We're coming up to it. The house buyers are now dying off. We'll inherit. We're laughing. In a few years there will be empty houses everywhere, or if they are concentrated, Middlesborough will be empty.
In the good old days, up to about 1950, when the last parent died, they didn't own a house, they rented a terrace house for eight shillings a week or lived in a council house. This meant that all you might inherit was a few pounds and some old fashioned furniture. There may have been one or two heirlooms, a clock or something, which was generally regarded by the deceased as being worth a fortune. It wasn't, and whoever got it in the will was probably hated by the rest because of the fallacy that it was priceless. In fact the inheritance of this prized heirloom was nothing but a nuisance, like the old man who wouldn't get off the young man's shoulders after crossing the stream, because it couldn't be got rid of. The fortunate legatee, by family tradition must keep this ugly clock, or bronze dog, or ivory fan, or whatever, for their lifetime then pass it on. It can never be sold, so no one does any good from it, or gets any cash. It also has to be displayed for ever, especially if it is very ugly. This generation that we are describing had little to leave besides the firewood and the heirloom because they were happy to rent their house. They were 'looked after', if they had a landlord. It was as if they thought something terrifying and irremedial, of vast cost, could happen to a house, if it were theirs, and ruin them for life. They also did not aspire to house ownership. It was a class thing, and whereas now most of the population of the Country either do own their homes, or aim to. In those old days ninety per cent didn't even see it as an option. In due course, this generation, the renters, produced children. Time passes, great houses are in decline, war has opened it all up, less people are tied to the land and a tied cottage, and people started earning much more money.
The great emancipation got under way. These children wanted to, and did, buy their own houses. Villa for sale, brand new, £400. Bungalow for £280. Of course it seems cheap but it wasn't. Only by dint of skimping and scraping, the like of which is unknown today, could they afford them. These poor devils got their own property though, and enjoyed the independence and security that it meant. The bad news was that they had to be so mean to pay for it, they never got out of the habit. Their own children, of whom more anon, were not impressed with this meanness and, as they got older, scorned the 'old uns' because they weren't free with their money. I point out in their defence, they had forgotten how to be. These children should be pleased because they will eventually get a house instead of a bronze dog.
The great revolution of the last thirty years is the inheritance of these hard bought houses. Thanks to this, nowadays, many couples never have the life-long grind of a mortgage. As the buying of houses spreads, and all council houses also come into the private sector, before too long virtually al the houses in the country will be bought by the population in general. The birth-rate is falling slightly. This means that many couples will inherit two houses. By this means, plenty of money is in the hands of the two house inheritors. There are plenty of them and there will be more. Large expensive houses are in their reach. The spare money which would have been for the mortgage goes on the Range Rover, which is why there are so many of them on Tesco's car park, and the second home in Spain. There is a great penalisation of those people whose parents did not buy. It becomes more and more difficult for them to buy a house because they have not got the top up of inherited property money. There is a £100,000 pound hurdle in front of them. They have to buy at the 'bottom end' , using the new schemes of paying for twenty years and still owning only half of it. Or buying the simplest of starter homes which are not much wider than the front door. No, it's harder road for those people whose parents did not buy a house, but it will even out in time.
It amounts to this :- The Range Rover and second home in Spain are bought with a previous lifetime of diligently switching off forty watt bulbs, or sitting in the dark. The grandson gets a new car from the miles walked by Granny for bread two pence cheaper. The health club subscription for the granddaughter is the one tea bag for two cups which Gran and Granddad always had.
Peter
