This article is so pleasant and refreshing. I really wish I saw more nuanced discussions of this issue that weren't either 'doom for Generation Rent' or 'silly millennials buy avocado toast instead of houses', and this article is a rare example that doesn't fall into either hole.
The main problem I have with most discussions of this issue, often including comments on this forum, is not making a clear distinction between individual and population level effects.
On an individual level, is it possible for someone like the article's subject to buy property in London alone (without parental or partner help)? Yes, it's not outside the bounds of possibility. It would involve something like spending a few years dropping all unnecessary spending in order to save a minimum of around £50k, while also working to raise her salary to around £50k - which sounds intense but by no means impossible. Her actions CAN dictate her outcomes here to a great degree. Her habitual unplanned purchases ARE adding up to a significant sum. There is a lot she can do to improve her situation. Not everyone in her generation is in those shoes – but certainly some are, and she's a great illustration of it.
On a population level, is it that people in her generation are mismanaging their finances to an unusual degree, or is it that the task is more demanding than ever before? Absolutely the latter.
These problems are interlinked but they are not interchangeable.
My parents bought around the millenium. They both hustled to the max – pursued well compensated jobs, had additional side gigs, lived frugally in a way that was fairly exceptional among their peers, and invested their savings. This allowed them to buy a large 4-bed property in Zone 3. An identical couple doing that today with the same level of career success and concentrated frugal effort could for sure still be able to afford to buy, but maybe a small flat, or go to zone 6+ for a large property. Fine, so it goes.
However, if my parents had had more average salaries, less investment knowledge, or less of a willingness to be 'weirdly' frugal, they would still have been able to buy a property in London, just not such a nice one. Today, that hypothetical middling couple would probably not be able to buy at all. The bell curve has shifted, the same amount of effort gets you less. As far as I've been able to glean from the numbers, our actual savings rate are not dramatically different between the generations, it just your money buys you a whole lot less house and a whole load more crap clothes and smallish luxuries than it used to.
On a personal level, you want to hold firm to your individual locus of control, working with the cards you've been dealt and looking around with an eye to opportunities rather than hindrances – the same for your friends or children or whoever else you can influence to make good decisions. There is nothing wrong and a whole lot of good in getting advice about maxing out LISAs and learning how to invest, bringing in your lunch as a matter of course, finding ways to save on seemingly 'fixed' regular costs, and
@londonstache IMO your point is the most important idea of all, working out what lifestyle you can afford by calculating backwards from your long term goals instead of the other way around. It's all transformational, I'm living proof and I don't shut up about it.
But when people discuss these strategies as a way to level the playing field overall, I just think, no bloody way. The fact that to buy in London/SE you need some combination of: an exceptional income, outside assistance, or a monomaniacal determination remains a problem. UK society is currently built around expectations of home ownership, but expecting EVERYONE who doesn't have the benefit of the first two to compensate by going all-in on the third strikes me as a little unreasonable as a proposed solution. It always reminds me of that famous comment by Michael Gove when he said that teachers needed to get 'all students to exceed the national average' on literacy and numeracy (!) scores.