Your correspondent asserts that the increase in the value of his house since he bought it “just about covers all associated costs over that time” (Letters, 15 June). If that is true he has been remarkably unlucky. A house bought in 1965 for £3,500 would now be worth around £87,500 had its value simply kept pace with the rate of inflation, rather than its current market value of £350,000. A house that cost £20,000 in 1975 would now be worth around £220,000 instead of £900,000.
It is hard to imagine what “associated costs” would come anywhere near such huge increases in value. As for the idea that anyone could buy a house if they avoided “fancy holidays”, “£50,000 weddings” and “ridiculous £90,000 cars” (cars costing this much made up, at most, 0.75% of new registrations last year), this kind of thinking was parodied in the novels of Charles Dickens.
Polly Toynbee is right (Young people need money because our system is rigged. Here’s a way to give it to them, 9 June). Those of us who grew up in the early postwar years and are now sitting on piles of unearned wealth should acknowledge their good fortune and be willing to help out a less fortunate generation.
Michael Pyke
Shenstone, Staffordshire
