Where to live on 3m

[ItsPissingDownAgain]

First world question: where would you live in london on a 3m budget. Low income otherwise (!), kids in state primary, we like diversity, zones 1/2, parks, ease of travel (ideally bike but if not then public transport)

@ginnybag I guess what i am trying to say is that a london base is really useful for DC. Its ok if you are wealthy as you can afford to pay DC's rent if they need help. But i am not sure 3 m will be enough to comfortably support DC in London if OP isn't high earning herself due to inflation.

All the posters encouraging the OP to capitalise (forgive the pun) on her £3m are missing the point - she doesn’t want “life changing”, she wants everything to stay the same except the house she lives in.

Like the PP above, I have friends working in low paid or uncertain (actress, artist) occupations who have inherited huge sums just on the back of parents downsizing. One friend is a junior doctor at Imperial so on about £28k (public information) but lives in a Gospel Oak house that would cost £2.5m to buy now, all because his parents bought it in 1973.

@Bananalanacake

Brixton is central. Thamesmead is nice but abit further out. How about Woolwich.

I live very close to one of these places and this must be the funniest thing I've read all week.

Thamesmead and Woolwich are the absolute last places anyone would move to with a large budget. They're where you move if you can't afford to buy anywhere else and still want a London postcode.

@LightTripper thank you so much! I'm definitely adding it to my search. I don't know anyone who lives there but it always looks lovely passing through. Did go to the Christmas thing this year. The ONLY christmas thing we did.

Yes @nordica I thought the same!

OP has asked for somewhere in zone 1-2 with easy cycling. Even the Herne Hill, Dulwich etc suggestions to me are not quite right from a central perspective. If you're spending £3mill why would you want to be somewhere not on the tube?

Hammersmith - great schools, lovely park at Ravenscourt Park, zone 2.
Hammersmith tube - Piccadilly Line/District line
Ravenscourt Park tub - District line
Goldhawk Road tube (near-ish) - Hammersmith & City line
Shepherds Bush tube (do-able at a stretch) - Central line

If you’re set on CSG, you need to be in catchment, @ItsPissingDownAgain

Use that radius as your Rightmove search criteria. Surely that was obvious? Or did you just want to share news of the lottery win you can’t tell all your friends about? .

She wants to be in zone 1 or 2. I am not sure all the suggestions on the thread are there.

Here is one in Clerkenwell for £3m near Farringdon tube www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/100978724#/

Hackney sounds like it would suit - loads of good state schools, mostly great communities and easy access to city, etc. Whoever said De Beauvoir's worth listening to, but Stoke Newington (not so good for transport, but great community) or around London Fields too. Be careful about school catchments though.

@Loopyloututu2

It is this sort of comment that really does make people sound provincial

And there you go - anyone who doesn’t live in London is provincial! Il take it thanks 😂😂😂

Well, @Loopyloututu2 that isn't what I said.

I said that people who make comments about not being able to go to the shop without getting stabbed and your kids can't make neighbourhood friends sound provincial, because those people are sucking up sensationalist headlines without knowing anything about how people ACTUALLY live.

The sort of comment makes people sound provincial.

This is nice too - Westminster £3m 5 beds www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/81637316#/

This is a joke right?

I'm baffled by this. OP you sound lovely and down to earth but apparently have a £3m budget for a home. Round here (Manchester) that's footballers wives mans with pool in lovely area money. So crazy that it's you trading up from one small terrace to another.

I don't see how the UK can continue on like this. How is salary inflation possibly going to keep up with house prices.

So crazy that it's you trading up from one small terrace to another.

Even in the most prime of primary London, you’re not getting a small terrace for £3m
You’re probably getting 1500-3000 sq ft
1500 sq ft is bigger than most new build 4 bed detached houses
3000 sq ft is getting towards your footballer mansions, just without the pools and 8 car garage
You make it seem like she is going to end up in a northern back to back!

St. John's wood

I would go for Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Pimlico or Kennington on that budget.

@ZenNudist my inheritance is much larger than OP's even though I don't earn much (hopefully that would change as I am in my 20s). I also don't need to pay any inheritance tax on it as my home country doesn't have inheritance tax. My country also went from gdp per capital of $400 in 1960 (third world country) to $65,000 in 2020 and house prices also followed that trend. So my late grandfather who was a poor teacher in 1960 did well out of it and my father also invested in property before the price boom

Thats the thing- property prices in many areas in london have nothing to do with salaries. It has to do with wealth which is often not even earned in the UK! Also the UK is the 6th richest country in the world and has an established upper middle class who would also pass down their money to their children even if their children don't have the same kind of jobs as their parents.

The truth is you are no longer competing with british people when you buy property, you are competing with the global middle class and many of these countries have far more opportunities to make money and lower taxes. The Chinese Middle class numbers 700 million and in cities like beijing and shanghai, the house prices make london look cheap. So if a young chinese person on 30k works in london and then his grandpa dies, he could well have a nice budget of a million dollars to play with. Plus he is an only child so is the sole beneficiary of 4 grandparents.

Bonkers. I wouldnt spunk £3m on a house in London with four times that income

Oh I am loving this for property porn.

Can we make it a rule that if people are going to try and persuade op to move to Manchester/outer Hebrides etc can they at least pony up the right move links to back them up?

I’ve never looked at 3m properties before but this post got me curious what I could get for 3m in my area
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/78354123#/

I can’t lie OP I wish I had your problems 😂😂

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

If the OP had won the money in the lottery for example, there's no way you would blow the lot on a house and then be stuck in it on a family income of 35k a year, which by London standards is really quite low. You'd invest at least half if not more and buy somewhere for about £1m. Even in central London that amount would buy you a family home!

If it's inherited wealth, then ditto - why would you tie up a massive inheritance in an expensive property when your family income doesn't match up?

I'm also not sure how someone like the OP's DH who is apparently ideologically against private schools can balance that with being happy to blow 3m on a house...or the concept of inherited wealth full stop...

I suspect this is all a fantasy, if not the OP is seriously deluded and I cannot see the sense of putting all your eggs in one basket in this way. It's not just the running costs, it's the repairs; for example I live in a house in quite a nice suburban area on the outskirts of London. Tradesmen costs are 3-4 times per day what a friend of mine in the NW pays. The closer you get to Central London the higher the costs. So every small job you have to get done - replacing a light fitting, repairs to the roof, will cost £££s because of the area; because everyone else in that area either has an income of 1m a year or close to it, or because they are sitting on substantial residual wealth. All homes require annual upkeep and maintenance, that cost is reflective of the size/ age of the building but also the area it is located because that will affect the labour cost.

I normally scoff a bit at all the mumsnet posters who seem to earn 100k+ combined etc.... but £35k combined income in London is really very low (for London that is). We live in London, and I earn more than that just myself, and we are not well off. I can't imagine OP lives in Zone 1/2 currently.

The only logical approach is to invest 2m in property (rentals, HMO etc) and live off the income. Or just invest. Even 2.5% interest would give you £40k profit a year, which is more than you earn now. And then the money isn't going anywhere.

I second PPs idea about buying flats for your children (either now, or in the future). Seems very unfair to raise children in a 3mil house in central, and then they won't even be able to afford a one bed flat out in zone 4 by themselves when they're older. I can imagine they'd be resentful.

Also I second Blackheath as a good suggestion.

@Bananalanacake Brixton is central. Thamesmead is nice but abit further out. How about Woolwich.

This must be sarcasm? Thamesmead is the polar opposite of nice, and there's no houses for sale above £400k there. Woolwich is coming up in the world, sure, but still no houses at even the 1 million mark.

Thamesmead

[quote Xenia]She wants to be in zone 1 or 2. I am not sure all the suggestions on the thread are there.

Here is one in Clerkenwell for £3m near Farringdon tube www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/100978724#/[/quote]
Right next to a pub... (I used to live a few doors down). While it is a quiet street during the weekends as the pub is closed, in usual times, it is heaving during the week, particularly at night. Not the quietest place to live, or for children to live.

OP, if you really aren't too sure which part of London you would like to move to, hire a house finder to do the legwork for you and present you with a myriad of options. They'll take schools into consideration and work with various agents too. A far saner way to house hunt if you don't know what or where you want.

Trying to be helpful, you get more bang for your buck in these places.

I like Woolwich as it's so close to London City Airport on the DLR.