To wonder how you came to live in a big character house

[Summerofloaf]

As in how did you afford it? What job do you do that enables you to live in a lovely big character house with big gardens?
Did you inherit? Work from scratch?

How? (Doesn’t anyone else wonder this?)

What do you mean by a big character house?

My sister married a very lovely and very rich man. He owns his own company. The house is in both their names but as he earns 7 figures, and she earns 5 figures, it’s his salary that has allowed them to buy it, it’s gorgeous and they’ve decorated it in a really stunning way too, my sister really has such impeccable taste!

I live in a large Grade 2 listed Tudor house, which is the sort of house I assume you mean?

It was bought using part of a large (over £1m) inheritance.

A lot of hard work and some help from generous parents.

Taking a lot of risk with properties and careers over the last 15 years but mostly being very very fucking lucky.

Luck, timing (housing market wise), hard work, prioritising. Hope that doesn't sound smug because luck is probably the biggest factor.

My parents bought theirs in 1984. A large and beautiful Lake District farmhouse with inglenooks that make most Escape to the Country houses look small and pokey.

They're not great at decorating though, so it's about twenty years overdue a refurb.

What qualifies as a big character house??? Like a multimillion place where footballers live, or an expensive ish big detached house on a naice road??

Mostly luck/buying the right thing at the right price, at the right time over the last 20+yes on the housing ladder which enabled us to pretty much double our money every time we moved. That and investments which went the right way, paired with good salaries meant that we are mortgage free. We’ve been very fortunate in that respect The ongoing maintenance and running costs are high though, so it isn’t a free ride. The purchase cost of a large, old, character property is the tip of the iceberg.

Worked our backsides off. No drinking,smoking,going out or take aways for 4 years. Very frugal living meant a big deposit. We're both good savers and don't spend cash on a whim. We decorated it one room at a time.
For years it was a case of save then spend on the house,save and spend. We don't do credit and go without if we can't afford things. There's a lot of history to our house and we've kept all the original features with some modern twists 😉

As a ftb I always wonder this too!!!

Bought cheap scruffy house straight out of uni (husband a bit older) lived off one salary and other salary overpaid mortgage, 5 years on found 'big character' house that was undervalued (in a price dip). Lots more drama but we got it with v manageable mortgage, and are very lucky (although no inheritance or help from family).

Mine is just over 4000sqft and has about 4 acres with it - laid out as big garden & a paddock, we don’t have any livestock or horses though so it’s just a wilder bit of the garden).

Ours is pretty big. We bought ten years ago in the last recession and got a fairly hefty discount because the sellers needed to sell. We are both lawyers, both earn six figures and don’t live extravagantly hence we are also now mortgage free. No inheritances, no parental help and we both went to state comps.

Ours grew as time went on, over about 30 years. Mainly every spare penny going into the mortgage, renovations done ourselves etc. A couple of lucky spots with inheritances and good investments to allow for more renovation and expanding. But it was beans on toast for a bit at first. It's good to see the long term goal - I know people who are constantly moving, constantly buying new gadgets etc and this all sucks up money that could go on the mortgage/renovations.

Thanks for replies.

Not so much modern footballer’s houses no, it’s fairly obvious how they got those as they’re paid a million a month.

Houses like these (been internet fantasy house viewing), but yes also ‘expensive ish big detached house on a nice road’:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-83788619.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-86342657.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-83672603.html

Quite a bit variety of price in those houses you’ve picked OP. I’d guess good job / inheritance / parental support

Our house is worth 650-700k according to zoopla. We bought it in our late 30s. Spent a few years in London in highly paid jobs and saved up, then bought a semi up north. Paid as much off the mortgage as we could. DH works in software development and still earns quite a lot, I'm public sector now so taken a big pay cut but still earn a reasonable salary. Moved here 2.5 years ago, got a big-ish mortgage. Not very exciting really! We could have stretched up to maybe 800k/850 but DH is quite risk averse and likes to have a decent buffer of savings etc.

I am not sure if mine counts but if it does- best A level sin the school, Put myself in for university scholarship exams - won one. top of year in year 1 at university so won a second scholarship, degree - almsot top won top in 2 subjects and prizes, picked law in London not the NE of England where I am from; picked business law as the best paid; worked until went into labour and back full time work after 2 weeks of annual leave etc etc..... Also we bought with 2 full time professional salaries before we had babies (sa did my parents by the way who both worked full time for about 10 years putting off babies in order to buy a house).

Bought 3 bed terraced 1984 just before baby no.1. Bought 3 bed semi about 1987. Bought 2 buy to let flats (financial disaster as they made losses and we sold them at huge losses in 1996 but at least we had paid back the loans by then by not spending on things other people bought). 1990 move to 4 bed detached. 1997 property crash sold our house and the 2 flats and bought this house as I had set up my own law firm and it was doing fine. All houses out here in zone 5 London (not inner London as too expensive further in). That was it really. So from 1984 to 1997 we did the 4 house moves.

My recipie

1. Get best A level grad es you can.
2. Pick a very high paid career.
3. Have 2 full time professional salaries and buy somewhere before you have any children.
4. Always work full time even with tiny babies.
5. Then keep pushing yourselves - eg we had a huge mortgage 5x salary and also had a 210 yea fix at 13% interest rates which clearly was dreadful buit felt a bargain at the time!. The day interest rates went up 5% in a day - i thik it as Black Monday - we had huge borrowings and no savings. When we moved here in 1997 and before in 1990 we used every penny of savings of any kind and the children's savings and borrowed the most we could borrow. In 1997 we took out a 10 year mortgage to get debt paid back as soon as possible. Be prepared to move hundreds of miles away from family as we did to where higher paid jobs are.

Ours is worth nearly 1 million. Combination of buying a doer upper, family money and buying at the right time.
We don’t have well paid jobs at all.

We have a large detached house with land. We've always overpaid our mortgages and prioritised house over expensive holidays etc. We paid off our mortgage completely in our 30s but that then enabled us to buy this house with a small mortgage 5 years later.
We've not inherited anything or had any parental help at all, it's all from our work.

Well you can
Earn loads or have a windfall deposit
Buy a wreck and do it up
Move from expensive area to cheap
Be old and have got on housing ladder at better time
Inherit
Buy in an unfashionable/cheaper area
Combination of the above and stretch on the mortgage

I can see in some areas it may be really hard.

I married a man with a very highly paid job as a senior civil servant. Big house with an acre sized garden, olympic sized swimming pool etc.

I think I live quite near you OP judging by those houses Like you, I much prefer character houses to new, modern interiors.

Choose a different area!

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70811803.html

Get a London salary then arrange to work from home.