To be totally fucked off that we just cannot afford to buy ANYWHERE

[TheLowestFormOfWit]

I earn £50k, DP earns £45k. We have savings of £26k.

We live in a two bed flat and have two DCs (our DD and DSD) so need to move to a three bed place.

Can we afford anywhere remotely close to the area we need to live in? Can we bollocks.

Every house sale goes to a bidding war with people paying up to £70k over the asking price.

House prices in our area are going up by about £5k a week.

It's insane. I feel like we're going to be stuck in this flat forever.

Who the hell can afford to buy houses these days? Seriously, who are these people that an afford £600k for a three bed in East London? What do they do??

Okay, I have spent today doing some more searches and have calmed down. Looks like there are still some places within our reach that don't look like they're crack dens. Chingford is a definite possibility.

Maybe we'll find a big enough place for a third child this side of my 40th birthday after all.

If you actually like the flat you are in now, what not spend some money on a really good hideaway bed for the living room?

Mummytomog the asking prices are deceptive. Nearly everything I've seen that was on at £350 and sold recently went for £10,000s over the odds.

Eventually London is just going to be full of elderly people who got a foot in when it was still possible, and Chinese and Russian oligarchs.

London is crazy - but it's all about choices and compromises. For most people who live, or want to live, in the capital something has to give.

I have sympathy with Londoners who are struggling to buy in their local area but I've been there, done it, and bought the t-shirt. Ultimately we decided to move 140 miles away.

We're very happy. The kids are very happy. We still see family and friends from London - albeit not so often - and we've made new friends.

You need to decide what is really important to you.

I'd like to live in Walthamstow. My commute to work would be dead quick. But I can't afford it. So I live west, in zone 4, where you can get a three bedroom house (sold price) for under £350,000. I had to compromise. That's the reality.

And you want a third DC? Blimey, you don't want much do you?...

Well it'd be my second DC, but our third including DSD IYSWIM?

AIBU to want another child then?

Move up North and live in a mansion. I don't know why anyone stays near London.

Try Forest Gate - the Village is lovely. Not that cheap though but not as ridiculous as Walthamstow. Plus huge Wanstead Flats would be on your doorstep and it's v close to the Stow.

Blimey.

I wonder if I can find my posts on old threads where I predicted there would soon be comments like 'I would love to live in Walthamstow but can't afford it'

and people did this at me.

Walthamstow was the compromise. A compromise that people were not prepared to make because E17 was such a 'shithole'.

It just shows the utter ridiculousness of the property market and how we have been sucked into believing 'that's life'.

Places that people wouldn't look twice at are now seen as somewhere you are foolish for expecting to live in.

'you don't want much' to someone who is considering a third child?

WTF is wrong with people?

The OP wants a three bed house in an outer London borough and would like to have another child.
People are behaving like she is expecting a 10 bed Victorian rectory to house the 18 children she is planning.

OP don't rely on EA to send you details of stuff in your price bracket. Go down to Hoe street and ask for the details of every three bed they have for under 300k.

You will find something in Higham Hill and it will take you ten minutes to walk to Blackhorse Road tube and you will be near to two nice parks.

3 bed house outer London borough:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43387213.html

And another:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43592680.html

Thanks ChangeBags. Wrong side of London though. Have already explained why.

Move up North and live in a mansion. I don't know why anyone stays near London.

The OP has explained several times why she needs to stay near London.

I find it interesting that when these threads come up, the answer is always 'move out of London'. For many people, that will be possible. For many others, it won't.

And, as other posters have said, even if huge numbers do take that advice and move out of London and up north, who will run the hospitals and schools and sweep the streets and deliver the post and open the newsagents at 5am? Perhaps you think it's preferable that London becomes somewhere only the mega-rich can live?

I would actually be very happy to move out of London, and will do, once ds is old enough to decide when he wants to see his father, and old enough to get himself there and back on his own - i.e. not for the best part of a decade yet. Why is it so hard for some posters to understand that some of us are, indeed, stuck here for the foreseeable future?

It's shortsighted in the extreme to suggest that the solution to our massive housing problem in the south east is just for all of us to get up and move away.

Not everyone can afford to live where they want to live. Not everyone can afford a bedroom for each child. Not everyone can afford to have the number of children they desire. You seem pretty unwilling to compromise op.

There's more to life than London as well, yes the wages are lower but so is the cost of living / house prices. We have a lovely 3 bedroom detached house with large garden for 100k near the mountains and sea with outstanding local schools. Joint income of 26 k.
We also have the step child issue. You simply drive and pick them up for weekends / holidays or when they get older they get the train over.

That is what London is like. It has been like that since..the 80s at least. Pockets become popular as some places get developed and the area just turns around.

My DSis had to move out of London 20 odd years ago as the area she lived in was getting redeveloped. She couldn't afford to buy somewhere then, even a flat. She ended up moving up north, despite her ex being in London still.

It is a concern that so much of London is like rhis now though. Normal people can't think of buting their own place in London anymore. It's going to have a knock on effect as more and more people find they have to move away from family and roots.

silly question have you looked at help to buy, you could get a much bigger mortgage that way and pay less interest.

Actually, this has cheesed me off a bit! You are both on a really good wage, you have a child, you also have a step child, you already own a flat in London. Come on, it's not like you have no options at all, is it? You are in an enviable position to a lot of people. Sorry if that's harsh OP but you're doing ok!

OP I live in Walthamstow and it's not a shitehole BTW.

No it can be used for upgrading too

Upgrading as long as the purchase price is less than 600k according to website.

I used to live in E17 and sold my flat in the village and moved to a bigger house in the 'shit-hole' that is Leyton.

What i'm failing to see is if the OP already owns a flat, I thought there was some replies where she said they already own the flat in Walthamstow, then they must have some equity in their existing property. Reports have prices rising 26% alone in the past year

Combined with the salary she's quoting I cant see why she can't afford any properties in Walthamstow. What I thinks she means is that she cant buy a house specifically in the village. I spoke to my new neighbour the other day and he said he was shown stuff in the village for £850K. That's pricey and probably out of reach even on OP's combined salary but rather misleading to say she cant buy anywhere, she just cant buy in the most desirable area in E17 on what most people even in London would consider a decent salary. Back in the day when E17 to most outsiders was a shithole, people living here consoled themselves with the fact that while the rest of Walthamstow was a hole the village wasn't that bad. I guess that is what the OP is still feeling