To not understand the wealth in London?

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Posting this for traffic. I genuinely don’t understand how “normal people” in London are so wealthy. I went to university with some people who now at age 40 live in multi million pound houses. Send their children to £40k a year schools, and have amazing holidays, skiing, etc.

Lots of them became lawyers or consultants, I don’t understand how they seem to have so much dosh.

There are streets and streets and streets with houses and families like this.

There are a heck of a lot of very poor people living in London too, in not very pleasant housing in quite rough areas. In the middle there is a wide range of society some of whom are not too badly off, others comfortable.

Not this again!

Why do you need to post for traffic?

Why the interest in other peoples money.

I don't understand this ohh their are people who are wealthy/rich/loaded whatever you wish to call it. Of course, thats surely always been the surely.

You sound jealous that they have the money.

Starting at 80K for consultants. Goes up to more. With private practice a LOT more. I know consultants who regularly make 250K. (A couple of family friends- everyone in my family is a medic). My brother is a lawyer, a bog standard one in a good London last firm but not close to making partner. He earns well above 150K plus bonus (the last time I checked).

Marking my place

Not sure if I know what you mean about "not understanding" the wealth in London, but I think my DBro might be a prime example. Moved to London in the mid 90s and met SIL when they were both quite young. Bought a starter flat together, sold it on at huge profit and, together, they have bought wisely and shrewdly over the years - to the point that they are now, at the age of 50, mortgage free in a seven-bed house in Weybridge. Dbro is a tax consultant, no degree, but has worked his way up through the career ladder and earns in the region of 250K plus bonuses. Similarly, SIL is a partner in a law firm and, I guess, will earn similar.
Dbro wasn't even particularly academic at school, and we all grew up in a housing estate in Glasgow, so very ordinary roots. But, he has an arrogant and bullish personality, which has definitely helped drive him.

Also London is a global hub. I can't think of a single person who works with or for my in-laws company who does not have a property in London, no matter where they are from. Especially the Americans. All American European based buisness seems to be done out of either London or Paris and that's it. That's a huge chuck of the market gone right there.

Lawyers make ok money ( up to 250k€ if salaried solicitors but once you get to equity partner level the sky is the limit.

They work unbelievable hours though - I remember trying to explain to my friend when she was. Junior lawyer earning about 65k (which meant that she had to commute about an hour and half all in to the office) that the fact that there were little Japanese style bunks in the basement of her office so she didn't have to go home for days on end was a bad thing. she couldn't see it!
Her expenses were fairly high - expected to wear smart tailoring and shoes, no time for laundry as literally only home a couple of nights a week and those would be late so laundry sent out etc.

Friends with these jobs have staff like cleaners and laundry services and full time nannies just to help keep the show on the road.

Medical consultants can make good money but the big money comes from business though. Business consulting people can earn hundreds of thousands on salaries and on full partnership into millions.

Poster above listing luck and inheritance as factors did not mention work. Yes luck is part of it but many people I know who are financially successful came from normal state school background and are just driven, ambitious and work insanely hard.

I'm not one of them, to be clear, happy to pay a short visit and eat posh chocolate though!

Education and hard work also factor in.

Streets and streets and streets and streets Streets and streets and streets and streets Streets and streets and streets and streets Streets and streets and streets and streets Streets and streets and streets and streets

We are not quite in that income range, (can’t afford a nanny and have a small terrace rathervthan a mansion) but

• studied a subject at university that led to well paid career opportunities
• finished with top marks (studied crazy hours while at uni)
• worked like crazy hours with frequent (international)moves for about 10 years
• also took less desirable jobs
• Sheer luck. loads of it

so, a mixture of good study choices, hard work, flexibility and luck

I am surprised someone who owns a £2.5m house gets a bursary - lots of schools would ask you to release equity before giving you a bursary in that situation.

And of course people earn a lot of money in London in jobs that pay very well.

mrscambell a good legal team and accountant can work wonders. I’ve known a few millionaires who on paper earn an absolute minimum wage, utilize legal complex schemes to the fullest.

Um.. because they have top paying jobs in the city?
Not really rocket science is it

Ok OP, I’ve changed name as a one off to answer your question. No doubt this will be flamed as a stealth boast, but it’s anonymous so who cares.

DH bought his first flat in the mid 90s for about 65k. It was in the Hackney area close to where he was working at the time. He had got his first job in the city as an options trader - no prior experience, but he managed to get in. After about 4 years, this flat had doubled in value. We were engaged then and I wanted to move so, helped by his bonus, we bought a tiny two-bed flat on the Chelsea outskirts for about £250k, I think. We were 26 and 28 at this time. About 3 years later, we moved a little west into a greener area near the river and bought a 3/4 bed house for £650k. Again he’d had a few bonuses, I was not a high earner. We had 2 DC in this house. After living there for under 4 years, we saw a house for 1.4 million that had 5/6 bedrooms and potential to improve. We moved there in 2006. Within about three years I think, it doubled in value. We lived there until last year. DH moved out if banking in about 2002, but has sold some companies since then. We just moved into a house which we paid 4.7 million for and we spent about 350k renovating it because it was a a wreck. We couldn’t sell the other house because of Brexit and nobody is moving house in that price bracketit seems atm, so we have a £1m mortgage now in this house (valued £5.5) and another £1m buy-to -let mortgage on the old house worth now about £3m. We had to pay “second home” stamp of almost £600k because we couldn’t sell the old house. We also have a flat which we let and I paid £600k for that. We have 4 DC in independent schools (not boarding). So very expensive and that’s where most of the money goes. It’s a combination of buying property at the right time and DH happening to have a banking career that got us on the property ladder, followed by his own successful business ventures later. He is extremely work focused however. I’ve been mainly SAH. Where we live, this is not unusual at all. Not in the least. Most houses are at least £3 million and even an ex-council semi will be over £1 million. And this isn’t zone 1! There are “streets and streets” yes. There are a lot of people who are high earners and were lucky with property and investments. Neither DH or myself came from wealthy backgrounds at all.

It's usually because they have high paying jobs, and possibly also no student debt and parents help to initially get on the property ladder.

As everyone else has said, high-paying jobs often in finance or law. But there are also plenty of people on low and mid incomes in London - you have to remember that for those not on megabucks they’ll probably share flats or houses with friends well into their mid 30s

I live in London and also ask myself the same question!

Answer is that people 1/are on big money, 2/come from wealthy families (who sometimes pay for school fees) and 3/ make money from property.

I’m on a good wage but from a modest background. No way could I send kids to private schools (wouldn’t Want to anyway!) or afford a nanny so hubby works from home and this has reduced our income (but made us much happier).

Stilll love London to bits.

Property. Even if you earn 200k in London you won't be able to buy a million pound house without having had the immense gains from buying rarely. I work with some people who earn around 60/70 k but are sitting in 1.5 million pound houses because they got on the ladder early. Unfortunately I didn't as had no deposit til early thirties!

They have a high salary and so does their partner, some of them bought their houses a long time ago and have benefited from the increase in prices.

It's also because London is expensive, more so in some areas so people with money live there and money makes money. Obviously there are areas of poverty in London just like in most cities.

*early!

A mixture of factors really, timing, luck, hard work etc. We had no help from family, DH left school v young with no qualifications and I was recent immigrant when we married in the early 90’s. Shared a 3 bed house in zone 4 with another couple and saved like crazy (we were so poor we had to raid the coppers jar at one point to buy food).

That said we were able to buy a three bed house (a wreck which we did up) in zone 3 for £94k with a £4K deposit and 95% mortgage which was based on 3x our combined salaries. Now this house is worth over £800k so what we did then is definitely not feasible for a young couple starting out now. We also had a lodger for the first 6 yrs until DC1 was born which helped enormously.

Since then we have bought and done up several houses and ‘flipped’ them and now find ourselves in our forever home which is worth £3m.
During this time we worked v hard and managed to educate both DC’s privately as well as build up a portfolio of investment properties.

We made the usual sacrifices etc blah blah but I am very aware that people starting out today in London would be unlikely to enjoy the one thing that most helped us achieve which was timing. I get very cross with the older generation who moan that young people spend all their money on coffee, phones etc when in their day they made sacrifices. Anyone my age (early 50’s) or older had it easy compared to what I see my Dc’s and their friends have ahead of them. No student debt, final salary pensions, realistic property prices etc were what we had and the drawbridge has been pulled up behnd us!

I think the same thing OP. It makes me wish I'd had the foresight and mentoring to get into finance when I was younger.

I became friends with a woman through friends and friends and she invited me to her house. She works in banking and so does her husband . Her house is worth 3m and both her and her husband Are in their mid thirties. It's astonishing how banking jobs afford people such amazing lifestyles. It's weird but I was oddly proud of them

From this thread I have found out that I can have a salary rise to $40K if I go from being a teacher of a core subject to a nanny of the wealthy.

Just typing that sentence brings out the socialist worker in me from the 90s. (Not having a go at the nanny, just slightly angry/saddened.)

Bear in mind in some industries a London salary is double or triple thatvof outside... I would be on 75-80% more...