Shropshire Star

Jack Averty: The millenials are facing a big struggle to get their dream life

Work hard, earn lots of money, live in a big house and drive a fast car – that was always the plan growing up.

Published
Money matters – the housing market has hit the roof

Our parents or friends’ parents or someone we knew have done it, and it didn’t seem that difficult.

They didn’t appear to be vastly intelligent or more superior, they just worked hard.

Put the graft in and life would work itself out – simple.

But what most millennials didn’t count on was having a housing market that has exploded out of control with deposits now as attainable as a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, a car buying scheme where, thanks to finance, you end up paying double the original amount and employers who don’t trust millennials as far as they can throw them (apparently we’re all too busy eating avocado and quinoa salads instead of plugging the skills shortage).

No house, 15-year-old squeaking car and no job – not quite the life we dreamt of growing up.

And to top it all off – something most moody 16-year-olds aren’t told while they’re moaning about how terrible life is at school – is that while we sit in our extortionately expensive rented flats applying for any job that pays, we’re stuck with monstrous debt.

Go to university, they said, not only will it be fantastic for your career prospects but you’ll also have so much fun, meet friends and gain ‘life experience’ – they said.

Well that’s all dandy but how about this £30,000+ loan that can never be paid off and eats chunks out our puny wages each month, growing in size as the interest outpaces the repayments, like a torturous game of cat and mouse.

Then of course there’s the overpriced rented flat that we have no proper means to pay for because our degree is about as useful as an inflatable darts board.

Believe it or not, landlords will not accept our funny university tales as payment for rent.

But fear not millennials! It’s not all doom and gloom and self-pity, here at Weekend towers we like to provide solutions to problems.

Step forward estate agent Strutt & Parker.

There’s that age-old stereotype that estate agents are money grabbing w****** who don’t give two hoots about getting us value for money homes and really helping us.

Well how wrong Strutt & Parker has proved all us closed-minded people this week.

Noticing the plight of millennials and the difficulty of getting onto the housing ladder, the Einstein’s over at S&P have crunched some numbers and realised how – with just a small few sacrifices – we can start achieving our dreams.

They have recommended the following:

1. Stop buying sandwiches.

2. Stop splashing the cash on nights out and takeaways.

3. Stop going on holiday.

Follow all the above, as well as being gifted £29,400 from parents who happen to be rich enough to part with this sum, and a home will be yours in just the small matter of five years.

That does mean a big sacrifice of no M&S sandwiches, no greasy takeaways and no holidays for five years solid, but at least you’ll get a free house at the end right?

Now admittedly Strutt & Parker’s advice was specifically for London’s millennials, who, unfortunately, seem to have it even tougher than us given the average house price down there.

But regardless of which area of the country the three-point ‘full-proof’ plan is for, the idea that this patronising toddle-wash is being thought up, let alone even published, shows just what an uphill slope millennials face.

No doubt twenty-somethings have heard the old phrase from someone 40 years plus ‘in my day. . .’ followed by a lecture on how hard work and savings gets you a house.

Yeah, we know, in your day you bought a house for £60k and now it’s worth £600k but that is not how it works in this day and age because you and your mates made an utter mess of the housing market.

‘Well you just need to work a bit harder, you lot have it so easy compared to how we had it as kids.’

How? How on earth do we have it easier?

Sure the world has moved on superbly from decades ago, phones and the internet keep us better connected and up-to-date, expensive coffee chains fill the streets, and computers fill workplaces.

But the problem is most millennials don’t need the latest £900 iPhone and avocado sandwiches for lunch (even if they are well nice), just like the older generation what most of us want is the basics. Is it really so much to ask to have a well-paid job, a home and a loving family?

And while not going out with mates at the weekend for the next five years or stepping foot in Starbucks may save us a few hundred, or even thousands, it doesn’t put a dent in the ever-rising deposit fund.

Rents are too high, wages too low and no one apart from the millennials seem at all bothered by this.

Don’t worry though, the golden gryphon that is Brexit is going to swoop down and save us all. Our lives will be improved 10-fold, the housing market will boom and our wages will soar above the rate of inflation. Anyone who says otherwise is a mutineer who is simply plotting against the will of the people.

Anyway with that sorted it’s time to cancel all the weekend plans, let the local chippy know of your takeaway retirement and start stockpiling those homemade cheese sandwiches.

See you in five years.