I hate London property prices

[Lolaredingfield10]

I was born, raised and still live in Uxbridge, Greater London.

DH and I have been saving up for a mortgage for years. Our Budget is £250,000

We have 2 DC under 10, we'd like a 3 bed semi with a garden in Uxbridge, even Hayes would be fine but the prices are all £400,000 +

The best we can get with our money is a 2 bed flat in our area and it's utterly depressing.

We don't want to leave London, I don't understand how anyone can afford these prices but Houses are being snapped up.

Surely this can't last. We can't decide between trying to save up for a bigger deposit and waiting a few more years or just settling somewhere else in England.

YANBU. Is there a particular reason you need to stay in the area - job? Family? I don't live a million miles from you and admit we were extremely lucky to get on the property ladder during the 90s crash, otherwise we'd have no chance. Until recently, I loved living here. I loved the fact we could be in central London within an hour, yet be on the edge of the country and also have so many amenities on our doorstep. Our neighbourhood was quite nice too. Recently though, we feel it's started to go downhill, horrendous traffic, overcrowded- it's not the same. I also realise we've not been into town since July! We're stuck here for now due to elderly parents and kids in high school. We've decided that once these things are no longer an issue, we're off!

I'd get out now if you can before the kids start high school. Friends moved to Bedfordshire, live in 4 bed detached in a nice area which is not worth much more than your budget. He works in London and they visit the city as a family as much as we do!

^, People working in 'professional' roles (IT, finance, legal etc) will be on around £60-70k.
If you are contracting, then £100k would almost be a minimum. When I was working in an office, we would bite your hand off if you offered to do contracting work for 'only' £2k a week.^

Ifailed, you are operating in something of a bubble - even for London those are far from normal wages.

I know plenty of people contracting (and pay lots of them) who are on much, much less than that and doing better than most of their peers. Suggest you look at some decile stats.

£200k is not even close to a usual salary, or joint household income, even for professional Londoners - the median is £39k.

Separately - can I come and work in your office please? Sounds like you have money to burn.

JassyRadlett
I was specifically talking about IT; but the same rates applied for Lawyers, Accountants etc.

There are plenty of job sites out there that will confirm it. For a guide:

www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Senior_Project_Manager%2c_IT/Salary/452e2be1/London

DH and I own a 2 bed flat within the M25. Oyster card commuter belt.

We bought our flat 4 years ago. It has, I shit you not, more than doubled in its value in that time. It's now worth what the 3 bed semis cost when we were first looking.

Sadly the aforementioned semis are now over half a million. We can't afford that, even with the enormous equity in our home. But, we are tied to this area. My business is very much area specific. DH walks to work.

Baby due in December.
Would love a house
But. We can't afford it. So just suck it up and appreciate that the home my parents bought for £35k 33 years ago would now cost £500k and is not attainable.

Uxbridge is near Slough and Langley which will be much cheaper. Slough is being regenerated massively. Sorry probably isn't the most popular place for you.

OP- I am totally & utterly with you on this one!

We are looking to buy in SE London, in zones 3/4/5

Our budget is bigger than yours but currently we have realised that the only things we can (just about) afford are flats- 2 bedroom ones at that, there are barely any 3 beds.

Ideally, we'd love to buy a terrace or semi (freehold property) but it's just not going to happen right now.

It's frustrating as we don't really want to buy a flat as the service charge/ground rent really adds to the cost.

Plus when you come to sell it's all such a pain- my DH sold his leasehold property last year and it seemed v long & complicated!

We could move out down into Kent or beyond.

But close family live not far, our jobs are here and childcare is nearby.

We're coming round to realising that we need to just get on and buy a flat, to at least get onto the property ladder & escape rental.

There are 2/3 bed terraces in other parts of south London, they are more within budget but we would have to compromise on location and poorer public transport.

It's all very well to move somewhere for the lower price & the property you want, but if you then make your commute to work even longer/more costly, then I wonder if that's worth it.

I'm definitely starting to value location over size...but it takes a while to process the disappointment and accept but I guess that's life.

Having said all this, we're just waiting for things to pick up- some properties have been on the market for months, with small reductions but a lot of sellers are stubbornly waiting for the "right price".

A lot of the ones we've seen are vacant and the seller lives elsewhere. Maybe the have big fat mortgages that need to be paid off on them?

RunningLulu have tried sending you a PM but it's not working - could you tell me please where you are by messaging me or on here? I'm further out but would to cut down (and save!) on my train journeys.

Jassy, DH works for an investment bank and they regularly need IT contractors. Depending on experience, they pay them anywhere between £600 and £1200 a day, which I imagine means quite a lot are on 200k a year. Which is more than DH earns at a qualified lawyer with 20yrs+ of high capital experience. Lots of these guys, and a few women are earning that in their mid 30s.

OP - as others have already said the easiest way to increase your deposit for house is to buy a flat now. The flat will most likely increase your equity more than just saving and renting, as you are now, trying to get a better deposit.

Another thing to bare in mind is that with a flat sometimes it gives you more useable living space in the day than a small / average size house. I mean that if kids are playing in their bedroom they are nearer you than if they are upstairs. You might have more space to wander around during the day than in a house with upstairs bedrooms.

If you can work elsewhere then I'd leave London. Prices are only going to rise and it's ridiculously sad that people have to pay half a million for a 3 bed, when elsewhere you could get a 5/6 bed detached with a massive garden and ensuite bathrooms. It's an ordeal moving location and settling somewhere new but it's worth it. There are many Londoners who can't get on the property ladder at all There's good and bad places all over the country, it's definitely worth researching possible other locations.

We own in zone 2. we have owned for about 5 years but I don't think our place has doubled but not far off.

People in our position celebrate, but it's not all roses for us either because we want a bigger place but don't want to leave our area. It's terrible for non-owners or recent buyers. sky high rent or high prices.

it's a shit situation, but the government love rising prices. they want to do the impossible: more "affordable" house while keeping prices high. that'll be some trick.

No-one who ever left London regretted it. Move out.

T4
I left London so I could buy a bigger house in commuterland, and regretted it.
I rented my house out and moved in to a rented house in London until I could sell my house.

^
Jassy, DH works for an investment bank and they regularly need IT contractors. Depending on experience, they pay them anywhere between £600 and £1200 a day, which I imagine means quite a lot are on 200k a year. Which is more than DH earns at a qualified lawyer with 20yrs+ of high capital experience. Lots of these guys, and a few women are earning that in their mid 30s.^

I'm not disputing that some talented people with in-demand skills earn that, simply that it's far from being the norm for all of London, not just the City/Big 4 et al.

I left London and regretted it! Couldn't wait to move back home.

Prices are crackers at the moment but I don't see how it's sustainable. The bubble will have to burst at some point. I scrimped and saved for years (outside London) by flatsharing into my 30s, then bought an awful 1-bed money-pit of a flat bordering a rough area in the property trough of 2009, with absolutely every last penny I owned. Sold it this year for almost double, having moved in with dp. It's paying for me to be a sahm now, and will eventually go towards a house outside London.

I agree that unfortunately your expectations are quite high - and the issues you face are not just faced by Londoners or those in the SE.

We couldn't afford to buy a 3 bed as our first property - bought a tiny 2 bed in a not-very - nice area. Traded up (now in a 3 bed semi in a "naice" area) but we too are "stuck" in this house because we can't afford to trade up and want to stay local for schools. 3 children (obviously our choice) but would love a bigger house here.

But that's our choice to stay here. We could move 5 miles away and probably half our mortgage. I get that you don't want to have to compromise but it's a dilemma lots of people have all over the country. Location is obviously your priority which means you'll probably have to compromise on space / price.

*halve - oops typo

t4 Still waiting to hear where these no go areas are. You've had a whole day to make something up come up with an answer.

Jassy, I think DH would disagree with the idea that they're all talented. He thinks some are unbelievably incompetent. They have often ended up paying one contractor to come in and sort out the mess of another. Their timekeeping is shocking too but they don't care as they're only there from between 1mth-12mths. Plus they know they can walk out and into something else without blinking. Certainly in the strategic planning side of IT, the industry is booming and wages are ridiculously high. I remember once about 2yrs ago DH's HR dept tried to offer just £300 a day. The agency said the only person willing to come to interview was 6mths out of university. Ridiculous!

Jassy, I think DH would disagree with the idea that they're all talented. He thinks some are unbelievably incompetent. They have often ended up paying one contractor to come in and sort out the mess of another. Their timekeeping is shocking too but they don't care as they're only there from between 1mth-12mths. Plus they know they can walk out and into something else without blinking. Certainly in the strategic planning side of IT, the industry is booming and wages are ridiculously high. I remember once about 2yrs ago DH's HR dept tried to offer just £300 a day. The agency said the only person willing to come to interview was 6mths out of university. Ridiculous!

Depending on experience, they pay them anywhere between £600 and £1200 a day, which I imagine means quite a lot are on 200k a year.

The figures I just read are:

• to be in the top 4% of male earners you need to make 142,000. to be in the top 4% of female earners you need half that.
• averaged out, about 130,000 puts someone in the top 3% of all earners.

These can be found here (looks like some news article, I don't know how reliable it is).

So, a joint income of over 200,000, I am guessing from those numbers, will put you in the top 2-3% of household incomes in London. Hardly "usual".

No-one who ever left London regretted it.

Nonsense.

I left London. I regret it everyday. I have to drive everywhere here, there's minimal things to do with a 2 year old and there's no decent coffee. Being able to afford a house is no compensation in my mind. Shame dh and the dc don't agree!

Actually there is a notorious no go area nearish where we are in the Midlands. Some giant estate near Nuneaton. I'm sure we could all come up with no go areas outside of London if we tried but I'm struggling to think of inside London. The great thing about London is everyone is all mixed up together.