as a millenial, life ends at 18

Indeed, ownership was last century. I don't personally mind, I'm happy with renting. However, it is ludicrous to suggest that home ownership is a slice of cake for millennials or that simply anyone can own a home and that they banks will now hand out mortgages like sweets.

This is why I'm going to avoid moving to London/South East at all costs when I graduate. Yes the wages are a bit higher but when you factor in living costs you can have a higher standard of living elsewhere despite being paid less.

None of that suggests any of your initial post to be correct.

Anyone earning even minimum wage working full time can afford to buy a house in the UK.

Anyone working minimum wage can afford to buy a house?!.....yeah in like some village in yorkshire with 10 people

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Is that not a house? :s

You know what you said is misleading.

You'll only have yourself to blame.

Nonsense - the growth of the cost of housing has massively outstripped the growth of wages (from four times the median wage in the 70s to 12x now iirc) and there's a lack of housing to start with due to the sell-off of stock into the hands of private landlords prepared to sit on them and grow fat off the rent. When you've got to spend so much just to stand still with the cost of renting saving up for a deposit on a house without parental help will take well into your late twenties/early thirties, possibly longer.

At best you can say generation Y have themselves to blame for making up such a small proportion of voters compared to the boomers, but that's grasping at straws.

I have to disagree. The OP was clear; unable to buy a house before 30. The fact is that there are jobs & locations in the UK which would allow you to purchase a house before 30 even on minimum wage.

If you choose not to take up those opportunities then that is indeed your own choice.

They may exist but they're rarer than hens teeth - there are locations where housing is cheap enough to afford on the median national wage, but they're places like Hull - where local economic depravity means precious few will see themselves bringing in said wage. We're not just talking about London of course, vast swathes of the country are inaccessible beyond renting. It may not fit the everyone for themselves narrative, but generation Y have been failed repeatedly by a succession of governments, as a result of the sell-off of housing stock and the failure to invest in replacement stock; they'll be stuck as generation rent

Totally agree.

Why wouldn't you move at 18 to be somewhere you could reasonably set yourself up for life? It's the best time to move; unlikely to have many commitments or ties to an area. I can guarantee that at 21 when you finish university a large chunk of your old hometown friends will not return to the area anyway.

That requires getting a job with very little experience- so it will be minimum wage. And going straight from living at home in the south to living 10 hours away somewhere I've never been, without a car or any social support- and having to live on minimum wage and make friends with the social life I will have to pay for on that minimum wage will be near impossible. None of my friends are going to uni, so most will stay close to home at least for the next few years.

So you've had a choice and decided to stay at home.. which my point.

I couldn't financially support myself on minimum wage (providing I can even get a job where ever I move which is unlikely) living costs such as food, electric/water/heating bills and rent would not be covered by a £5.30 wage.

Also I'm aware most places don't have public transport like the south east does so I would also have to find the money for a car.

For my personal situation it just wouldn't work right now. And I don't think young adults in the south should be forced out of everything they know, having to leave their families and friends just because the government won't build more housing. It may be a choice to stay in the south but it's a choice made on the ground living up north end wouldn't be achievable unless I get very very lucky- I don't have the financial/social security up north to fall back on if I can't get a job within a week of moving up there (and I know job hunting can take years), so until I do have enough saved to have some money to pay rent/living costs for a few months it would be idiotic to rent my own place.