Baby boomers have handed down some sage advice for younger generations: stop forking out money on Netflix and Uber Eats if you want to buy a home.
According to a new study by researchers at King’s College London, more than half of baby boomers think these 'luxury' lifestyle choices are to blame for young people having a tough time joining the housing market.
Presumably, they expect young people everywhere to slap their foreheads and say 'why didn't I think of that'.
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However, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, Bobby Duffy, said the solutions offered up by baby boomers were 'minor factors' compared to the 'huge increases in house prices and required deposits'.
"The suggestion that the huge challenges young people face in buying their own home can be solved by skipping fancy coffees and Netflix entirely misses the point, but it’s still believed by half the public," he said, as per The Times.
"It also reflects our general tendency to think bad of today’s young people. Throughout history people always think the current youth are the worst ever."
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In Australia, the average house in Sydney costs $1.4million, as per an April 2022 report by The Urban Developer.
A Netflix subscription will set you back $16.99 per month.
According to Savings.com.au, which has a handy calculator to figure out how much you'd need for a home deposit, a young person would need to save $124,201 to even be in with a chance for a house in the NSW capital.
By ditching the Netflix subscription and using it for a house deposit instead it would therefore take 7,310 months to afford the deposit. Or 609 years.
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Seems reasonable.
According to the UK study, only a quarter of people aged 25 to 34 own their own home. That's down from two thirds of people in 1995.
But, despite baby boomers giving millennials a hard time, the overall majority of people said that the youth of today do face greater financial and economical struggles when compared to older generations.
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According to the research, 76 per cent of people think buying a home is harder for young adults today, compared to 11 per cent overall.
But it isn't just housing affordability that the wider population perceive as tough on younger generations.
More than 65 per cent of people who participated in the study think it is harder for young adults to save for the future and to pay for university.
So, millennials: grab that coffee to go and cry into it while you watch Netflix.
Rachel Lang