Was the 1980's a happy decade?

[cromwell]

I think it was.
Even allowing for rose tinted glasses and the fact that we were all a lot younger then.
Everyone's personal circumstances are different but in general I think people were happier.
There seemed to be less need for us all to feel guilty for something or other and more room to be happy.
We drove better looking cars - Opel Mantas, Ford Capris, RS2000s, XR3is, Lancia Beta Coupes; today's cars will be safer, more efficient and last longer but most of them look pretty boring.
Buying a house was easier for young people.
There was better music too (I've definitely turned into my dad here).
The footballer's fashion for wearing mini-shorts was a bit regrettable but you can't have everything!

[Workingman]

I came out of the RAF in '83. Had an Audi 80 GLI, bought a house, got married, owned a shop, had enough cash to spend on luxuries and holidays. Clothing was better quality and fast fashion was not rife.

Can't agree about the music... some of it was dire new wave, techno or middle of the road twonk.

Political correctness was bubbling under but wokery and snowflakery did not exist, neither did unSocial Media. We met in pubs and clubs and talked. Mobile phones were in their infancy and only really for "phone calls" and you needed a wheelbarrow to cart one around. The "Internet" as we now know it did not exist and when it did emerge it was on desktop computers in your home or office.

The roads were not falling apart and trains were affordable, though being on time seemed to be a bit of an option on some lines.

[saundra]

Most defiantly 70/80 where good no technology like internet no rat race ,only regrets we left Cardiff because bill worked for habitat and we ended up in hull
Bad decision which I have always regretted but that's life

[miasmum]

Wasnt the mortgage rate about 15% in the 80's? We bought our first house when we got married in 1984, but I worked for a building society so got a staff mortgage at 3.5%net They no longer do them, as the rates are too low for it to help.

Loved the 80's fashions and my wonderful permed hair.

[cromwell]

From memory in the late 70's early 80's yes MM, the mortgage rate did get as high as 15%.

I think the difference was that back then you couldn't borrow as much as you can now; three times the main income earner's salary plus half of their partners was the rule when we got out first house.

[Workingman]

Ah, the ex and I got together in about 1979 but we lived with our respective families in order to save rather than renting a flat. When I left the RAF in 1983 I got a 'lump sum' so with that and our savings we bought our 1st house in late 1984 with a deposit of about 40%. I remember it as being quite the normal thing to do.

There was a spike to 15% in both the late '70s and early '80s and again in '91 and '92.

[miasmum]

We could borrow the same Frank. I remember taking my mortgage application to the manager and him saying £22,500 for a terraced house seems a lot, lets see what it comes back at after survey and it came back valued at £23000 so I got my mortgage

[Workingman]

Shell, £18,600 was the house we bought in '84, a three bed end terrace of four 'town houses' on a main road in Horsforth. We swapped it for twice the price for an old three bed semi at £52k in a better area, West Park, in 1993 for little more than we were already paying, mortgage wise. Prices then had gone mad, but nothing like today. I dare not tell you what it sold for after the divorce in 1999/2000.

The house last sold for over £400k in 2021 according to Zoopla.

[Kaz]

We (first husband and I) bought a 5 bed cottage - middle two of a row of five - in 1979 for £19,950! Inglenook fireplaces, the works! Goodness only knows what it would cost now

[Workingman]

Kaz, Zoopla or Rightmove will tell you. Be prepared to be amazed! Our £i9K house on Broadway in Horsforth in 1984 is now over £275K. It is a small house on a main road with barely any garden and off street parking in the private road out the back.