Twitter reacts to Kirstie Allsopp’s claims ‘everyone’ can afford a home

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TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp has been mocked for saying young people could afford to buy a house if they quit Netflix, gym memberships and coffee.

The Location, Location, Location star was told online people were giving up the luxuries so they could afford to ‘live in a bin’.

Some thanked her for the advice and said they were now looking for mortgages from £30 per month.

Others joked her comments had proven useful, and posted photos of them moving into buildings such as The White House.

But a few backed the 50-year-old and told their stories of cutting out excess expenditure to save for a home.

Allsopp told a newspaper over the weekend youngsters would be able to afford their own place if they cut out the subscriptions.

She also suggested people could move in with their parents or find homes up north in cheaper areas if they are struggling. 

Her comments were seized upon by social media users who blasted the ‘hypocrite’, who bought he own house aged 21 with her parents’ help.

Robert Knight said: ‘Thanks to #KirstieAllsopp, I’m going to cancel my Disney+ subscription and that means I’ll have enough money for a 1 bedroom flat near me by the year 3482.’

One woman called Grace posted a picture of her with a Wendy house and thanked Allsopp for her advice.

She wrote: ‘I’m not sure why you lot are moaning. I listened to Kirstie Allsopp’s advice and have managed to move into my first home.’

One man put: ‘Difficult times lie ahead, so I asked myself what would Kirstie Allsopp do? I’m no longer worried and neither should you be.

‘I made 3 simple changes:

‘1. Dismissed my butler.

‘2. Cancelled my weekly Fortnam & Mason hamper.

‘3. Rented out my villa.’

Another said: ‘Cancelled my Netflix Amazon and Costa subscriptions and off to buy a house thus morning.’

He added on Twitter: ‘Any recommendations for the best place to get one for £30 a month?’

A woman said: ‘Kirstie Allsopp was just a girl from the slums of Hampstead, the spawn of a Baron, but she had a dream…’

Another posted: ‘Young people could afford to get on the pre-apocalypse property ladder if they simply submit to never feeling joy until their inevitable death in the great water war of 2031, says Kirstie Allsopp.’

Piers Morgan said: ‘Every time Kirstie Allsopp trends, I check why and see she’s said another unbelievably stupid, ludicrously ill-informed and woefully privileged thing.

‘Then I wait for her to respond to the entirely justified outrage by throwing her toys out of the pram & quitting Twitter again.’

One man said: ‘Kirstie Allsop on new series of Location, Location, Location: ”You can’t afford to live in this box?

”’Well have you thought about downsizing to a bin, peasant?”’. 

Allsopp, who owns a house in North Devon, had given an interview to the Sunday Times which sparked the ridicule.

She said: ‘When I bought my first property, going abroad, the EasyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix lifestyle didn’t exist.

‘I used to walk to work with a sandwich. And on payday I’d go for a pizza, and to a movie, and buy a lipstick. Interest rates were 15 per cent, I was earning £11,500 a year.’

The presenter acknowledged that interest rates were much lower today but added there are ‘new drains on the finances’ of today’s young first-time buyers.

She said streaming services, foreign holidays and gym memberships were now standard parts of young people’s lives, which was not the case for her.

Ms Allsopp said she bought her first home at the age of 21 with family help when owning your own home was seen as ‘the be all and end all’.

She added: ‘I don’t want to belittle those people who can’t do it. But there are loads of people who can do it and don’t. It is hard.

‘We’ve fallen into the trap of saying it’s impossible for everybody… It’s about where you can buy, not if you can buy. There is an issue around the desire to make those sacrifices.’

Some social media users agreed with her and revealed their ways of cutting out subscriptions to save for a deposit.

One said: ‘She isn’t wrong. I know people who at 21/22 bought out of London, and travelled in then benefited from house prices increasing – think long term, not ease of access and comfort.’

Another put: ‘Kirsty has a point. These are luxuries not necessities.’ One woman added: ‘Team Kirsty. I also made lunch and took it to work, no fancy coffees, limited social life, old-ish mobile.

‘Now I have my own house plus own 2 others rented out. It’s not hard, just need to make some sacrifices.’

Paul Davies put: ‘Kirstie Allsopp is right, if you can’t afford to buy in that area go elsewhere. It’s up to you.’

One woman posted: ‘Kirstie is right. Sorry, but that’s the hard truth. You have to sacrifice frills for substance.’

Another said: ‘Kirstie Allsopp is right. There are moaners and there are ‘doers’, I’d rather focus on the doers rather than the moaners..’ 

Allsopp went on the offensive this morning following the backlash, and challenged people to try to get her cancelled from her TV shows.

She wrote: ‘Anyhow who thinks I have spent the last 22 years pretending to understand the needs of British homebuyers must think me a very good actress indeed.

‘If you don’t like the shows don’t watch them. But I’m beyond caring what the press or social media think about me, life is too short.

‘If you don’t like me do tell @Channel4, though the best way to put an end to me is not to watch the shows.

‘We’re filming the Christmas Show on Friday, maybe by the time it comes out in December it will have 0 viewers. You’ve got 9 months to achieve that. Ready, steady go.’

‘For all those people who bizarrely bang on about my Dad (who is a lovely man but had nothing to do with my career btw) I had a Mum, she was a huge influence on me and she mattered.’

Her father is Charles Henry Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip, a British peer and former general manager of Christie’s New York.

Her mother was Lady Fiona Hindlip, an interior decorator, who died from breast cancer in 2014 aged 66.

Allsopp later added on Twitter: ‘Housing is the most serious issue in the UK today. It impacts everything education, health, relationships, pensions, fertility, the environment, productivity etc etc.’

She also got into a spat with actress Amanda Abbington, who posted: ‘I’ll just leave this here: In 2020, the average first-time buyer deposit in the UK was about £57,300.

‘And: Allsopp is the daughter of Charles Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip, a former chairman of Christie’s. Look. I’m not saying ANYTHING…’

Allsopp hit back: ‘Word to the wise, if you believe what you read in the Murdoch press you’re an idiot.

‘If you attack other women in the public eye you’re even more of an idiot. If you attack a 50 year old woman on the basis of who her Father is you’re a moron.’

In the interview, she recommended first time buyers consider moving north to cheaper areas.

She related it to a couple who found a two-bed maisonette in Newcastle for £160,000 after moving back in with their parents during lockdown.

She said: ‘It is difficult: if you were born down south, and have family down south, my life is down south, but if we want a family house we have to move.

‘If I had any roots further north and I was trying to buy [I’d do it].’

A first-time buyer who gives up a Starbucks latte every weekday, a Netflix subscription, gym membership and two return flights to Europe on EasyJet a year would save about £1,600 annually.

The average deposit for a first-time buyer is £59,000 according to Halifax, which means buyers would have to forgo these for 37 years.

EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Sold! Kirstie Allsopp is all for some facial renovation

Some women in the public eye let themselves age naturally; others pay secret visits to cosmetic surgeons.

Kirstie Allsopp, by contrast, is disarmingly honest.

The wholesome television presenter, who turned 50 last summer, has revealed that she plans to have a facelift.

‘So far I’ve been very lucky, really: I made it to 50 and my face hasn’t collapsed,’ Allsopp tells Saga magazine. ‘But I reckon I’ve only got about another five years or so. I know it’s only a matter of time before I have to think about evasive action.’

Paraphrasing Dylan Thomas’s poem about death, she declares: ‘I will not go gently into the dark night; I will rage against the dying of the light and I will get a facelift.’

Allsopp mocks those famous figures who publicly claim to enjoy the ageing process.

‘I always marvel at those who say: ‘Getting older is brilliant. I’ve never felt better.’

‘Sorry, but getting older means more aches and pains; it means you have to work harder to keep your weight down; it means your hairdresser has to use more dye every time you go to see her.’ The Location, Location, Location co-host (below) has two children and two stepchildren with her property developer boyfriend Ben Andersen, 59. She’s the daughter of former Christie’s chairman, the 6th Lord Hindlip, and doesn’t mind being called posh.

‘Not at all,’ she says. ‘I am posh. What drives me potty is when people assume I’ve only managed to get where I am because my dad’s a baron.

‘Same as everybody else, I’ve had to work bloody hard — nothing to do with my dad.

‘Yes, I have famous friends, but I’ve also spent two decades talking to ordinary working-class and middle-class people in every county. I probably understand the people of this country far better than some MPs.’