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 )

If they got on the housing ladder in the 1980's then it is perfectly possible they could be living in a 500k - 700k+ house on their salaries. I know it is possible because me and DH did it and on salaries that are probably even lower than theirs.

The most unrealistic bit is them having a little girl called Karen.

"This is Tess and Jon. Tess is a part time viola player and Jon runs his own flamingo training business. They're looking for a 3 bed property in Pimlico with a budget of £1.7million."

Glummy

Does anyone remember 2point4 Children? They had a house in Chiswick didn’t they? Always had the same issue with that.

Isnt it just sitcoms? even back in the 90s I always thought the houses seemed huge and much grander than normal life.

Thinking of 2.4 children, my family, time goes by, ab fab they all had fantastic houses that I'd have loved to live in. What was the one that had a couple living together heaven forbid very modern at the time, I think Nicholas Lyndhurst was in it, v 80s they lived in a basement flat. Dh and I lived in similar as our first place. But theirs looked huge and grand. I guess its coz theyee decorated with out the budget if normal people and are big sets to fit the cameras in.

It’s like Friends. They could never have afforded those apartments in real life
Monica inherited her aunt's rent control tenancy so it would have been affordable.

Rent control apartments are gradually disappearing in New York though.

Sorry Grandmother NOT aunt

They bought it in the 1990s as a,wreck before they had kids. Was a different world then. In terms of prices vs salaries.

@GlummyMcGlummerson

See I think Pete and Sue/Hugh Grant in Notting Hill/Bridget Jones are wildly unrealistic when it comes to expensive London homes...then I watch Location Location Location and Kirsty pipes up:

"This is Tess and Jon. Tess is a part time viola player and Jon runs his own flamingo training business. They're looking for a 3 bed property in Pimlico with a budget of £1.7million."

Are they fucking drug dealers or something?!

Ha! It’s like Livingetc and similar home magazines. They show a house tour of a Georgian cotswolds parsonage with formal garden, stream and outbuildings “loving updated into a contemporary family home by Bouffie, who has a part time business selling vintage French lace bobbins” and then four paragraphs later it mentions her hedge-fund-manager husband.

I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility given Sue and Pete's ages and the likelihood of them having bought at a time when prices were lower. I expect they'd have originally bought a flat and either rented that out and used the income to boost their income or they'd have sold it and benefited from the equity. The move to the house would have happened whilst Sue was on her first maternity leave so the mortgage calculations could be based on her full-time salary.

No doubt the house needed rewiring, a new roof and pretty much gutting inside because it had been a repossession. That's how they got the price down but it took them years to get it how they wanted it.

Here in SE London, 20mins walk from the tube and DLR but well connected thanks to four train stations that are closer, there are lots of teacher couples (we're one) who have decent sized, Victorian houses that we couldn't get a mortgage for now. We paid less than £300,000 for our home and it would now sell for something in the region of £850,000 (terrace, 4 bedrooms, big bay windows). Hop over a few streets into a different postcode and the properties are cheaper but with larger gardens. There are plenty of teachers and their partners in homes they bought before the area became more popular.

I can just about convince myself that they bought in the early 90s when both worked full-time, then have struggled to pay the mortgage and running costs since kids. Maybe they had a 100% mortgage or maybe Sue got an inheritance from her Mum (which would explain how Angela was always travelling and never working).

I can’t believe that they never talked about house prices or that they could get a stunning detached house in the country mortgage-free if they sold, especially as they struggled with money. By the end of the series house prices had rocketed and my London based friends were obsessed. Lots of them moved to beautiful country houses.

My Family was set in Chiswick too. I wonder if that’s where lots of media types feel at home?

OMG I'm obviously living in a different world to the London world.

I always thought what a small house it was for 5 of them.

@enjoyingthequiet

OMG I'm obviously living in a different world to the London world.

I always thought what a small house it was for 5 of them.

I’m not near London and live in a 2 bed flat with 4 of us! Their house is palatial to me!

I always wonder that when I watch American movies. What the hell did Kevin McAllisters dad do for a living to have that house and take ALL of his family to Paris over Xmas? Baffled.

I presumed Mr McAllister had a good job.

Going back to London property it does make me wonder who can buy all the houses in the future

Another example ... Life on Mars. Why on a professional salary in Manchester does Sam Tyler live in a bedsit? Makes no sense at all.... every plot hole in the programme is explained by his dream-coma, tbf.

Oh God. I can't bear that show. Not funny and the kids are teeth grindingly irritating.

We used to live (rent) right next to the Spaced house in Tufnell Park, it was gorgeous.

I was a teacher in London in 2007, I couldn't afford to buy with DH. I now live in a 4 bed detached in the SE, still can't afford to buy in London DH's fascist uncle once tried to start a fight with me by claiming that the London weighting for teachers was the root cause of all house price inflation

I think they tried to address the fact that they were on a low-ish combined salary in a (even back then) £1+ house in the first season didn’t they? They had it on the market (quietly dropped that story line I think?) and were talking about cancelling holidays.

As Time Goes By house in Holland Park makes sense because Jean and her late husband (and we never know what he did) probably bought in the 60s.

Bridget Jones made no sense.

My Family - I’m not sure.. he was supposed to be a very average dentist wasn’t he? She had random part time I think at a museum? His salary would have been ok but the house was huge and I assume West London too.. they would also have bought in the 80s though I guess. But your average dentist now would be on i assume £100-150k a year and that’s not really enough for that nice house.

I think they all are plausible but probably on the upper end of plausible. I can’t think off the top of my head if there are any modern day sitcoms set in London with young families?

According to rightmove previous sales on that street is estimate that in 2000 the house cost around £400k bit less if they bought it in terrible condition but doubt it.

Even with £100k help from parents a £300k mortgage for a teacher and part time pa is still huge and not overly achievable. Wages were lower than they are now and they already had 2 kids!

The ONLY way this would have been doable is if they bought it before they had any of the kids in the 90’s, both on full time wages, for approx £300k-£350k ish with a cash chunk from parents/family.

@Pumpertrumper

According to rightmove previous sales on that street is estimate that in 2000 the house cost around £400k bit less if they bought it in terrible condition but doubt it.

Even with £100k help from parents a £300k mortgage for a teacher and part time pa is still huge and not overly achievable. Wages were lower than they are now and they already had 2 kids!

The ONLY way this would have been doable is if they bought it before they had any of the kids in the 90’s, both on full time wages, for approx £300k-£350k ish with a cash chunk from parents/family.

The wouldn’t have bought it in 2000, though. They would have likely bought it in the early-90s.

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

Friends makes it very clear how they afford their apartments. There are several episodes based around it. Monica's is rent controlled. It's mentioned several times throughout the series. Joey and chandlers is a smaller much dingier apartment so wouldn't have the same value, Chandler has a dull but well paid job in the city but still needs a housemate. When he moves in to Monica's he keeps trying to give money to joey as he knows he won't afford the rent. Phoebe lives in a small apartment and had a housemate ( that no one knew about) . Ross lived in a small pokey flat too to start with, he gets to sublet ugly naked guys apartment by spending time naked with him.

This is like a discussion I saw the other day about how the Simpsons could afford their house

Houses in America are generally much larger and cheaper, especially in backwater towns like Springfield with not much going for them. Homers job is actually quite responsible albeit he's terrible at it, so he's probably not badly paid. It's also set as far back as the early 80's when it would be more normal and affordable to have a stay at home mum.

The people I know who have normal jobs and houses like that have them through a family trust. I'm sure they would never mention it.

It's like Supernanny USA where the mum is a SAHM mum and the dad is a postal worker and they live in huge houses with swimming pools.

Of course it was realistic at the time. We bought a period maisonette next to Hampstead Heath with a garden for £285k in 2003.