Is it high time for the baby boomers to ‘move over’ for the younger generation?

THE Mail’s Business Editor, Ruth Sutherland, has had a dig at the baby boomer generation because inflation has made their house purchases seem cheap. In terms of its relation to salaries, the price of a house today is dearer than it once was, but that is only part of the picture. House prices are also determined by mortgage rates. In 1979, when I bought my home, the mortgage rate was 11.25 per cent. Six months later, it was 15 per cent compared with today’s record low rates. If mortgage payments are taken as a percentage of salary, a different story emerges. Of course, we didn’t have the opportunity to fritter away our money on mobile phones, broadband and payper-view TV.

IAN FRASER, Barrow-in-Furness, Lancs. SOME baby boomers are still working to pay for the home they bought for ‘peanuts’. House prices in the 1970s were

based on a single salary because most women stayed at home to look after their children. It may look on the surface that baby boomers have it all, but they worked hard for it. Good luck to the younger generation: you are our children and grandchildren to whom we will pass on our wealth.

ANNE BELL, Manchester. MY WIFE and I are baby boomers. When we married in 1971, we paid for our own wedding, which was a buffet in a local pub, and our honeymoon was a short break in a London B&B. We lived with my parents until we managed to buy our own home, with a 100 per cent mortgage and the rate soaring to 15 per cent. My wife gave up her job to raise our two children, only returning to part-time work to supplement the family income when they went to school. We didn’t have mobile phones, satellite TV, a car on finance or fancy holidays abroad. I worked for the same company for 32 years and paid a lot extra into my pension so I would be financially secure in my later years. I take great exception to the claim that my generation has ‘hogged the best jobs, bought the most expensive homes for peanuts and got the most lucrative pensions’. Baby boomers make no apology for having worked hard all our lives. Perhaps we should have sat back and let the government dole out money to look after us.

C. J. WALLACE, Telford, Shropshire. WHY insult those of us born post-war who have our own homes? Do you want us all to pop off with Covid so our houses are available for younger buyers? Saying our homes were ‘bought for peanuts back in the day’ does not describe the era when mortgage payments took a quarter of a family’s monthly income. Why is it the fault of pensioners that today’s house prices are at ridiculous levels?