If you own a home £700k +, what do you do?

[Littlebrownshoes]

Sheer noseyness is all this is!

We live in a 'nice area' - somewhere that homes typically sell 15 to 20% over the home report as standard. Between myself and my partner, we earn a decent amount, not well off or middle class by any means but bring in slightly over 100k between us.

Our home is worth 260k approx and although we would like something bigger, I don't see how we could afford anything else, any time soon.

It gets me thinking regularly, if we would struggle to buy a home even 50k more expensive, what kind of money must be ploughed in to these massive homes you see? I'm talking 5+ bedrooms and upward of 700k types.

If you live in a home like this, what is your household income and what type of job(s) do you have, if you don't mind sharing?

Ours is worth about 8-850. We are retired. Bought for around 450 about 15 years ago when we both worked in the city (of London) in law and banking.

Where I live £700k would get you a 2/3 bed flat! Certainly not a 5 bed house!

It depends when you bought it. But if you are both earning 100k between you why can’t you get a bigger mortgage?

We bought ours for just under £800k. We are both senior leaders in education, but the bulk of our ability to buy the house came from very generous inheritance. Previously we were in a 2 bed terrace and moving to a 3 bed where we live without inheritance would have stretched us.

A normal university admin job - academic pay scale. Where we live, a 4 bed terrace (modernised and extended) just went for 800 k. We live in a semi, not extended, 3 beds, modernised sympathetically. We’ve owned it since it was worth 550 k - probs worth 700 k plus now

Our house is worth approx 750k, we bought it this year- it's nothing impressive, a 3 bed semi in a nice cul de sac in a nice area.
Were early 30s, have good jobs but nothing out the ordinary, we just live in a fairly expensive area with good links to London. I often dream about moving further out when the kids are older and having a bigger, dream home but to me being near family and friends is worth all the ££ in the world. I'd be miserable if I was isolated

We are in same boat as you, earn together just over £100k and can't get the mortgage we need for our growing family (we are two adults and two teenagers) -or the houses we can afford aren't worth it imo. We are in zone 5 or 6 in west london and not looking to moving away from this area atm although I know we could probably get more bang for our buck if we considered moving further out. Currently renting out our two bed flat and renting a 3 bed closer to our kids' secondary school. We came back from abroad a few years ago hoping to be able to finally buy and settle into our 'dream home'. Makes me laugh now on how naive we were.

Our household income is similar to yours. We took out a mortgage for 4.5x our salaries, we were gifted some money and we had some equity built up from previous house purchase and house prices increasing.

Ours is worth £750K and we just bought it. Little terraced house in a nice bit of (outer) SW London, nothing swanky! I’m a charity director and DH is an accountant. Combined income is circa £230K. We’re on our 30’s.

our 4 bed semi is 700k plus not a 5 bed which is 7 figures where we are

i imagine sadly though the answer is we bought 13 years ago for 420k having sold our 2 bed we owned for 5 years for with 40k equity. Benefitted from low interest rates and signed on a good 10 year rate to see us through to the end of our mortgage

Hospital consultant. Worth £700000-725000. And it wasn’t worth that much when I bought it 8 years ago but the prices in my (Yorkshire) town have spiralled. It’s our 4th house and we’d gradually worked up to buying a £450000 house making £50-80 000 with every move.

In theory DH and I could buy a £700k house (the going rate for a 4 bed in nice school catchment where we live). Our current 4 bed we bought for £350k is now worth about £475k. That would give us a deposit of around £250k. Combined income £160k. Banks would lend us £450k if we wanted a mortgage that size. We don't though...

We bought a semi detached Victorian house at £490k in 2015. Now worth about £745k based on our neighbours selling for that last year.

Income variable but about £250-350k depending on bonuses and investment income etc.

We live in a small town in Scotland (sounds like you're also in Scotland OP).

Bought 10 years ago for £490k when DH was on 120k and I was on about 34k. Home Counties commuter town. It’s now worth about £750k. 4 bed semi detached house.

Its an expensive area to live in.

I should think it is less.about what people currently earn and more about the increase in value of their current property.

Someone I know is buying an 850k 5 bed house, he is a consultant surgeon and she works part time as an admin clerk. But they bought their current house about 9 years ago for about 180 and it is now worth around 650 so with a hefty inheritance they have been able to afford to top up without massive increasing their mortgage.

Have you only just bought OP? Are you young? My house was valued at 230k and I'm a single parent earning 17k with top up benefits

We're currently looking to buy a house for 700K+. We're both doctors and my husband does a lot of extra work. We're not in a super expensive area but 700K probably wouldn't buy you a 5 bedroom home here.

Ours apparently worth £750k but suspect less and that it’s Zoopla inflation! Home Counties.

Both in the city doing mid-level senior communications roles, household income about 150kish depending on bonuses given the year.

We started with an absolute dive of a flat in the cheapest part of London in 2016. Bought with a £25k deposit (inheritance). Did it up while living in it, sold at profit, bought a house. Got very lucky with house price madness 2020-2022 and then moved to our current place.

We’ve got about £300k equity in it and, at a very rough guess, that’s £100k of inheritances over the years, £100k of what we’ve paid off and £100k of house prices inflating.

We live in a rural part of the Midlands where, pre-Covid, you could still pick up a lovely 4-bed period property for well under £500k - which we did. Since then, prices have gone up by at least 50% - so between those increases, plus some development of outbuildings funded by savings, it's worth £900k+ now. DH is a consultant and I'm a writer.

Ours is a small 3 bed terrace, bought for 465k 6 years ago, now worth ~700k. We did a lot of work to it so it's basically doubled in size and we live in a v expensive city with limited housing where prices just keep going up. Dh works in sales and had quite a large deposit saved up + a bit of parental help to buy it, I'm currently a SAHM.

When we sell we'll be looking for something cheaper as we don't want a massive mortgage hanging over us for the next 20 years.

My parents house is worth that. Bought 40+ years ago when houses were more affordable and they extended it a few times went from 3 bed one bath to 5 bed 3 baths

We are both lawyers based in London. Most of the people I know in this area with the sort of home you describe are couples where both are in fairly senior professional roles.

We bought 10 years ago and house price has gone up significantly £600k to over £1m. We bought with a 10% deposit and the rest mortgage. At the time DH was earning around £110k so he was able to get a mortgage for the remaining balance.

As for me I bought 24 years ago and while not in 700k territory the value of the flat has almost quadrupled. So a lot of people in 700k+ properties will not have bought at that price or anywhere near it.

We earn similar to you OP and our house is worth around 700k. Don't understand how you can't get a bigger mortgage?

House 700k DH earns 40k and I don’t work. Definitely no high flying careers between us. We’ve done it by moving up the property ladder. Living like hermits most of the time. The bit at the end is nice though. We buy the worst house on the best street and make it the best house. . We’ve maxed our credit cards more times than I can remember but always paid them off with the profit when we move. It’s been bloody hard work but we love doing it.
DH jokes that it’s a pity we don’t match our houses- we look like nobody owns us half the time.