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 )

@7Days

So who lives in all those houses now? Are there whole neighbourhoods in London full of empty nesters in their 60's?

Yes. There are some lovely roads near me with nice terraces and as far as I can tell there are three types of people who live there: 1.Older couples who bought along time ago, with enormous mostly empty homes.

1. Thirty or forty something couples who are fund managers, senior partners of law firms etc.
2. Celebrities

Central London private schools often offer accommodation. Some can end up with a rather grand property, despite a relatively low income. The parents of a friend of DS, had their own property outside of London ready for retirement. So school fees paid, a nice central London home, and a place in the country for the long holidays.

That's interesting wallyb
Might be a glimmer of hope to all the non banker/slebs out there

There was a really interesting programme about Caledonian Road (?) in London on the BBC a few years ago. It went into all the social history and how the big houses went from being for the upper middle classes/upper class originally, then became run down and undesirable, then in time gentrified again. Some houses had ended up as squats, some converted into flats, people had moved out into high rises in the 60s and been sold the dream, others stayed put into old age and ended up with their house worth a hell of a lot of money. As a result there's a real mix of people living across different backgrounds living there. (Sorry not really related but I thought it was fascinating!)

@LilacPebbles our street is like that (not too from Cally Road either). Big Victorian terraces, built to be grand family homes, then at one point the area became undesirable and 20 years or so ago was the main drag of the local red light district. At that point the council bought some of the houses to house tenants. Now it’s a mix of the remaining council tenants, families and young couples owning or renting flats that lots of the houses were converted in to (including us) and a some complete houses owned by very wealthy folk (one sold for £1.7 million recently). Fairly normal for London!

*not too far from Cally Road, that should say.

Absolutely not! They'd need to both be in very high paying positions and even then would probably be in a pretty terrace/semi at best and at the end of a tube line.

@LilacPebbles my Dad grew up on a road like that. In fact it was in a house on this road they private rented (from a guy who owned almost the whole street) and had 2 or 3 families living in them. Some people even sublet rooms to other family members - My dad had cousins and an aunt and uncle in a room on his family’s floor when times were tough. They had a tin bath in the kitchen area and an outside loo (in the 60s). Some families were very pleased to be moved by the council to a new estate in Croydon but my Nan wouldn’t go apparently. Now the houses sell for over a million. I wonder who lives in them all now.

@LilacPebbles

There was a really interesting programme about Caledonian Road (?) in London on the BBC a few years ago. It went into all the social history and how the big houses went from being for the upper middle classes/upper class originally, then became run down and undesirable, then in time gentrified again. Some houses had ended up as squats, some converted into flats, people had moved out into high rises in the 60s and been sold the dream, others stayed put into old age and ended up with their house worth a hell of a lot of money. As a result there's a real mix of people living across different backgrounds living there. (Sorry not really related but I thought it was fascinating!)

Fascinating programme

Anyone else listen to Old Harrys Game? Its a radio programme written by Andy Hamilton.

There is a Xmas episode where a group of people from an office party break into the zoo and one of the guys dies, ending up in hell. In an Outnumbered episode it is very very briefly referenced by Pete, putting them both in the same universe, which I fucking love!

I live in a house like this in Wandsworth.

I do have neighbours who are teachers, but they bought in the 1970s and 1980s. We moved in 2010 and our house was £850k then. In our community we tend to have professional but not stellar paid jobs - doctors, lawyers, publishing, marketing types. This is considered a middle-middle class area, whereas Chiswick, Parsons Green, Brook Green would be where bankers and higher paid professionals would be buying now. Bankers/financiers buying here tend to be self-made ie haven’t received money from their family by way of inheritance or wealth transfer. This is how we and most of our friends (mid 40s) own family houses in London despite having relatively ordinary jobs.

Parents hailing from London and places like Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh bought family houses in places then considered suburban and dreary - Blackheath, Highgate, Wimbledon, Chiswick, Summertown. That house probably cost £30k then, whereas a house in South Kensington would have been £60k.

By 2000, there’s every chance their suburban house was worth £2m because the area had become so gentrified.

The parents then downsize to a smaller £1m house in the same area, or remortgage, and hand a chunk to each of the children who buy £300k flats in places like Battersea and Hammersmith.

By 2020, that 300k flat is worth £750k and your kids have the good sense to marry someone of the same background, so combined wealth of £1.5m plus five times combined salary means you can afford a house.

The real winners in our street are the former council tenants who exercised the right to buy and were able to buy large period houses for a fraction of their market value in the 1980s and 1990s. We bought our house from one of them - he’d paid £5k for it.

No they couldn't afford that house in London.

DH and I are both teachers. No way could we afford that house!

Yes, the only teachers I know in our area are married to much higher earners - barristers, accountants, dentists.

@2020hindsight why is the bigger winner in your examples the council house owner who did RTB?

Well, because the rest of us are still paying mortgages?

It would be fine if it wasn’t set in London. Why do all these shows have to be set in London. Why can’t the my just be in a normal naive surburb of a normal town. Then I could get on board. I just can’t relate to family life in London.

@2020hindsight

But you mentioned parents who paid 30k for a suburban house which then could be worth 2m. How is that not winning? They could easily downsize & be mortgage free.

You also mentioned children of these parents then been gifted 100s of thousands of pounds & making similar in equity. Again how is that not winning? They don't have to have a mortgage to buy a 1.5m plus house.

It comes across like the council tenant was somehow less deserving?

Sorry that should say they don't have to buy a 1.5m plus house & require a mortgage just buy a cheaper property with the equity & inheritance.

All those debts have just been paid forwards though? Downsizing through a remortgage just releases money for the next generation, also mortgaged.

Only the RTB folk have made capital gains. My parents are still paying a mortgage and ours is massive although I’m not complaining.

@monkeytennis97

No they couldn't afford that house in London.

DH and I are both teachers. No way could we afford that house!

It cost approx 110k. Could you afford it?

Well, we have two kids. We wanted each of them to have a bedroom. I’m not sure why you think we should set our sights lower?

Where did I say you should set your sights lower? You were the one saying the lack of mortgage was the determining factor. The size of your mortgage is a choice.

Remortgaging etc is a choice though. The parents could sell the 2m house that cost 30k & not remortgage or give inheritance.

I don’t think you know London very well if you think a large mortgage is a “choice”. Everyone is mortgaged to the hilt.

So the 30k house that sells for 2m hasn't gained anything?

The 300k flat that sells for 750k hasn't gained anything?

Just because you use the gain to finance a new property with a bigger mortgage or fund your children's one doesn't mean you haven't gained.

Born & raised in SW London so I think I know it well. I certainly know I can buy a 3 bed in naice areas for less then 1.5m, I have.