When my sister got engaged round about 1970, she and her fiancée decided to set up a childrenswear business. As an engagement present, my dad bought them a white van which would enable them to take their samples out on the road. Thanks to that initial parental injection of cash, my sister and her partner got their business going, and 40 years later that same business is still going strong.
A few years later, I got married, and my dad stepped in again, this time with a generous down-payment that enabled us to get a mortgage and buy a flat. Ive worked all my life, and always earned a decent income, but it was without doubt that first step on the property ladder, thanks to the Bank of Mum and Dad, that enables me to live in comfort today.
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders in 2006, shortly before the credit crunch struck, 67% of first-time buyers managed to get on to the housing ladder without any financial assistance from their parents. By 2012, the number had collapsed to just 36%.
My friends seem to be divided into those who think giving a financial leg-up to their kids will rob them of ambition and create flabby individuals who lack the grit to survive in todays competitive world, and those who will dig into their pension pots, remortgage their own houses or cut their spending to find the money to help their kids.
Im in the latter category. Not because Im a martyr mum, but because my parents generosity made me determined to repay them, not literally, but in terms of working hard, saving where I could and proving myself financially responsible. Thats why Im viewing properties right now with my mid-20s son and reeling from shock at Londons soaring prices. Estate agents are leading us around eye-poppingly expensive, one-bedroom properties, some of which can only be described as slums.
According to the housing charity Shelter, about £2 billion is poured into the property market every year by parents anxious to help their children buy a first home, with the average parental contribution being in the region of £17,000. Thats a huge amount to stump up, I agree, and those who cant afford it shouldnt be made to feel guilty for being unable to stretch their finances that far. But I disagree with the naysayers who think the only way for youngsters to prove themselves is via the school of hard knocks.
What I do recognise, though, is that relying on support from the Bank of Mum and Dad isnt going to solve the housing crisis. The Government Help to Buy scheme for first-time buyers is a start (though parents are stumping up for that, too.) The real problem, it seems to me, is the desperate shortage of affordable housing that would ease some of the pressure on the rental market.
In the meantime, and I make no apologies for it, I will beg, steal and borrow to help my son get a home of his own, just as my dad did for me.
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Read Linda Kelsey's previous blogs here: The Age of Unreason.
