‘We never had it easy': why boomers are far from the lucky generation

Telegraph

a day ago

The idea that baby boomers got lucky with the housing market has become almost unquestionable.
Sky-rocketing house prices have propelled the generation born between 1946 and 1964 to wealth and comfort in old age, thanks to no great skill of their own.
Having surfed the crest of Britain's property wave, they are now sitting pretty on top of a housing ladder that, for those at the bottom, feels more like a greased fireman's pole. Boomers are accused of refusing to sell up their huge homes, preventing younger families from upsizing.
But the reality is more complicated. While the average boomer has benefitted from rising house prices in the long run, the generation has also been battered by double-digit interest rates, bursting property bubbles and negative equity, with many still renting in old age.
Boom and bust
That's not to say that younger generations have nothing to be jealous about. Between 1975 and 2025, the average house price in Britain rose from £10,978 to £271,619, according to Nationwide – a 25-fold increase.
It's the sort of rise you would expect from top-performing stocks. Buying shares in Microsoft in 1993 and selling at the height of the dotcom bubble six years later would have netted similar returns. Even when adjusted for inflation, house prices have more than tripled in the past 50 years.
Crucially, the homes the boomers bought were also more affordable. The ratio of house prices to earnings in Britain is now over eight, compared to around four for most of the 1950s to 1990s.
The result is that homeowners aged 60 and over hold more than half of the nation's owner-occupied housing wealth, totalling around £2.9tn, according to estate agent Savills.
The wealth gap between the generations has grown since the financial crisis. A Resolution Foundation study found that between 2006-08 and 2018-20, median wealth among Britons in their 60s rose by 55pc in real terms, but median wealth for those in their 30s fell by 34pc.
At the same time, the share of Britain's wealth held by the under-40s has fallen from 7.5pc in 2010 to 4pc today.
'We didn't have it easy'
This sustained house price growth has been punctuated by several big slumps. The housing boom of the 1970s and 1980s was brought to an abrupt end by a recession, a steep hike in interest rates and a wave of repossessions, fuelled by a big rise in unemployment. House prices tumbled by 37pc between 1989 and 1995.
The unprecedented upswing that followed ended with the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 which wiped 26pc off the average house price over the next six years.
Jane Anderson, 72, has experienced this roller coaster first-hand. She bought her first home – a modest, terraced new-build in Ayr, Scotland – in 1977 with her husband, Sandy, for £15,900.
'We only had a coal fire, and no double glazing,' she says. 'We were scraping ice off the windows.'
At the time, Sandy earned £4,000 a year as a site engineer for the fast-food chain, Wimpy, while Jane worked as a secretary in a primary school. Three banks turned them down for a mortgage because of their modest income before they managed to secure a loan.
'Our first Christmas in the house, the Christmas tree fairy lights failed, so we had a choice between replacing them or getting a present for our four-month-old daughter.'
In 1979, just two years later, interest rates had doubled to 17pc as the country grappled with soaring inflation driven by oil shocks and the end of the gold standard.
House prices had risen rapidly in the 1970s, meaning most homeowners avoided falling into negative equity despite rising mortgage costs. But homeowners like Jane, who had bought just before rates spiked, did not have this buffer.
The couple's payments soared. Jane, who had quit her job to raise their daughter, started childminding for 80p an hour. She considered pawning her engagement ring to make ends meet.
'It was horrendous, rates kept going up and up, it was a very scary time.'
The couple still live in the same property 48 years later. After building an extension to add an extra bedroom, the house is worth around £250,000.
Sandy was made redundant 20 years ago, and they used his redundancy money to pay off the remainder of the mortgage. Apart from a small savings pot, the house is the couple's only asset.
While Anderson feels fortunate to have reaped the rewards of the property boom, she considers the gains hard-won. 'We didn't have a foreign holiday until my daughter was 14 – we went to a caravan in Scotland a couple of times. We had one old banger of a car. We needed to be frugal.
'I hate to think of young people with a £250,000 mortgage today. But I defy anyone to say we all had it easy.'
Boomers missing out
Not all boomers enjoy the financial safety net that comes with owning a home. The number of private renters aged 55 to 64 rose the most steeply out of any age bracket between 2009 and 2022, up 66pc to 492,000, according to official data.
Those aged 65 and over were the second highest-growth group, rising by 33pc to 433,000 households over the same period. Data from the English Housing Survey 2021-22 showed that almost 6pc of people aged 65 to 74 were in rent arrears – more than any other age group.
Rob Trewhella, 69, is one boomer who has been left behind by the house price gold rush. He bought a home in Cornwall for £55,000 at the peak of a 1980s property boom that was fuelled by cheap credit and a motoring economy.
But within two years, a sharp rise in interest rates caused house prices to tank. A valuation revealed that the property was now worth less than what he had paid for it, meaning he was in negative equity.
No longer able to afford the mortgage payments, he sold the house for a loss and has been renting ever since. The same property, which has since been renovated, is now on the market for £270,00.
Trewhella worked in a family butchers for 15 years before retraining as a tree surgeon. Later in life, he spent three years working as a taxi driver before health problems forced him to give up this job last year.
'I paid tax for 51 years, and I've still got a lot I can offer people,' he says.
He now pays £675 a month, plus £130 in council tax for his rented property in Penzance. His only source of income is his state pension, forcing him to dip into his savings each month.
'Property prices have gone sky-high, especially down here in Cornwall, with all the people buying second homes – that's also removed a lot of long-term rental stock and pushed up rental prices.
'There's a range of circumstances why people are living on their state pensions – they might be widowed or have lost money in an investment. We haven't got a snowball's chance to get back on the property ladder.'
But having a mortgage carries its own risks. Some mortgage prisoners are in 'closed book' mortgages taken out before the financial crisis and held by firms no longer offering new loans. This means they are unable to switch from their current – often hugely expensive – mortgage deal to a cheaper one, even though they are up to date with payments.
Many others are simply too old to be able to secure a new mortgage, leaving them with no option other than moving on to unaffordable repayment plans or selling up to pay off the debt.
Assumptions about wealth
The fact that some boomers have missed out will be of little comfort to younger generations struggling to afford their first home, even as the intergenerational wealth gap widens.
A Resolution Foundation study found that between 2006-08 and 2018-20, median wealth among British people in their 60s rose by 55pc in real terms, but median wealth for those in their 30s fell by 34pc. At the same time, the share of Britain's wealth held by the under-40s has fallen from 7.5pc in 2010 to 4pc today.
The idea that boomers are hoarding the nation's wealth is used to justify demands on older people that would otherwise seem unreasonable. Wealth advisers have warned of a rise in family members pressuring their elderly relatives into releasing equity from their homes to finance their own house-buying, even when it harms their relatives financially.
The Tony Blair Institute think tank has called for larger properties to be taxed more to encourage owners to downsize and make room for younger families.
But Hilary Burkitt, of old-age financial hardship charity, Independent Age, says the debate around intergenerational fairness ignores people like Trewhella and Anderson.
'There's an assumption about wealth that applies to older people. What's missed is the fact that there's a significant and growing number struggling financially in later life, and housing plays into this.
'The majority of older people in poverty own their own homes. We also hear from homeowners who have paid off their mortgage, but are finding it hard to keep warm or make repairs. Being a homeowner doesn't mean you're protected from financial issues.'
Trewhella thinks it is 'absolutely unfair' to assume all boomers are wealthy, but is determined to remain upbeat about his circumstances.
'I do worry about my later years. It would be nice to know when I was going to depart, because then I could decide how much money I'd need. Renting rather than owning property is a massive part of that.
'But I don't feel envious. I spend a lot of time in my friend's garden. My mental health is in a good place.'