Vicky Spratt

You know, it's hard to argue with this idea that they might be the luckiest generation in history born at a particular time when our economy was changing and home ownership was on the rise for the first time in history and the world was opening up, global financial markets were opening up.

And then you've got what's happening today, which is wages that haven't really gone up since 2008, historically high house prices, student debt,

and a contracting jobs market.

And one of the things that the younger trip audience told us was that they do feel unlucky.

We asked them to describe themselves and unlucky was one of the words that came up the most.

Well, that is true.

And particularly in London, real house prices have fallen.

And don't I know it because I am affected by this myself.

But the statistic or the bit of information you really need here is what's called the loan to income ratio.

And because we had that epic house price inflation after 2008, when interest rates were nailed to the floor,

but wages weren't really going up as much.

We're now in a situation where even though we've had those real terms falls in recent years, particularly, what you need to be earning to be able to afford a home has been stretched.

So in the 90s,

It was around four times the average income to get a mortgage.

Now it's eight.

So this generation that we're talking about, Gen Z, they are particularly impacted by that because they don't have very high salaries.

But even with those real terms falls, the house prices are still really, really high.

So it's whether they can borrow to buy.

That's the problem.

Well, I interpreted the bars there as suggesting that perhaps housing was coming under cost of living for people because inflation and the economy was so high up.