Worth remembering though that it was 15-17% on a mortgage 2.5x your salary, not 4.5X which is the average these days (with as much as 7X in certain circumstances)

Therein lies one of the problems. When the government released the 2.5x threshold, house prices shot up almost immediately. Some benefited, others lost out.
Now many first time buyers want the big tv, all the other household comforts, whereas back in the 60s we made do with anything we could lay our hands on. We had two armchairs from a neighbour of my parents that had been diverted from the tip, with a tea chest as the coffee table. No tv to start with.

Average salary in the UK is £36,000. Can't get anything for £90K (2.5x). Can't get much for £162K either (4.5). If you've got dual average income then it's more likely you can buy something.. However the chances of saving a 5-10% deposit when you're paying £1000+ a month in rent is tricky. Most of the prospective buyers I know just want to get on the ladder. Virtually impossible for many, unless they have wealthy parents. My two younger colleagues (in their 30's) have been able to buy recently due to receiving substantial inheritances. They are both sh1tting themselves at the moment due to increases in fuel/shopping/energy costs as they are already right on the limit financially. Remember, starting salary for teachers is £28K.

You can pick up a big 50" telly for under £250 these days, fraction of the price you'd have paid in the 60's.

But the 60's ones were soooo stylish !

I think the future is public transport. A bus every 10 minutes. First to B&Q (Need two bags of cement) and then onto Wickes, only waiting 10 minutes for a bus. Then on to Morrisons for bits and dabs, then home, all within one hour thirty minutes. Out to Lions meeting and back on the bus at 10.30 pm with a few shady people, then enjoying a walk down dimly lit streets home. Oh sod it, I've woken up.

We had a portable B&W telly until 1986.

About half the stuff in our first house was passed down.

I think most of us started with hand me down furniture, those days it was perfectly acceptable and things were built to last back then. Everything on HP was the alternative and the interest rates were astronomically expensive back then.

I'm also very wary of using gross earnings as an comparator as net earnings after tax reflect more the disposable income to pay the mortgage and Purchase Tax before the introduction of VAT in 1973 along with higher income tax rates placed a considerable tax burden back then. Add in the annual inflation rate and interest rates in the early teens with inflation actually hitting 28% in 1973, paints more of a picture of the impact of mortgage payments on disposable income. Access to credit was very limited back then compared to today, no credit cards like today.

The earnings mortgage calculator was 2.5x husband's salary plus 1x the wife's salary and we needed that to buy our first house back then.

We bought our first house in 1968, £4,250 if I remember correctly. My salary was £1200 pa as a very junior engineer. It was a few years later when the 2.5x salary threshold was dropped that house prices suddenly rocketed. My cousin had put a deposit on a brand new house shortly before then. They held off selling their current house until the new build was complete, then sold it for more than the agreed price of the new build! Nice profit for a few.

Most young people still do. Don't listen to what the Daily Wail would have you believe about kids these days and simply go and talk to the people running your local furniture bank.

2 other things not mentioned yet:

1. Banks often won't deduct the cost of rent from your ability to pay a mortgage. If you are paying £800 a month in rent they won't take it as evidence that you can afford £800 a month on a mortgage. I know this because a couple of my friends are caught in this trap.

2. We didn't have massive student loans around our necks. If you're on Plan 1 you have to start repaying when your income exceed £20k a year and is 9% of your income. Imagine if your income tax was set at 49% instead of 40%.

The idea that young people can't afford to buy a house because they spend all their money on iPhones, smashed avocado on toast and pumpkin spiced lattes is just a total nonsense and would be revealed as such by a 5 minute conversation with any young working couple. Sorry and all that, but the notion that 'Boomers had it tougher and we did ok' is simply not borne out by the facts.

Back in 77 when we got engaged we saw a house we fancied it was £8500 we decided to save hard for a couple of years for a sizeable depositl. Two years later and also after selling my rally car we had nearly £3000 in the fighting fund only know the same house was nearly £12000. Should have lived in sin for a couple of years and bought the house.......