What you see here will lead to only one logical outcome.

But how did we get here, and where is here anyway you might say. Well, let’s review it.

I’ll go back, to The Before Time and start from a couple of decades ago. If you read the piece I am referring to, you’ll know I mean to before mobile phones and the internet. But it is more than that, it’s to before lots of things happened and were put in place to lead us to now. The starting point of this subject to give it reference is housing. The housing market to be precise and the knock-on effect it has had on much around us and people’s lives. The system of rental and ownership, and what the implications of that were, are and seem to be going forward.

I developed an interest almost 20 years ago in housing. Not entirely by accident, I landed my first office job in an estate agents. For three and a half years I got to see how it all worked, being closely involved in all the paperwork, understanding how mortgages worked. First hand as well as i purchased my first house while working there so went through the hoops myself. And over the next few years, my mind gave it more and more thought. It was hard work getting a mortgage back then, raising a deposit (which luckily family helped with), and qualifying for it. That’s the basics, but behind the scenes of that there is much more.

I knew I couldn’t ever get a mortgage on my own. I would never own my house as a young person if I chose to remain single. So just as some people may have money on their mind in a potential partner, I had security in mind. I’d moved around a lot as a child, and desperately wanted to have a base that wouldn’t be whipped out from under me. Renting proved not good enough as the landlord could go rogue or just simply decide to sell, it was a worry. And one I didn’t want dominating my life. I wanted to buy a house, as that to me seemed the logical response to not wanting to be relocated and uprooted every 1-2 years. So, I’ll admit, I was strategic in my choices, because of the end goal I had my heart set on. And, not to overlook the main thing that really facilitated this – family. Without them and sticking to a job with prospects, I had no hope.

I knew how hard it was for people to attain it. Like many others, I was told by my family growing up that is what you should aspire to, house, family, job, security. None of that factoring in individualism or circumstance, and actually, quite conveniently overlooking those things when being judged on it. But that is something else. Within this construct of ‘own your own home’ there were many things I noticed that were set up or in place to make it so that you didn’t really own it. If it’s a flat, you never own it only lease it, and for a house, the fact you borrow the money to buy it, means it is owned by the mortgage company/bank/lender until such time as it is paid off. Sounds simple though, how could they possibly mess with that?

In my mind, this is how it happened. They messed with the interest rates, making mortgages unaffordable to get for lots and suddenly making existing ones harder to manage. Then they changed the amount you could borrow, however briefly, to five times your salary. Now, just that alone should have set off alarm bells for many, but instead they rushed ahead and took the bait. At the time, I said, but don’t people realise they won’t increase wages, and then will increase interest again? I wondered why it was suddenly ok for everyone to start living well beyond their means. (and another side point to this, we do not teach people about good financial sense in school and seem to wait until people are already in debt before advising them on what to do, by then it’s too late).

But back to the set up – once you have the massive mortgage, and the massive house you think you needed, you realise that often what comes with it is a massive increase in stress and worry. Because a change in the interest rates can make you suddenly unable to afford to live there, or a change in your salary, or a life event. So even if it’s just subconsciously, you are distracted. What should be bringing you security, actually brings worry, because now you are insecure about it being taken away.

People who have saved and cut back, so they can pay off their mortgage early and enjoy the final security it offers, are the ones who had the right idea in my mind. For decades they did the right thing. But then another change happened, and one I figured was going to have a long-term effect, but it hasn’t quite played out yet as not enough time has elapsed, so it is mere speculation at this point. But the pension pay-outs, doubled with the equity release seemed to have come about around the same time. Oh, and not to forget they increased the retirement age as well. So someone standing there with a big pot of money, saying, hey you don’t have to wait another ten years for this (now they had made it longer), you can have it now. Quickly, fast, now, now, now. It is very clever how mentality has been speeded up, patience is no longer seen as a virtue. And can easily be countered with the argument, but we are only here once, and you can’t get back time. And that is correct, time is more important than money in the bigger scheme of things. But they have made it so that you appear to be able not to enjoy time, unless you have money. So we are in a bind. And then they pulled the sneaky trick of slowly taking away the future and that also makes people throw caution to the wind as they say, and what may have been ‘saved for a rainy day’, gets allocated to what we then decide through circumstances beyond our control is the rainy day event.

And ordinarily, I wouldn’t have a problem with any of that either. People should live now, don’t wait for life as it won’t wait for you, and don’t put it off. But it ties into something else. Not long after they encouraged lots of homeowners and pensioners to borrow, release and spend. They then cried no money, the pot was emptying too fast, people wanted to draw too much. Then the recent events happened and more money that we could ever imagine flowed like water through the slippery fingers of government. So what was to follow, the inevitable. We won’t have enough left for pensions, retirement ages will need to change again maybe, bills will need to go up, job security has faded into the mist, and then they start that they will need to take people’s houses. What are the chances that it will be the people who have any kind of loan or borrowing against a property who are targeted first. And because there are so many disgruntled people who have been shut out of the housing market over the last few decades, they seem to think it’s ok to do it to people. The attitude of “well I can’t have one, so why should they”. Rather rife it is amongst the self-entitled I have noticed.

I have read some snidey comments online these last few weeks about how older people should have to sell their houses to pay for social care. Intermingled with ones about how unfair it is that old people are even allowed to live in big house by themselves. So I presume it’s just jealousy driving the second comment, but the first one does seem to highlight a social inequality. With the ultimate winner being the social care providers/care homes. And of course, the government makes a nice tidy sum of tax every time someone buys a house. So ‘encouraging’ people to move, usually brings in more revenue for them too.

With the price of care homes being what they are, it really does seem cheaper to hire a full time carer for in your own home, at least you know you or your family member is being looked after, won’t be neglected and shut away from friends and family and might have a chance. Looks like there will be a few carers and trained medical staff looking for work over the coming months, so it might just catch on. But it seems they want you separated and being able to be isolated at the drop of a hat. My logic is as follows, they make it easier to get divorced while simultaneously piling on more pressure within the family unit. Families encouraged to put their elderly in ‘care homes’ and shifting responsibility. Jobs start being further away, cars get cheaper so that people can work further away, people move away, school restrictions and ratings encourage people to move based on education, not family. But that’s ok, they brought in the internet to ‘bring everyone together’ while distracting them at the same time – which only created a false sense of together and it seems to have driven people further apart and created more problems. They want people to feel isolated, fearful and worried and have engineered society to be as it is today with that driving it and pushing it to where they want it to go. Of course I can’t say for sure and that’s just my view and perspective, but I feel it will lead to only one logical outcome.

(c) K Wicks