Are Young People Just Greedy?

[Symon]

I just thought you were joking as I cannot understand or see any correlation between oldies (baby boomers) and the cost of housing today.

I have heard that 'opinion/idea' mentioned in the past, but never understood it.

I assume you are suggesting baby boomers are buying houses etc as investments and pushing up prices. That would be a rather dubious line of thought and subject to many variables (aren't they all?

Yes I agree, it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction from me.  Whenever someone takes aim at the younger generation I take aim back usually.  Especially since I believe I have worked hard to get where I am (trade, university, lots of work in remote areas, etc) only to have some old fart tell me that my generation 'don't have to work for anything', 'expect everything for nothing', etc etc.  Give me an effing break.

You are right it is a combination of factors, one of which the number of baby boomers who rode the wave of strong growth in the 90's and bought up big in the investment property market, but there are other things such as overseas investors, the first home owners grant, rapid population rise so demand outstrips supply, etc etc.

This paper puts it into perspective though - http://www.econ.mq.edu.au/website_administration/economics_studies_macquarie_university/Econ_docs/research_papers2/2004_research_papers/Abelson_9_04.pdf

Average house price in Brisbane in 1983 - $55.5k
Average house price in Brisbane in 2003 - $249k (450% increase)
Average income for Brisbane in 1983 - $18k/yr
Average income for Brisbane in 2003 - $46k/yr (250% increase)

Even though interest rates are lower now, prices have risen faster than CPI.

[Estelle]

Yes I agree, it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction from me.  Whenever someone takes aim at the younger generation I take aim back usually.  Especially since I believe I have worked hard to get where I am (trade, university, lots of work in remote areas, etc) only to have some old fart tell me that my generation 'don't have to work for anything', 'expect everything for nothing', etc etc.

Nothing like someone telling you you have it easy or easier than they etc., especially when you have worked your tail off. Most people will react in a similar way.

Those 'Old Farts' are just that.

We all pigeon hole. Shouldn't, but we do. You're generation  X Y Z, so you must be ...  You're from X country, so you must be ...

Very annoying to catch ones self out doing it. 

[Paul (SA)]

I read a book recently called Affluenza which was an insightful commentary on this topic.

P

[Big Nath]

Na, young people arent greedy.

We just know what we want.

[schmik]

I think that there is something to the statement that baby boomers have caused a rise in prices of houses.
This is not their fault.
This is the fault of the government. They limit supply and increase demand through immigration and negative gearing. Also they get all that revenue from stamp duty.

What else was the govt to do? there are millions of these boomers retired or about to retire.
Their money in retirement has to come from somewhere.  It may as well come from their houses.  Super has not been around long enough to give them enough to live off.

And to all us 'youngsters'... don't worry they can't take the money with them. It will all filter back in to economy.

It is very strange to observe though... my grandparents very poor in their retirement (as were all my friends grandparents). Our parent!?!?! not short of dollar that is for sure.  Let's hope that we just keep raising the bar.

[ozbogwam]

Local Real Estate agent tells me the home I bough 27 years ago for $69,000 is now worth over $400,000. So I asked him how much the house across the road would cost me (its the one we were originally going to buy but were too slow with the deposit). He tells me its worth the same as mine, so the reality is, unless I want to move out of the area I love I've made nothing!

Well yeah, of course when you sell and buy in the same market it doesn't really matter.

I have friends who have been very smart over the years. Bought an apartment in inner city, sold it with a large profit. Bought a house inner suburbs, sold it big profit. Bought a house middle suburbs, sold it big profit. Now owns their family home in Beaumaris outright.

[Bird]

Yes I agree, it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction from me.  Whenever someone takes aim at the younger generation I take aim back usually.  Especially since I believe I have worked hard to get where I am (trade, university, lots of work in remote areas, etc) only to have some old fart tell me that my generation 'don't have to work for anything', 'expect everything for nothing', etc etc.  Give me an effing break.

yes, but do you think your common or rare in your age "bracket"?  TBH, I'd say your rare as rocking horse Shit.... and well done to you for getting what you have.

[schmik]

yes, but do you think your common or rare in your age "bracket"?  TBH, I'd say your rare as rocking horse ****.... and well done to you for getting what you have.

Rare..... doubt it. When starting out i did years of shift work at 12hrs each shift.  A lot of that time i was doing study part time. So 15 hour days happened twice a week.  Basically, while young and energetic enough I worked my ass off.

I guess that in every generation there are hard workers and lazy people...
I will agree though that the current crop have a definite air of entitlement about them.

[Mace]

Ive just had to tell my 20 year old daughter that she doesnt need to work the 30 plus hours a week in hospitality that she currently is as well as going to uni, and that study and her health are more important at the moment.  She needs to stop being exploited by the older baby boomer (like me) employer she works for, who expects her to come in on short notice, do doulble shifts and work for a pittance ($10/hour cash). 

Pi$$ed of with FWA, who wont take any unsolicited action - ie, go thru the books of employers like this, without an official complaint from any so called employee. These scum, who operate multiple restaurant sites, are also getting away with not paying Workcover insurance or Payroll Tax on the 100's of students they employ.

Most young people i associate with are as hard working as most oldies are.  Granted, they want thing "now", but thats probably our fault in giving them everything they wanted whilst growing up.  I dont think they have an air of entitlement as such, but perhaps an expectation of sucess and acheivement which appears to be a current  educational ethos, perhaps correctly or incorrectly.

There will allways be a percentage of people out there who dont want to work, of all ages.

I think I mite join them!

[Estelle]

A couple of sites with some interesting thoughts.

 http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2012/05/baby-boomers-create-stiff-headwinds-for-housing-market/

http://news.domain.com.au/domain/real-estate-news/demographics-cast-a-shadow-over-property-market-20111026-1mizf.html

It has been suggested that it was the baby boomers who spent their money willy nilly. Hmmm, must have been someone else, didn't have any.

[lilstookie]

Lil and I made a decision to have kids when I was working in the Music industry and on a good wage. We moved out to Narbethong, just outside Marysville in Vic. We wanted to buy and thought we should live there and see if it suited. It did
We where both working and saving good money.
The bushfires came and wiped it all away........nothing left.
We moved to Cairns with my work, lil wasnt working now but pregnant.
My job lasted a year then the Ceo and the rest of the Superannuation fund that bough the company buggered it up.
I lost my Job and the company went on to be owned by its competitor who also buggered it more and now its owned by the bank. The new  owners (drive a Maserati) brought in their own bean counters to run a music company.
I lost my job and now we have 2 kids. Now I work where I can scraping what we can to live 2 hours from Melbourne by train.
Work 48hrs a week and travel 30hrs a week just to bring in Fu** all.
We will never buy a house as even some rentals are out of our budget.

If we had chosen NOT to have kids then we would have been better of financially but not Better off.
We drive an old 4wd and it works, most of the time.
We left to go traveling around Oz in our CT and work when needed.
Allegedly Rural australia cant find workers and have to import the workers.
Ive found it difficult to find any of these jobs available......most want working holiday tourist and lure them with promise of extending their 1 year visa to 2 years. Work for free food and accommodation they say and qualify for your 2nd year visa.

We are still looking for Cattle station work, picking work and generally anything to pay our food and fuel.
If your single and can travel, will work for almost nothing but get free food and accommodation then your flying high.
If you got kids..........Pfffffft. You should have stayed in the suburbs.....lol
Im sure there may be some work out there, but I be damned if I can find it and take the family.
I dont want to live in Isolation from my family, whats the point of having a family you dont see........

20 years from now there will be less Aussies and more of the Minorities with larger families who will then be the Majority.
Its happening in The UK thats why I left..........its happening all over again......WHen all the mining minerals are gone and the money goes too, what happens to the house costs, rental costs in mining towns....you have 10000 of men and woman looking for $100,000 year jobs that wont be there.
I wouldnt say its the younger generation thats the greedy ones........

but then its just my opinion.....

Stookie

Flame Suit on 

[Dogsbreakfast]

Young whippersnappers never had it so good. When i were a lad i lived in house made of broken glass and had to work a 100 hours a day for the privelege....

[Mace]

Young whippersnappers never had it so good. When i were a lad i lived in house made of broken glass and had to work a 100 hours a day for the privelege....

And used to lick road clean wit tongue!!

 

[bundyfamily]

I can tell you from experience that NAB will not even look at you at the moment for a home loan unless you have saved at least a 10% deposit and have shown that you have saved this money yourself over at least a 3 month period, Gifts of a home loan deposit from the folks are not acceptable anymore you have to do it all on your own. It has me buggered how young people manage to save for a deposit and buy flash expensive new homes and cars, They say life was simpler back in the good old days but how do the Generation "Y" kids do it?


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[kiwipete]

I am really happy I started this thread as it has given me a lot of good info...  and so many differing thoughts all very true and most I had not thought of myself...

I think the few comments that I liked were
 - "I just want everything and I want it now."
 - "No I don't think young people are greedy. They want what we wanted at their age which was excessive to our parents."
 - and anything about spending the inheritance

I actually thought back to when I was young and "Yes" I also wanted everything then (now) so I now would like to disagree with my first comments and agree that we are just bloody human.. 

Yeah  the  Land prices are a killer - I live in Canberra where you never own your land,  but lease it - So no foreign investor can buy a piece of Australian Capital,  seems nuts to me that they can buy everything else which all helps in jacking up those land prices....   

But should we take much notice when comparing between average house prices from time ago unless they take in account house sizes and build quality - and land prices should be removed from the equation etc

anyway a lot of terrific comments...     

[rescue1]

kiwipete,
I wonder what's going to happen when the first of leases expire in a few years time....

[Nomad]

Probably not much Rescue1,

Traditionally these types of leases are for 99 years and charge a peppercorn rent of $1 per year to maintain the lease. Banks treat those 99 year leases as freehold title.

Whilst the title isn't as clean as say NSW or Qld, you must remember that on every freehold title in Australia there is a statement saying that

"Rights and Interests reserved to the Crown by Deed of Grant..............."

This essentially puts the Crown rights above the Land Owners rights in any event.

I don't think even Jooliar is stupid enough to stuff house owners in Canberra. There would be a massive outfall and also mass devaluation of our Capital because of the perceived risk to the market place.........

Cheers Nomad

[uncyspam]

I dunno if I fit in as a young person (born in 79) but I don't think anyone in my generation is any more or less greedy than in any other generation.

I managed to scrimp and save a deposit by living with another married couple so that we all saved on rent, and I bought the cheapest house I could live in so that I could dump as much extra cash into my mortgage as I could. I've owned that place for 7 years, and next year, or maybe the year after if the missus stays off work with our son, we will have our mortgage payed off. We will be buying a new, big flash house when that happens (and taking some time off work to travel the country ) Does that make us greedy? Or does that mean we aspire to greater things?

Might be better to re-title the thread "Are old people just whingers?"

[asmithaxe]

Might be better to re-title the thread "Are old people just whingers?"

LMAO

[lov2getaway]

LMAO

X2

[BLKWDW]

All these people saying banks are willing to just throw money at younger people plz show me which ones as i need 100k to buy a truck for work. I am 25 has 1st 3 kids buy 22 and now another on the way and bought my 1st house at 21. I was living in wollongong and decided to move out west were it was more affordable to buy a house and live. I'm not greedy but like my family to have nice things. It does come at a cost though especially with me being away from home 5-6days a week. If i could get the money for a truck that would all change.

I dont get how people in cities get buy unless there earning 2kplus a week. Combined me and my mrs would take home over 2k a week but wuld struggle to live in wollongong again with all the expenses.

[Symon]

Might be better to re-title the thread "Are old people just whingers?"

Maybe something along the lines of "Old people who whinge about the people whos taxes pay for their pensions" would be better

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against old people, in fact I quite enjoy talking to them and learning from their experience.  But some just really need to recognise that people today face equally as many challenges as they did in their time.

[becboo]

X2

And a trillion more!!

[becboo]

  But some just really need to recognise that people today face equally as many challenges as they did in their time.

Just the challenges may change a little

[schmik]

All these people saying banks are willing to just throw money at younger people plz show me which ones as i need 100k to buy a truck for work. I am 25 has 1st 3 kids buy 22 and now another on the way and bought my 1st house at 21. I was living in wollongong and decided to move out west were it was more affordable to buy a house and live. I'm not greedy but like my family to have nice things. It does come at a cost though especially with me being away from home 5-6days a week. If i could get the money for a truck that would all change.

I dont get how people in cities get buy unless there earning 2kplus a week. Combined me and my mrs would take home over 2k a week but wuld struggle to live in wollongong again with all the expenses.

This post is a gee-up... right?

I'm not greedy but like my family to have nice things.  ->  ummm. OK.
It does come at a cost though especially with me being away from home 5-6days a week -> it's called a job
Combined me and my mrs would take home over 2k a week -> That is over $104 000 per year AFTER tax. That's about $140,000 pre tax.    According to the ABS, $80k puts you in the top 10% of all income earners in Aus.