? Back then it was OK because one just nodded and thought the 70s/80s equivalent of "Yea - true dat!". :-) Today our sense of entitlement would generate outrage at such a statement.
That was an excellent post! The part of of highlighted resonates as well, and I think is very true. In fact, Malcolm Fraser once famously quipped publically when he was Prime Minister "Life wasn't meant to be easy!" - imagine the outrage today if the PM said something like that? Back then it was OK because one just nodded and thought the 70s/80s equivalent of "Yea - true dat!". :-) Today our sense of entitlement would generate outrage at such a statement.
Partly because people have woken up to the fact that life is only meant to be tough for some people, and with the current taxation system, it has to be tougher for the young to sate the never ending greed of the old.
The sense of entitlement mostly comes from property "owners" and "investors" who think they deserve constant capital gains and money for nothing, a 4WD and private schooling etc etc. All paid for by renters and first home buyers. So much so that they even give impartial reporting, like lately they say "hope for higher house prices with the interest rate cut".
Gen ys were an annoying bunch for a while, but they seem to have come down to earth a fair bit lately, thanks to all the abuse in the media I suppose.
If you think anyone is going to buy the fact that buying a house wasn't a lot easier back then you've got rocks in your head. Australians aren't even replacing themselves our birthrate is still below replacement level.
That's the thing once you start socialism and thieving, which is what the property mafia did, it never ends.
stinkbug omosessuale Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments. Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck! See here Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
The sense of entitlement mostly comes from property "owners" and "investors" who think they deserve constant capital gains and money for nothing, a 4WD and private schooling etc etc. All paid for by renters and first home buyers. So much so that they even give impartial reporting, like lately they say "hope for higher house prices with the interest rate cut".
Gen ys were an annoying bunch for a while, but they seem to have come down to earth a fair bit lately, thanks to all the abuse in the media I suppose.
If you think anyone is going to buy the fact that buying a house wasn't a lot easier back then you've got rocks in your head. Australians aren't even replacing themselves our birthrate is still below replacement level.
That's the thing once you start socialism and thieving, which is what the property mafia did, it never ends.
My point was that a sense of entitlement is most harmful for those who hold it. That also goes for people who would like the value of their investments go up and expect someone to do something to make it go up in the short term. Right now I have an apartment on the market and I am certainly hoping that a drop in interest rates will give prices a bit of a boost. I may even allow myself a period of annoyance if it doesn't. But in the end my interests will be best served by accepting reality and either taking what I can get or taking it off the market and putting it back to rental. I might not get what I want, and having a sense of entitlement will not change that. A sense of entitlement might make me make bad decisions, though.
I accept that there are some people who will never believe that people faced approximately equal difficulties in the past to what people are facing now. Hell. There are still people who haven't bought the fact that the earth is round, Elvis is dead and the global temperature is increasing. Capacity for self delusion is truly amazing in some people.
But it doesn't matter. All we need to understand is that: a) The past is the past and it ain't coming back regardless of whether it was better or worse or whether we want it to or not. b) Things can still get worse from here. c) If you don't do something now to save for your future, you will be complaining about the high cost of dogfood *and* rent when you get older. (So if you think property is a crock of shit, you have to have another plan.)
A sense of entitlement just makes it harder to accept reality, which is why I feel the media is doing everybody a disservice at the moment.
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off. --Gloria Steinem AREPS™
My point was that a sense of entitlement is most harmful for those who hold it.
It might make them a bit more miserable like a spoilt child, but you are kidding right? That sense of entitlement has seen property double or triple in value and has made a lot of people very wealthy and has been very much the opposite of harmful. They have absolutely demanded that this happen and the governments have complied.
High levels of immigration, low interest rates, nimbyism at the council level, Rudd's FiRB laws, Swan cutting mortgage exit fees, First Home Vendor's Boost, little to no money for roads and trains, no interest in making the tax system sane and fair. This is all because they feel entitled to unearned, stolen money.
stinkbug omosessuale Frank Castle is a liar and a criminal. He will often deliberately take people out of context and use straw man arguments. Frank finally and unintentionally gives it up and admits he got where he is, primarily via dumb luck! See here Property will be 50-70% off by 2016.
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