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Original poster

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

104 replies

Littlebrownshoes · 11/12/2023 13:30

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?

OP posts:
accusedd · 11/12/2023 14:05

Got on the property ladder more than ten years ago in an area where demand in the last decade has soared. One of the houses on our street was sold for 340k in 2013, 530k in 2016 and is now valued at nearly 700k

Burgundylover · 11/12/2023 14:06

The question should be where do you live, not what do you do. My house is worth around £700k and I am on a low income. I live in one of the cheaper areas of London in a 3 bed semi.
A 5 bed upwards would cost around £800-900k for an extended semi and £1.5-£2M for a detached.

NorthernSpirit · 11/12/2023 14:06

Live in an £850k 3 bed Victorian semi in Surrey, Greater London.

I bought it in 2016 for £525k then spent £125k renovating it.

At the time of buying it - I was 45, a marketing director in the food & drink industry, earning £100k (+ bonus) and had earnings from BTL property of £50k per annum.

Now live in it with my husband.

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Property
Shf · 11/12/2023 14:07

accusedd · 11/12/2023 14:05

Got on the property ladder more than ten years ago in an area where demand in the last decade has soared. One of the houses on our street was sold for 340k in 2013, 530k in 2016 and is now valued at nearly 700k

Exactly the same. Our first house doubled in price and we’d paid over a decade of the mortgage so that helped. We also inherited some money, so managed to bring the mortgage down to only half the cost of the property. It’s still a bit mortgage but it’s worth it for the forever family home. We’re comfortable earners for London workers, but not high earners.

fgswhywouldIdothat · 11/12/2023 14:15

House price inflation, and moving to a cheaper area.

We bought a small house in the late 1990s for circa 150 000. We have renovated and traded up over the years, and moved from the expensive South East to a rural part of North Yorkshire. Our house is now worth about a million. We still have about a third of it mortgaged.

Hoping to pay that off before retirement, and then radically downsize.

HopefulElle · 11/12/2023 14:15

Our household income is circa £180k. Bought out 4 bed house for £425k (we’ve done a lot of work to it) and it’s now worth £650-700k. We’ve been lucky in that we totally refurbished our first house and made money on that, as well as then overpaying during low interest years. We’d downsize from here if anything as being mortgage free is our goal.
I’m a Marketing Operations Director and husband is a Design Engineer.

cristokitty · 11/12/2023 14:21

We make 90k between us and bought a home for 400k this year. It wasn't even close to the top of our budget. You might not get a 700k house but I'm surprised you don't think you can upsize.

skippy67 · 11/12/2023 14:22

Our 4 bed semi was recently valued at £770k. We paid the mortgage off a couple of years ago. We live in SE London and bought it 20+ years ago for £165k. We're both public sector so defo couldn't afford to buy it now. We're also old(ish!)

Headband · 11/12/2023 14:26

My parents house is worth about £750k . They are both retired and bought it 60 years ago for £2k

MintJulia · 11/12/2023 14:39

About £850k. I'm the marketing director for a small tech company.

But I bought it, badly in need of renovation and have spent the last 10 years upgrading windows, insulation, heating, rebuilding an extension, rewiring, new kitchen.

Only a bathroom to go, and the conservatory to demolish.

RallySooney · 11/12/2023 14:40

Inherited the house and decided to live in it. I'm an artist but teach and do workshops. Sold our home in Dublin, so it's a nice position to be in and we know we're extremely lucky.

NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting · 11/12/2023 14:42

We live in London 🙃

Seriously answer, one of us is a teacher and the other works in digital/product development. We bought our first flat at the right time and used inheritance to help us. Flat was worth £400 and we sold for £500k 5 years later.

The house we bought recently was £630k, but needed so much work and we’re currently living in a renovation. Once we have finished and bought it in line with the other houses on the street, it will be worth between £800-£850k, depending on the finishes we choose.

ConsistentlyElectrifiedElves · 11/12/2023 14:48

It very much depends on area and when you got on the property ladder.

My house is worth about £700k, but if I were to look at a similar house in, for example, Falkirk, the same type of house (4 bed, detached, 1 en-suite) costs about £320k per Rightmove.

Therefore to get to a similar "lifestyle" to me, @Littlebrownshoes would only need to increase the mortgage by £60k if they bought in a similarly priced area.

Those living a £700k home lifestyle in some parts of the country are vastly different to others.

To answer the original question though, I'm in finance and DH is an engineer. Between us we earn about £110k a year.

Finishingoff · 11/12/2023 14:52

Ours is worth about 700k and we’re in Yorkshire. However, we are in our 40s and then we bought it 9/10 years ago it was 400k so it has gone up quite a bit. We are in HE and project management.

Crabacus · 11/12/2023 14:55

Our house is probably around £900k now, it was £700k when we bought it. But crucially, we both first bought properties 30 years ago in our twenties! That's been the main factor.

kingofchaos · 11/12/2023 14:57

Ours is worth around 1m.

Live in London.

I work in a school, OH in IT.

GreatGateauxsby · 11/12/2023 14:58

It is so dependent on when you bought.

Our house is 5 bed was bought for £1m a couple of years ago now we'd get £1.1m or £1.2m if we got lucky.

Our neighbours with 4-6 beds so we all on paper have simialr lifestyles.

They are:

  • A social worker and management consultant 40/50s
  • Retired art teacher and his wife who was a SAHM 70s
  • handyman and artist semi retired in early 50s
  • member of UK 80s pop band and yoga teacher semi retired in early 50s/ early 60s
  • 2 retired city lawyers (Oxbridge) 60s
  • me and my DH 30/40s

We probably have a higher annual income than all of them bar the popstar but our mortgage and childcare are shockingly high.
They all have high end BMWs Audi Tesla's and shop in Waitrose etc. we drive a 2nd hand 8 year old car and shop in Aldi

The art teacher has the best/fanciest house and it's worth about 1.5m
🥴🥴🥴🥴

janfebmarchapril · 11/12/2023 14:58

Currently in a 525K house but when we move in a year or 2 it will be to a house worth 900/ 1 million. I'm a SAHM, husband is a specialist dentist. In the SW so house prices are v high here.

Cashew1 · 11/12/2023 15:01

Lawyer and manager of a tech company. £1.5m house in London.

Zampa · 11/12/2023 15:02

It's nothing to do with our jobs.

In 2005, with an inheritance, I bought a flat in zone 2 South London in an "up and coming area". I've benefitted from huge rises in house prices and low interest rates. I bought for £250K and now own property worth about £1.2m.

The UK housing market is batshit and I worry for those not yet on the ladder.

Mushroo · 11/12/2023 15:02

We’re looking at this budget and sadly we don’t have ‘oh we bought years ago when it was £400k and now it’s worth ££££’.

So we’re actually going to be buying a house at about £700k.

  • household income c.£140k
  • bought a flat in 2014 which hasn’t really increased in value at all, but we’ve religiously overpaid the mortgage - paying a ‘mortgage’ of £2500pcm to make sure we can afford payments at that sort of level. Also meant we haven’t had money in rent lost.
  • The above means we have about £200k of equity so our new mortgage will be about £500k
  • Getting the new mortgage over 35 years with a plan to downsize if needed.
  • Coincides with me paying off my student loan which gives us an extra £350pcm.
  • Buffer savings of c.£70k which won’t go into the house deposit.

Basically earn above average between us, and saved religiously for years, starting young (I’m 33 now).

spriots · 11/12/2023 15:06

I think it's usually more about having been given a house deposit or inherited a large lump sum and/or buying/selling at a good time than about income.

TicketyBoo11 · 11/12/2023 15:06

6 Beds, £950k. Part time Admin (min wage) and Accountant. Up North. Got lucky with sale of first house, made £220k and second house increased by £400k over 15 years. We got lucky…right houses, right area at right time..

TinPanSally · 11/12/2023 15:08

Ours is probably worth about that. Bought less than 20 years ago. We took out the biggest mortgage we could possibly afford. We also had huge nursery fees, so cash was really tight for a lot of years. We worked on the assumption that we’d never need to move again, though, so would save money that way longer term.

We both work in engineering.

WaystarRoy · 11/12/2023 15:10

Bought 4 bed house 20years ago for £420K, just sold for £740K. TV Producer on about £150K, no longer need family sized home.