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?

Does the pop star host 80s parties? 😍 Is he a heart throb?

Our house is worth about £900k. We bought in 2001 before the crazy rises in costs. Then bought smart in a very desirable area, rubbish house but saved and remortgaged to do a huge refurbishment. Doubtful we'd pay off the mortgage, but our plan is to downsize anyway (currently 5 beds, 4 bath) in a slightly cheaper area too, once kids finish school/uni etc and we retire.
I wouldn't afford it these days if just starting out!

Our house is in the £800ks. I’m a university lecturer and dh is a director of a small company he built that makes a bespoke household item (think posh kitchen item). I’m not actually sure what our household income is, because Dh doesn’t have a regular salary that’s the same every month, but it would be between £100-150k a year combined.

We were able to buy our house as had some inheritance and about £150k in savings (we saved for over a decade while renting), so actually mortgage is less than what our old rental is renting for. 🙈 I can’t even imagine what we’d be paying in rent now. There are 2-3 bedrooms going for £2500 a month around here, which is ridiculous.

Me - teacher but currently on a career break with three small children.
OH - Lawyer

We both had substantial inheritances.

Bought our house 2 years ago for £950,000 - needs a lot of building work but hope it will increase in value.

Paid almost 650 in cash from sales of properties we've renovated and sold over the last ten years or so. Neither have high salary jobs.

Our house is worth £1.2m although most of that is mortgage.

I am a head of department in an insurance business and earn £120k a year including bonus. My DH is self employed and earns roughly the same.

Our house is with about £1.2 million. Around here that buys a sizeable, decent family home but hardly a mansion. Ours’ is a five bedroom farmhouse, with a nice garden and paddock on the edge of a large, popular village.

I’m a psychologist. DH is a lawyer. We are mid forties and have now paid the mortgage off after some nice bonuses. Bought in the popular way about here- flat in London (kept on to rent out), family home out of London (and a few hairy years of huge mortgage and childcare costs), upsize to the big house after a few juicy bonuses (not mine!)

We’ve just bought a London flat to stay over in, and with a view to kids eventually wanting somewhere in London (in our old tenement block- which made us very happy.)

DH junior fee earners are mostly doing the same as we did too. It’s a well trodden path.

We are just about to complete on a £850k house with no mortgage .

We have worked our way home the ladder but DH is a pretty high earner ( 200k ish ) ..

We took out an endowment when we were 23 and it paid off the mortgage on our current house but we had worked our way up via 4 houses doing work on all of them too..

We are very lucky to have made a lot on each house partly due the market .

I work part time because I like it socially .

My house is worth about 5-550 and ex H's worth about 750. We split 12 years ago having sold a house for 670. I took 250, he took 250 and mortgage was cleared. We started in 1994 at 150 townhouse in London and traded to 265/sold 350, bought 410/sold 670.

I bought alone at 225, sold 435, bought 300 and extended at cost of 150, now worth 5-550.
Normal middle manager job and admin job.

3 bed semi in London 675k senior management.

For those asking why we cant afford more .. we've owned property for 9 years. Our first home we had 50k of equity but that was our deposit + 16% extra over HI to win at closing. This was 2 years ago. Home is valued only 10k more than what we paid for it but I'd expect it to go over as most do in the area.

Problem is, to stay in this area it would cost us approx 100k more for an extra bedroom. Then we would need extra £££ over and above to pay market rate offers over. It's not really a mortgage affordability issue, even though interest rates currently make me 🤢. But i suppose if we earned more we'd save more for bigger deposit.

I also don't want to live to pay a mortgage.

meant to say retired now.

Combined income about £100k
but although we spend money on bricks and mortar we not very “spendy” at all
and overpay the mortgage lots.
Very average car and holidays.

One bed flat here! Although I think it's actually gone down in value (central london. the market is odd).

I worked my way up the property ladder and inherited some money which augmented the equity I'd accrued.

Live in a house that's 1million +
DH earns 70k, me 20k.
We bought a house for 245000 in 2013, renovated and sold for 375 in 2016.
Bought house #2 for 425 and sold for 525 after some small changes in 2019.
Paid 625 for this house.
Spent 220k on renovation (90k shares and 90k remortgage)
House now worth at least 1 million. Mortgage is 430,000 and 21 years left so we pay 1800 a month.

1000 mort, insurances 200, cars 500, CT 220, CC 100, Gas and elec 250, nursery 1150, fuel, food, savings etc. I also admit I'm not exactly frugal with spending day to day and we could save more, though not a huge amount.

It’s your nursery costs - but they don’t last forever. Most people don’t move to the ‘big’ house until that’s over. I used to spend 1k a month on childcare 6 years ago, 6 years on and it’s £100. It’s a big saving.

Back in 1995, as 20-somethings with a new baby, we paid £120,000 for a run-down but perfectly habitable 5-bedroom house in a scruffy part of Islington, with a mortgage based on my dh's salary as a newly-qualified teacher. I was on maternity leave, so they wouldn't take my salary into account.

We earned more from owning that house than from both of us working (in public-sector jobs, admittedly) for the following 20 years.

This thread makes me feel pretty depressed. We bought a 3 bedroomed Victorian terraced house for around £80k in 2000. It's in a lovely ruralist town 30 mins drive from a major city. Worth about £250k now.

We can't move as everything has risen exponentially in price so no better off really. I'd love a 3 bedroomed house with a garden but where we are it's not affordable. Am too old for a remortgage.

😅😅😅
He DOES love to host parties but not 80s themed - we are normally invited as well.
i would describe him as a heartthrob but he is THE NICEST man… Same cannot be said of the bands lead singer 😑

Sports journalist and office admin in a growing company.

Ours is around the £750K mark, 5 bed, mortgage cleared, hurrah!! I'm an electrician wife is a SAHM, both mid 40's.

4 bed detached worth £700k. Live in the Cotswolds. Both I and DH work in Property and IT consulting respectively.

Similar household to you.

Mainly just rise in house prices. I am disabled so we don't have energy/time to renovate

Bought by first house for 215 sold it 4 years later for 300. Bought next house for 450 and now it's worth c700. Ridiculous and seems totally unfair on the next generation (and clearly from this thread that's nothing compared to some people's gains) . It makes a mockery of the myth that working hard is the key to success.

We have a 4 bed terraced house in London zone 2, worth significantly more than 700k (you'd get a 3 bed flat for that). DH works in tech and I'm a sahm. No inheritances or family help, we had a huge deposit from DH's company stocks which increased hugely in price. We got on the housing ladder in 2012 when things were easier, but not a completely easy ride in London.