My parents bought their
first house in the 1960’s, they were in their
early 20’s. Interestingly, looking at some research by the Post Office from a
few years ago, in the 1960’s the average age people bought their first house
was 23. By the early 1970s, it had reached 27, rising to 28 in the early 1980’s.
This year alone, 487 people
in Grantham will turn 28 and 551 in 2017 .. and dare I say 468 in 2018 .. year
in year out the conveyor belt carries on .. where are the Grantham youngsters
going to live?
Ask a Grantham ‘twenty
something’ and they will say they do not expect to buy until they are in their
mid thirties - seven years later than the 1980’s. Some people even say they
will never be able to buy a property and the newspapers have labelled them
‘Generation Rent’ as they are people born in the
1980s who have no hope of getting on the property ladder. One of the major
problems facing young Grantham people is the large deposit needed to get a mortgage
.. or is it?
The average price paid for
an apartment in Grantham over the last 12 months has been £106,100 meaning our first time
buyer would need to save £5,305 as a deposit (as 95% mortgages have been
available to first time buyers since 2010) plus a couple of thousand for
solicitors and survey costs. A lot of money, but people don’t think anything
today of spending a couple of thousand pounds to go on holiday; the latest
iPhone upgrade or the latest 4K HD television. That amount could soon be saved
if these ‘luxuries’ were withheld over a couple of years but attitudes have
changed.
Official figures, from the
Office for National Statistics, show the average male in South Kesteven with a
full-time job earns £544.80 per week whilst the average female salary is £385.80
a week, meaning, even if one of them worked part time, they would still
comfortably be able to get a mortgage for an apartment.
I was reading a report/survey commissioned by Paragon
Mortgages from the autumn of last year. The thing that struck me was that when
tenants were asked about their long term housing plans, some 35% of
participating tenants intend to remain within the rental sector and 24%
intended to buy a house in the future, with the proportion of respondents
citing the “unaffordability” of housing as the reason for renting privately
increasing from 69% to 74%.
