If your house is worth £1m+....

[cumlaude]

Where I live, SW London, there are rows upon rows upon rows of streets of average looking terraced houses worth £1m+

I can't imagine everyone living in these houses earns the £200k single income, or two people earning £100k each, to secure such a large mortgage plus a very hefty deposit.

So if you live in a house worth £1m+ how did you afford it? Did you ride the London property wave, inherit some money, or just earn loads?

FWIF I'm a renter in a share house and I'll NEVER be able to afford to buy in the area I currently live.

(Also a prolific name changer on MN in case anyone starts yelling at me that it's my first post!)

Wow that’s beautiful Purpletigers, my kids are young & we will likely have to move for secondary school at which point I will want a bigger house & definitely wider as opposed to taller.

A £1m house in my neck of the woods (Rutland) is like this: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72277696.html

When you say ‘tiny terrace’ though they’ve mostly got infill extensions, lofts, and a couple of bathrooms. The living space is bigger than it looks.
The undeveloped ones go for less. Mine’s worth more than both my neighbours as I’ve had the work done, although the state of one of my neighbours would impact my ability to sell unfortunately.

In london there are many couples earning that.

Really? What do they do? I lived in London until recently (left to be closer to family) and I wasn't earning anywhere near that. Professional graduate job too, and I felt it was a healthy salary. Clearly I was a mug. I know city solicitors earn loads so is it all just them?

Absolutely London terraces are much bigger than they look and most now have lovely open plan kitchen extensions.

www.propertypal.com/the-priory-2-marino-station-road-cultra-holywood/559125
Cheaper than the 1.75 m terrace

Fancy - I know several English families who have moved here in the last 10 years . They come for the cheaper housing and the better schools .

[www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62463570.html]
This is what you’ll get for £1m round my way

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62463570.html

Sorry link didn’t work, hopefully this time

Purpletigers Those house certainly are more than a bit special but, yes, for some people it really is all about the location.

As beautiful as that part of the world clearly is, I personally have no desire to live there.

If you want to live in SW London and your budget is £1m, you will quite likely end up in a terrace. They are not mediocre and one of the reasons they're not mediocre is because they're in SW London...

I understand that’s it’s london and London is a great city . But I stand by my opinion that a mediocre house remains a mediocre house regardless of location .
Bit like my beautiful house in a mediocre location 😉

Purpletigers

Fair enough

Originally it was high salary and enormous mortgage (7 figures).

Now it's from selling a business.

Lots of couples earn in excess of £200k in London (and I imagine many other cities)

I live in a mediocre terrace. (Four bed though) in London, it's worth less than a million, but not far off. I'm happy with it as I'm near the tube, my children's school is a three minute walk away, my partner has an easy commute and the shops are 10 minutes away. There's plenty of us happy here.

High earnings here.
We don't live in London we live in Trafford it's probably one of the most expensive bits of the northwest. We bought our house for a million 11 years ago it's probably worth more now.
But for that we got a 3500 square foot house with five beds and just under half an acre of garden.

As lovely as the £1m houses linked to here are I would imagine that most people buying £1m terraces in London wouldn’t want to live on the locations of the houses. I certainly wouldn’t. What you’re paying for isn’t the pleasure of a terrace - and to be fair they’re generally good sized houses which have been beautifully renovated but you’re paying for city living and an ability to get into central London quickly and cheaply. If that’s what you like then a mansion in the country isn’t going to cut it.

tbf there are a lot of areas in London that now have homes for 1m that I wouldn’t want to live in.

Parental support
2x London properties which increased in value
Good salaries and relatively modest living

I live in a mediocre terrace in sw London which cost almost a million 6 years ago. Both work as lawyers (in house not law firms so ‘lower’ salaries although still very well paid for employees). I like having London on my doorstep. 5 mins to the tube, 3 mins to the common, 90s to small friendly high street where the staff know me and neighbours say hello. 10 mins to state school for kids and 25 min to oxford street. I can come home to see the kids in the school play/sports day and then work from home. If someone gets ill, I can be back in 30 mins.

The house isn’t perfect - it’s a bit rough round the edges but we have a double reception and a ‘party’ kitchen. Plus teeny back garden. Mostly full of bikes these days! But we have four bedrooms a tiny utility and a cellar for all the crap. Honestly it really is location for me. I would o let move if I had a million pounds extra and could buy one of the lively double fronted houses round the corner for no increase in mortgage. Or else leave England altogether once kids are grown (am not English and can only handle living in London - the rest of the country is just not for me although I’ve had lots of lively holidays elsewhere).

I couldn’t earn that I earn elsewhere in the country. So my lofe despite the expensive property and the seemingly huge salary is not much different from someone earning a quarter of the amount outside the SE. I Am okay with that as I’m not in it for the money. I am in it for the overall life it affords me - which includes going to barre class in shoreditch and drinks in North London on Saturday and a 3 hour cycle with my kids around the various local commons today in the sun on my day off.

Rode the wave. Bought 2 bed London flat 25 years ago as new graduates on not much more than minimum wage, did it up, sold at enough to buy a grotty 2 bed London house, did it up, sold and bought a grotty 3 bed semi. Did that one up and extended. Sold at the top of the market 10 years ago. Rented for a year whilst Northern Rock happened and bagged a bargain 3 bed detached. Did up and extended so now have 5 bed detached worth around £1m.

A combination of all three, and a fourth (parents who bought 30+ years ago re-mortgaging their vast equity to release capital ahead of inheritance tax), fifth (parents acting as guarantors for first purchase), sixth (having lodgers/housemates until marriage) and seventh (using buy-to-let to build equity elsewhere).

Our mortgage is bigger than seven figures but during 2010-2014 our house earned enough to buy a 5 bed house outright in my NE hometown. However I have several neighbours who own their places outright. They are the children of the original RTB owners when many of these houses were owned by the council.

Simple. Started in 1987 with a £44k mortgage. Did it up sold for £58k. Bought next one barely habitable, did it up, sold for £125k. Next one, with water running down dining room walls, did it up, sold it for £365k. And so on.

It’s been hard work & I haven’t had nice fingernails in 25 years but I’m financial more secure. I’ll do another one when I retire.

I find it all so depressing.

I can imagine the £1M three bed terraces in SW are beautiful inside. We cannot afford to live in London so I spend 15 to 20 hours commuting each week. I am very envious of my colleagues who have journeys of under an hour and talk about the London festivals they attend during summer.

I feel stuck in London because of family stuff

My small flat would buy something lovely in another part of the country.

I think there’s probably a lot of people stuck for various reasons.

Faith even in an outer zone of London, that’s normal commute time.