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 )

When I lived in Wandsworth there were houses that had gone from 300k to over a mil, within ten years on the street where I was.
I think it's entirely possible, especially as they would have bought in the time of 5% deposits and interest only mortgages.
And she might have had a better paid job pre kids.

It wouldn't have been their first home, they would probably have bought an inner London flat in the early 90s for peanuts post property crash, made a lot of money on it and traded up, with a bit of family money to help too.

I presumed inheritance.

Although the sitcome was set in Chiswick, the house it was filmed in is on Dempster Road, Wandsworth - near the municipal tip. One on the same street is currently on the market for £1.75m although it is rather nicer inside....

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/56699146?search_identifier=e763a3e1b91bace6a866f0fb27d1e18c

However, I do wonder if the interiors were shot somewhere else as the sitting room is only 15ft wide

As for affordability, it would have been about £400-450k in 2000 so probably a bit beyond their means then without some form of inheritance unless Sue had a City job before having the children

I think it would have been feasible in 2007 if they lived further out or in a less desirable area.

House prices have rocketed compared to salaries since the 90s. The Nationwide publish an affordability ratio or something. Interest rates were higher then though. I agree there's quite a bit of artistic licence though.

There was a thread on MN years ago about this and the conclusion was they both had huge help from their parents and bought the house in the late 90's. There is no other explanation 🤣

We used to live on the Outnumbered road 😄 in a grotty garden flat but yes that house is beautiful. Anywhere else in the country though it’s pretty big standard end terrace. In Wandsworth. So yeah I doubt they’d be able to afford that on those wages but maybe they had a lot of family money or something

*bog standard not big!

@RaskolnikovsGarret

It’s like Friends. They could never have afforded those apartments in real life.

The apartments were under rent control! Mentioned on the last episode

First series was 2007 (yes I just googled it 😳) when Jake is 11. So if they bought it before kids that would be early/mid 90s. I'd say it's possible, although it looks wildly out of place now!

See also Spaced, where two 20-somethings on the dole/one with a PT job in a comic book shop could rent a whole flat in London...

I didn't think it was meant to be a very nice house. Normal terrace to show they're an average family, and a bit manic looking and unkempt in keeping with the character's busy/chaotic lives.

London house prices weren’t crazy in the 90s so may have been affordable to them if they’d bought then.

They could have bought a flat together years earlier!!

My parents had a three bed in London on one wage in the 90s, so not impossible they bought then. It definitely feels very aspirational now though- which just highlights how much things have changed in the last 10-15 years.

Just read the thread 😱 clearly I'm not from the London area. It's a normal working class house- where does everyone live in London who isn't a millionaire then?!

I thought in Friends Monica’s apartment was an illegal rent controlled sublet and Chandler just earned a lot and occasionally had help with the rent from Joey.

I’m sure there was an article about this (maybe daily mail online or similar) about unrealistic houses on tv/films and outnumbered was mentioned, they seemed to conclude that the house and area were unrealistic for the jobs the parents do.

It’s the same for loads of tv shows and films though.

Yes, it’s realistic. I live in a similar house, without the side extension, in zone 2. Outnumbered must be about 16 years old now. My DD was at school with Karen, though a year or two older. Bearing in mind the boys were quite a bit older than Karen, the parents would have bought their house years before we did ours. We bought ours in the late 90s. It cost us 200k. We earn very average wages, much less than a teacher - and wasn’t he head of department? We both had owned a flat previously / mid 90s/ which I assume the Outnumbered parents might have done too. Mine was in zone 1- his was in zone 2 - and they cost 60k each. We earned about 20k each at the time. Very affordable to buy a flat.

@LilacPebbles

I didn't think it was meant to be a very nice house. Normal terrace to show they're an average family, and a bit manic looking and unkempt in keeping with the character's busy/chaotic lives.

And that's why things set in London give their characters implausibly large houses that would cost £1m+ - because if they used what those characters could actually afford most viewers would read it as it impoverished!

The apartments were under rent control! Mentioned on the last episode grin

I’m not sure about Chandler and Joey’s apartment but Monica’s apartment was actually a tenancy in her grandmother’s name, so she was illegally kind of “subletting” (from dead granny?) and yes it was a rent controlled apartment which is mentioned loads of times from the start, not just on the last episode.

The show is really old. I had guides who went to school with the boy, that was around 2003 I think and the show wasn’t brand new then.
About the same time I knew people buying in the Putney / Southfields area for £250k.

I bought my house in London 25 years ago for £135,000. It is now worth a hell of a lot more. When outnumbered was written those houses in South London were going for about £250,000 so not that unrealistic. The salary increases have not risen with the house prices so at the time they probably could have afforded it.

Just for fun, where in central London would a teacher and part time admin assistant with 3 kids live today? And what would their house/flat be like?