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 )

Hayes, not Hays.

@Di11y
I think so. I often question how young couples can afford big homes, extensive home improvements and I wonder if they inherited the money- one of neighbours are in their 30's, my age- the mother is stay at home, and the father is part time IT technician- they are always doing something to their beautiful home. If it's not credit, or a promotion, it's likely an inheritance.

Maybe Sue worked in the city before getting pregnant. After Jake was born she needed to reduce her hours but the Fortune 500 company she worked for weren’t keen to let her (pre flexible working laws). So she had to find new work closer to home for ease of childcare. She ended up working for the dreaded Veronica.

They won’t have school holiday childcare to worry about as Pete would be home. Maybe Sue shares the school run with ditzy Jane? Keeps costs down.

My family of five, including a teacher parent, lived in a giant Victorian house in zone 2 in the 90s. They had no inheritance but were and are mortgaged up to the eyeballs. It is just about feasible. Their kids would currently be struggling to live anywhere near their parents though, and are now in house shares in zone 5.

Honestly, this is quite a common set up now. Parents rattling around giant houses near the centre. and kids in shit housing in the burbs.

Motherland has no excuses. Same house nearly two decades later and she is supposed to be a harassed working mum who is somehow having larks with SAHM in the middle of the day

Perfectly feasible. We bought a house in South London very similar to theirs in 2001 on two teacher salaries for £265 K and our first house in 1996 was a big four bedroom Victorian and cost £90 grand. Given that Karen would have been full time before kids perfectly achievable. It wasn’t always so crazily expensive.

The 1 bed flat in a very nice road in Wandsworth that I bought in 1996 for £68k has just sold for £695k (sadly not by me) so I think there were big chunks of south London that were relatively affordable c25 years ago.

I always thought it was set in Clapham but if it is Wandsworth that's just next door. Nowadays these houses would be around £1.5M but I sold a similar but bit smaller house in a much less fashionable part of London a couple of years ago for around half that. If they bought it in the 80s/early 90s, SW London had not become very fashionable so prices were more moderate. They would likely also have bought it as a 2nd or 3rd house, not first time buyers.
I find it's common in TV programmes that people live in houses that most people couldn't afford.

I reckon they bought in the mid 90s, it was a complete doer-upper, she had a well paid job AND they had money from grandparents 'to help'.

I'm over-invested in this fictional family.

I grew up in Chiswick. It’s exactly the kind of house me and all my friends had. Our parents would have bought in the early 80s tho. By the mid 90s when I was late teens the houses were valued at about 600-800k. One friend recently inherited her parents house in Bedford park and got over 2 million.

I bought my first flat in zone 2, 2 dBm beds and a gge for £31,500 in 1982 . They sell now for about £650,000.

Ooh the London TV house I lust after is Hannah and Nathan Stern’s in The Split. Anyone else?

I don't think it was jarring in 2007. My theory (probably from reading a previous Mumsnet thread) is that both Pete and Sue bought their own London flats in the early 90s, possibly benefiting from the recession.

They met, sold both flats for a profit and enough for a deposit on the Outnumbered house (mid/late 90s), before prices started to rocket in the 2000s.

I remember starting work in central London in 1999 in my early 20s and many of the people 10 years older than me were starting families and living in south-west London.

I also remember loads of articles from around that time about "nappy valley" in the Wandsworth area as being a great place to bring up children.

I think it was probably an aspirational area, but not completely unrealistic for people with fairly ordinary jobs to live.

This article about "nappy valleys" is from 2010 and it says that "While Wandsworth and its environs may be the original nappy valley, it is now unaffordable for all but the wealthiest first-time buyers".

So it would have been unrealistic for a Pete and Sue to buy in that area later than 2010, but they might have already been there 10-15 years.

The show is set in Chiswick, West London, and shot on location in Wandsworth. The house used for external shots is in Dempster Road. During the second series, the family receive a final demand for council tax from the fictional "Limebridge Council", sent to the fictional address of 19 Keely Road, London, W4 2CF.

@Escourtie

The show is set in Chiswick, West London, and shot on location in Wandsworth. The house used for external shots is in Dempster Road. During the second series, the family receive a final demand for council tax from the fictional "Limebridge Council", sent to the fictional address of 19 Keely Road, London, W4 2CF.

I love that attention to detail!

Our house in Chiswick was £11k in 1979. It had no plumbing, electricity or floors. It was just a shell. My parents got a £9k grant to do it up and saved the other £2k themselves . My dad was an electrician and him and his mates did it up. I was 18mo and kept in a playpen. Now the houses go for a million plus.

I’m kind of sad I never had that London life. It’s seems so exciting and interesting.

I wondered if the location fees paid for the extensions? Lots of work done since that house started in Outnumbered!

DHs parents house in London was bought for £40k in the mid 90s. If they bought around then I think it would be possible, maybe they had some money from their grandparents or Sue had a high paid job pre-dc.

The programme first aired around 2006 I believe : Jake is 11 in that series so they probably bought the house mid 90s

Exactly the same 'how did they afford that?'comments apply to the characters' houses in Cold Feet. No way could any of them have afforded the houses there in. Karen & David would have been in the best position but they wouldn't have earned enough to buy 'their' house without a substantial deposit.

@LoisWilkersonslastnerve

I think it might be starting to date a bit, it's hard to believe that what was originally supposed to be a show about a struggling normal family is now seen as aspirational. Shows how our standard of living has dropped since it first aired. There's no way a couple with normal jobs could live there now. I still like it though as do my kids, it's really funny.

It is - the younger boy, Ben, and the girl, Karen, are hilarious!

They do talk about having money difficulties though , and then they talk about having a second mortgage . By the last series Sue is working full time again .

There seems to be a genre about struggling people who also have commodious homes..... Better things, the dutchess, so many dramas have homes with the wow factor that are unrealistic. Shows how much we valourise big homes that we are willing to make it look totally out of context so we love the aspirational glamour.

@SkepticalCat I think they met at university (yes I watch this programme most Saturday evenings when they show it on Watch )

@Musmerian

Perfectly feasible. We bought a house in South London very similar to theirs in 2001 on two teacher salaries for £265 K and our first house in 1996 was a big four bedroom Victorian and cost £90 grand. Given that Karen would have been full time before kids perfectly achievable. It wasn’t always so crazily expensive.

Exactly. I live in London, my house is worth around £650,000 and we weren't high earners. I think 'Outnumbered' is very realistic. They don't do anything very extravagant from what I remember.