How are people affording to buy in London?

[absolutelyeverybody]

Looking on Rightmove at pretty standard terraced houses in ok but not super posh areas like Clapham, Fulham, Wandsworth - houses are £2m!

Who is buying these?!

Is it simply a case of family money/help??

And further in to zone 3, houses are £1m!! How are people affording this's?

High earner in business and equity in old house

I always find the inability of MNetters to understand and accept that people can and do buy in London without family help bizarre.

It's more common to have help though

"Bank of Family support is also highly regional, with over two-thirds (67%) of all homeowners in London receiving parental support to purchase their homes"

I was fortunate with the timing

It’s not luck,

There's definitely luck with property gains in London 😆

What I want or know is how people who just work normal jobs afford to live in London?

@Ineedthesun80 a lot of my friends have normal jobs eg police, doctors, teachers, if they are classes as normal? I don't have any friends who stayed and didn't have help.

@sofasoda

yes them type of jobs,people who earn a normal salary,work in shops,fast food places ext.

@Rivypike my son did exactly that at 19 - did his apprenticeship in Bristol, moved to London, got an ok paid but average paid job in IT ( (£29k I think 6 years ago ) still in London with GF now in rented 2 bed flat - he loves it - they are saving to buy a shared ownership in a good area. He says he would rather have a small but secure tenure flat in London than buy elsewhere because the work opportunities are always there .

They either bought years ago, bought further out (Romford is trying to rebrand as east London rather than east OF London) or are in social housing. While lots of run down areas in zone 3 can still see a terrace going for well above 1M there are still quite a few ways to make things more affordable. I live in an area where it’s still common for families to live in flats, ex council properties are also much cheaper.
A Victorian home is one of the more sought after properties and so does sell from a premium in any zone.

Just as an example of what 1st time buyers can get of average earnings - I was showing my son and GF a few examples so they don’t panic like mad - or choose not to buy a shared ownership etc in an area they don’t like. Ok you need a fair old deposit but it’s not exactly a dump - I would be happy to live in it and I’m very fussy - yes it’s not central ( Grove Park) but it’s a pretty ok area and for £275 for a nicely done up 2 bedder I think it’s a great buy ( no it’s not mine by the way or anyone I know)

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/155147987#/?channel=RES_BUY

Even in very non posh Tooting a reasonable 2 bed flat will set you back £500k. Prices have doubled since about 2010.

DS, teacher and his partner, a nurse rented in Zone 6 until recently. Couldn't afford to buy anything other than a one bed flat similar to their rental so moved out to Hertfordshire to get a house for similar money. Still seemed hugely expensive to me but I live in Wiltshire.

I’m trying to point out the difference between luck (pure chance) and good fortune. I was fortunate to benefit because I did not make the market rise by my efforts but it was not luck. No sane person would be remotely surprised that property prices would consistently rise in London. It’s not a lottery.

It’s not a lottery but it’s the luck of the time you bought it, London certainly doesn’t have anything like that growth now.

Not at the moment but who knows what could happen in future?
When I bought my first flat in London in the late 80s I didn’t expect it to appreciate it value. It didn’t while I lived there but subsequently it did increase a lot. Bought for 60k ( 1 bed flat) now worth about 450k.

It’s hard to predict when prices will rise again. If it was easy there would be many more millionaires.

Tooting is no longer “very non posh”. It’s a popular Zone 3 SW London area where those who have been priced out of Clapham, Balham and Brixton are buying. It was already becoming gentrified back when I lived in Balham in the 2010s. Ditto Streatham.

I did not make the market rise by my efforts but it was not luck.

😆

No sane person would be remotely surprised that property prices would consistently rise in London. It’s not a lottery.

Growth in the last decade is nothing like it was in previous decade though & how do you explain flat prices stagnating?

Affordability, extremely low interest rates, relaxed lending criteria all played a part in the stratospheric growth of house prices.

"In the past decade, London house prices have increased by just 13 per cent — that amounts to a 16 per cent fall in real terms."

Not at the moment but who knows what could happen in future?

Salaries would need to increase significantly & we would need to see some real economic growth which has eluded us for sometime.

throw in the ageing population & the increased taxes needed to support that and it's unlikely to be in my lifetime.

It is though. None of us can predict the future and there have been house price falls and even crashes in London in the past. You were just lucky with timing.

Yes. The gentrification has just spread down the northern line. Youngsters who have been renting in Clapham and Balham but can’t afford to buy there are buying in Tooting and Colliers Wood

It's interesting as when I bought in 2015 I could not afford to buy in London. Whereas now when I look I could. I'm outside the M25 now though 😅

It has got slightly easier to buy because some property has stagnated or is actually cheaper.

I think having help is a bit of a dirty little secret. We have been upfront about how our children have afforded to buy. Both sets of grandparents died (one of very modest means, the other not) and both sets sensibly decided to allow their estates to largely skip a generation since us and our siblings are well off through having our own means and good job (plus we don't live in London any more!)

Dig a little and you'll find this happens more than you'd think. I suspect the same is true of school fees in a great many cases. It's just not admitted.

everyone I know with dc in private has go help with fees too!

gp!

my in-laws see private as unnecessary so told us years ago they won't fund that.