Outnumbered - is the lifestyle realistic?

[Mrsemcgregor]

So I’ve been watching Outnumbered on Netflix with my DS (he loves it!) and I’m wondering if the lifestyle they have is achievable in London considering their jobs?

Pete is a teacher in a secondary school and is yet to achieve head of department and Sue is part time in what I assume is an admin/PA type role. I’m hypothesising that their joint income is likely to be around £60k? Maybe £70k. Where I live they would be lucky to be on £50k but I’m adding extra for London wages.

The house they live in is huge! I am not sure where in London it’s meant to be, but their is a scene where Pete mentions problems on the tube so I assume they are within the underground network. It’s 3 stories and at least 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms, a massive kitchen dining area, a garden and a nice sized lounge with a big bay window. Even where I live that would set you back close to £500,000. That house must cost a fortune in London?

Pete’s mum and dad are still alive as is Sue’s dad so I’m assuming no large inheritance, and they mention a mortgage so they haven’t inherited the house.

Can any London mumsnetters confirm or deny that this is realistic?

(I know I have far too much time on my hands and have given this way too much thought )

The house was recently up for sale for £1.8m www.homesandproperty.co.uk/luxury/celebrity-homes/bbc-outnumbered-house-for-sale-wandsworth-a139541.html

I always think the same watching EastEnders

Wow@fizzyp0p £1.8m -no way could the Brockmans afford that, even if they bought it 15 -20 years ago.
Ridiculous prices as these kind of houses should be within reach of families with ordinary jobs.
On another note the Home Alone film always gets me wondering how the parents can afford that massive house and take all their kids to Paris for Christmas!
Buts then TV/Film -not real life and I love both outnumbered and Home Alone

How shit is it though that the teeny tiny crammed house on Outnumbered is too aspirational now?

@MrsKoala

Brackenbury village is a little area in Hammersmith. I worked in an office there for over a year when I graduated (on £13k a year in 2003). There are some lovely restaurants there which we had work do’s at. At the time I rented a 2 bed house in Brentford with 3 others for £1250 per month then rented a 1 bed flat in South Ealing with exH for £850 a month.

There is also a housing development in Ruislip with the same name built on the American base hence my earlier comment😊

If you don't know their income then its hard to say. At the mkment, you're just guessing...
My husband works in London, but the same job he does is advertised 50% less pay elsewhere in the country. So, raising someone's pay by 10,000 might be a bit low
Also, most people don't live in London, we live on the edge. The majority of folk commute everyday to work and use the underground... People as far as 20 and 30miles outside London. We live in Essex, but we are a 20min train ride to Tower of London and a hop on the underground to work. The average house prices where I live are 400,000 upwards. You won't get anything less than 230,000 or unless it's a 1 bedroom tiny studio room.
But have you considered that maybe they had grandparents, aunts etc who left them money. They could have had inheritance, and used it as a deposit to get a smaller mortgage. Afraid, this is the norm anyway. Renting is by far alot more expensive than a mortgage down here

Around 2006 a house like that would have cost £500k in South west London.

Our house was used in a film as the home of a young lawyer - not any more - you'd need to be on at least a partner's salary. I couldn't afford to buy here now. Pretty grim for the younger generation.

@Oxyiz

How shit is it though that the teeny tiny crammed house on Outnumbered is too aspirational now?

It is sad that we all see it as something incredibly special and out of reach to ordinary people. It's a nice house but it's objectively quite ordinary.

It's like those huge houses the people on American reality shows have...ordinary people in absolutely huge, beautiful homes which here in the UK, only millionaires would be able to afford such spacious houses. Always makes me jealous when I compare it to what we can afford in the UK.

Maybe inherited it somehow but they couldn’t realistically afford it purely on their salaries, no.

Yes, but I assumed as the poster mentioned wanting to live in Chiswick and ended up in Shey Boo that they meant the one in Hammersmith. Apols if they meant the one in Ruislip - the one in Hammersmith is still very nice tho. Or was last time I was in that neck of the woods.

The thing about all these ‘nice’ places like Chiswick, Hammersmith, etc. They still have an edgy side. I’ve still never walked round Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush without some kind of street hassle or seeing a fight or something. And Bedford park in Chiswick is right near Emlyn estate which was rough as rats when I grew up. I lived in between Chiswick Park and Turnham Green tube and it was really near Acton (which I think is proper horrible in places) there were always fights going on. Last time I drove through Acton High Street a bloke was laying completely across the pavement on his back drinking a pint at 9am on a weekday. The areas have nice houses but they still have an edge which I just don’t think people from outside London get - I certainly don’t think
people from nice places outside London would think this was okay. When I lived in Sevenoaks the kind of stuff I saw in Chiswick/Hammersmith etc would just never happen.

That's the thing isn't it. You can gentrify an area but there are still the dodgy parts that don't disappear.

My three kids love outnumbered too. It is potentially realistic. We have a five bed house in zone three. It is an unfashionable bit of zone three though and two of the bedrooms are in the loft so when we bought six years ago it was a three bed and cost £450k though worth about £700k now. Combined income of around 90k and we made money on our last house which we bought for £250k pre kids and sold for £400k when we had two kids.

Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong - I prefer places a bit more spicy. It’s the main reason we left Sevenoaks (and Vancouver), it just all seemed so unreal and sanitised. People look at me like I’m mad when I say I left places because they were ‘too nice’. There’s only so many tweed hats and leather glove shops you can tolerate!

I would learn to spell correctly, if I were you and use correct grammar ...

@Oxyiz

How shit is it though that the teeny tiny crammed house on Outnumbered is too aspirational now?

It’s not a teeny house. Houses like that are typical London housing. Double reception room, eat in kitchen, Four/five bedrooms. And the bedrooms are large. And affordable if bought in the early-mid 90s, which is when the outnumbered parents would have bought it. Well under 200k. Both probably owned a flat each before, which would have helped.

Ha ha, well not realistic in my world (I am on their salary and can just about afford to rent a one bed flat in South West London) but if they were sensible with money and got on the property ladder early, then it could be realistic I guess!

This really sad but just been talking to DH about this and had a snoop on sold house prices right move and found this which looks to be similar/identical house
Dempster Road, London, Greater London SW18 1AT
Sale Date Property Price Paid Source
08 Apr 2010 Terraced, Freehold £910,000 Land Registry
23 May 2006 Terraced, Freehold £715,000 Land Registry
03 May 1996 Terraced, Freehold £250,000 Land Registry
20 Mar 1995 Terraced, Freehold £110,000
So if they bought in 1995 then its feasible but probably not affordable any later than that unless they had equity from previous house sale. Wish I'd bought a house in London in mid nineties now!

@formerbabe I remember doing a tour of the houses in Hollywood & even those were bloody bargains with their 7000sq ft, swimming pools etc compared to the equivalent in London.

I remember my parents friends sold a house in the early 00s for 1m in Wimbledon village which seemed ridiculous. It sold again a few yrs ago for 7m!!

That's the thing isn't it. You can gentrify an area but there are still the dodgy parts that don't disappear.
That’s just the nature of inner London. Even the most established/naicest of areas are never more that a short walk from somewhere dodgier.

It's part of the charm imo

It wouldn’t be possible solo! But that’s the case for lots of people.

I only have a big ish house because both our parents are generous/able to help, and my Husband is older, he got on the property ladder in north London in his 20s.

If we were going it alone, we would be in such a small house. I don’t know how people do it!

I just looked at the particulars. It’s really not a teeny house. Not seen the show but just looked at the floor plans and it’s got about a 6 x 17m footprint, it’s on 3 floors & has a cellar, garage and garden. London is crazily expensive though. A similar 5/6 bed Terrance near us (north east) by the coast and metro with a bit of a smaller garden would cost about 300-350k

It’s actually depressing that a family with a teacher dad a part time admin mum, with three kids couldn’t afford a terrace house like this
Things have got worse over the last 20 years !

This is why I appreciate Waffle the wonder dog. Assuming it is set somewhere in reasonably central London, it has a realistic house for the wages of the parents!