The important thing you're avoiding - that has been studiously avoided throughout this thread, is that the current generation is playing on a significantly harder difficulty setting. Take Hanrahan's proud statement from earlier in the thread, that he worked hard for all of two years running a service station with an unemployed partner and child at home to save up a 30% deposit. That's a feat that's unimaginable today. It took my wife and myself, both with PhDs and working 60-plus hour weeks as postdocs, living in a cheap (for the location) two-bedroom rental with no kids, the better part of four years to save up the 20% deposit on a moderately priced house. That was eight years ago, and I'm well aware that this was pretty close to a best-case scenario. If we'd been on a single income, given that we now have two kids I suspect we'd still be renting. Working in a service station? Ha. Not a chance in hell that you could save up enough even over the course of a lifetime. So forgive me if my heart doesn't bleed when the older generation here bleat about how tough they had it.
