What would a boomer say about house prices?
Mention house prices to a boomer and you'll hear about a four-bed semi bought for the price of a family car. Here's what the Boomer says, and what the numbers actually show.
Ask a Boomer: house prices Comedy, not advice
Thirty-two thousand pounds a year and you can't afford a house?! That's more than Uncle Dave earned in the whole of the 1980s, and he had a caravan in Skegness!
You simply walk into the building society in your good suit, look the manager in the eye and tell him you're a reliable sort with a paper round. Cancel the Netflix, stop buying sourdough, and you'll have a deposit by Easter.
Anyway, talking of houses: why did the house go to the doctor? It had window panes! Ho ho, I'm here all week!
Only?! ONLY?! For two hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds I'd expect a moat, a butler and a snooker room with a proper slate bed!
In my day a flat was what you rented above the chip shop until you'd saved up for a semi. Offer him a firm handshake and forty thousand in used notes, and see how ‘only’ he feels then.
Anyway, what did one wall say to the other wall? I'll meet you at the corner! Aunt Carol still doesn't get it.
The Bank of Mum and Dad is closed. It's been converted into a conservatory and a three-week cruise round the Norwegian fjords.
Nobody gave me a penny! I saved every week in a Post Office book, lived on corned beef and bought my first place with a mortgage the size of a telephone directory. Character-building, that's what it was.
Anyway, why did the golfer bring two pairs of trousers? In case he got a hole in one! A hole in one! Marvellous.
The real numbers
- Nationwide's average UK house price was about £28,600 at the end of 1983. By mid-2026 it was about £278,800, in cash terms (not adjusted for inflation).
Source: Nationwide, UK house prices since 1952 (Q4 1983 and Q2 2026) - In 1983 the typical UK home cost about 3.5 times average full-time earnings. In 2026 it costs about 5.6 times.
Source: Nationwide, house price to earnings ratio (Q4 1983 and Q2 2026) - A typical first-time buyer's home cost about 2.7 times average full-time earnings in 1983, against about 4.7 times in 2026.
Source: Nationwide, first-time buyer house price to earnings ratio (Q4 1983 and Q2 2026)