To ask how you afford to live in London?

[seekinglondonlife]

Name changed regular as my family are on MN and I don't want my posting history linked.
We decided to do Christmas in London this year, we've had a crap year and just wanted to get away. We're staying in a fairly central hotel, have been travelling around and exploring by bus everyday and I feel like I really want to move here. The diversity, having shops open on a Sunday past 5pm, the atmosphere, the ability to choose 5 or 6 different ethnic restaurants on the same street. The public transport is fantastic.

I've been looking in so many estate agents windows and cannot get over the cost of rent/to buy a property. How do 'normal' people live here? I've been friendly with a few of the hotel staff, they've lived and worked in London for 20+ years and have raised their families here, but they are on NMW jobs, so how do they do it? Does everyone get housing benefit?

If you feel inclined please say roughly where you live and how much you pay for rent/mortgage. Also what are the downsides? (Apart from the cost of housing!)

TIA

I’ve lived in south London / Surrey border for 21yrs. Single parent so rent, but saving for mortgage. My rent is 1300 a month. It’s hard, but I love London so much, originally from North Wales. I never ever tire of London

One of my friends did house share for years then when fell pregnant went into a hostel and was then incredibly luckily got a 1 bed flat. She cant afford to work much though as she couldn't pay her own rent without benefits

Families in our area who own either are older and bought their first place quite cheaply, or inherited property-sized wealth, or have very high incomes.

Saved like crazy for all my 20s after graduating to buy a property. Worked a job that was very stressful (medicine) to be able to work and save for a decade and buy a property. Once I purchased a property I swapped career!!

Lived in grotty houseshares in my 20 (which felt fabulous because of what was outside of them) and bought in 2001 when I could just barely afford a two bed flat in a “unsavoury” but fabulously connected (and lived by me) area. Once on the prop ladder is easier.

Now i could not have afforded it and now with a family home I am in zone 4.

Would not swap it london for anything bar a hut in the alps. The shops staying open past 5 is one of the many reasons

@onlychildhamster I'd agree with that. My husband is a born and bred Londoner and his parents live 5 mins from us. He's also the 5th generation of his family that have lived in our little suburb. I don't think he'd ever leave the city.

The people I know who've left have all gone back to where they either grew up or their parents retired too.

[quote seekinglondonlife]@stalkersaga I understand that. The ones I'm talking about are breakfast servers and in housekeeping, so I would assume are closer to the NMW end of the payscale.[/quote]
Were they immigrants OP? I’ll possibly be criticised for generalising like this, but people who have come to the U.K. from other countries often gravitate towards communities of their own ethnicity/nationality (and London has so many of those communities) and are prepared to live in smaller, more modest homes than white British people, less concerned about sharing bedrooms etc.

We live in the north west of London. We live in zone 5 but actually it’s only about 30 mins into town.

We bought our house 17 years ago now - what we paid then and thought was eye watering is now about national average though. It’s well over double now and we wouldnt be able to afford it any more.

Feel for sad for my kids as I can’t see how they will be able to afford to stay where they have grown up. I do t feel they will have any choice but to displace themselves. It’s all broken.

Can afford here because I inherited property, pure and simple. Without it, DH and I could probably have bought a flat in outer suburbs where we live, but never a family home, even though we have a 6-figure household income.

We could never afford Zone 2, let alone 1, don't know how anyone does without a trust fund or City salary and bonuses.

I live in zone 4, very close to Richmond Park. We bought our house outright 20 years ago after working abroad. We have since spent a small fortune renovating the place. I love our house and I like the area but its not all goodness and light. Crime and vandalism is a problem, even in leafy Richmond. I had to send my daughter to a private school because of the violent bullying she got at her local state school ( on advice from the Police ) and you can't just leave your car anywhere, especially if it's expensive new model. My neighbour has had 4 cars stolen in 2 years. His insurance is through the roof. The place is surprisingly grubby and getting the local authority to do something about it is painful. I also don't find people particularly helpful or friendly, certainly compared with my experience of living in other countries. My eldest daughter is at a London University and my other two are doing their GCSE's so I'm happy to stay where we are for the time being but I plan to move as soon as it's practical to do so. I inherited a property on the Dorest coast from my grandparents, very close to where I grew up, and I spend as much time there as I can. The intention is to relocate in a few years. London has changed so much that I don't recognise it anymore. I won't look back when I leave. My advice is only move to London is you have an income in excess of £100,000 and be very careful where what area you move to. Personally I wouldn't do it.

Your hotel workers .may be living in housing association or council flats centrally
Walk around Somers Town there are boroughs still with a lot of council or HA properties but all occupied , hard to get one

Or they commute from far out
2 Kids in a 2 bed flat is not un common
And yes some working and get h b

London living is not detached house with driveway unless v well off or living further out

The question seems to be about people on average/low wages, what's the point of coming on to say 'we afford it by earning loads of money'

[quote seekinglondonlife]@onelittleone I had more than a passing glimpse through the windows when out on my walk and the people looked 'normal'. Sitting on the sofa watching TV or reading a book in their pyjamas. Not exactly the tuxedo wearing aristos I imagined [/quote]
Whilst I moved out of London a couple of years ago, I was born there and lived there for forty odd years. Most of my friends from university moved to London for work after they graduated. Many are still there and are earning good six-figure salaries now. This enables them to buy 3 (or more) million £ houses and they're just normal people (normal people on good salaries!). When I sold my little flat, the 3-bed terraced houses in my unremarkable street in SE London had started to sell for 1.5 million upwards (my flat went for nowhere near that!). London prices are crazy...

@seekinglondonlife ;-) they might not look like aristos....but trust me these people are proper millionaires and are often internationals. I dont think there's a single British family in the mews now. The biggest change is that lots of families now live there, central London is buzzing with little kids who live there. But these are families whose income will probably be at least 300-400k min per year - mostly more. They are all in IT or finance - or entrepreneurs.

As to poor people - whats your definition of poor. We've got a family income of 110k and I feel like a pauper and dont know how we could afford another kid.

We bought our house in 2008. We thought it was crazy that on 2 full time professional salaries the most we could afford was a suburban (zone 6) 3 bed semi in need of total renovation. But fast forward 14 years and we're so glad we did. Even in its original state we would have struggled to afford it as first time buyers at today's prices. Between the work we've done and the ridiculous house price inflation it's now valued at around 3x what we paid.

I'd personally rather be a bit further in but we do have decent restaurants, a great theatre, beautiful parks etc right on our doorstep and can be in the city in 40 mins door to door so I can't complain really.

I lived in South Ken about 40 years ago, before university, and I had a room provided for me by my employer. I was a housekeeper, and there were loads of people there in similar situations, with accommodation that went with the job, including cleaners etc.

@HaveringWavering I am an immigrant and its not really a generalization. 95% of the people in my country live in flats and condos, so even though I grew up in a house, I don't really understand the fuss about needing a house. I would rather live in London than have a house. I do want a 3 bed flat as thats what the majority of flats in my country are; but I must say it was a lot easier to find a 2 bed flat to buy than a 3 bed flat! DH and I lived for 3 years with his mum so we could afford to buy our 2 bed flat which i don't think many british people would be willing to do particularly as DH had 3 sisters so we were 6 people living in a victorian terrace at 1 point! there were more of us than in the HMO down the street! I think many young indian couples do this.

my DH's colleague was living with her husband, her parents and 3 sisters so that she could save up to buy a house in East London in cash (she was a muslim who did not believe in mortgages). DH works for an investment bank and she was a contractor so i think she had a high daily rate and she said she was quite close to saving up the needed sum! Again, I think most white British people would not be willing to put up with that.

There is also a HK family in my development of 2 bed flats. Its a 1930s build so its quite compact! They have 2 kids. I don't even think they are poor as they have quite an expensive car. I think they are just used to living in small spaces.

Dd works in a theatre. She pays £550 per month for 1 room in a run down shared house but in a nice area of Ealing. Many of her colleagues either still live at home or in house shares.

@RingPiece Oh yes I know it's normal. However, there are plenty of people who will never earn good six figure sums. I saw an advert for a headteacher in a 'naice' primary school in an unremarkable SE London suburb on the Overground line and the salary was only 60k. So it really depends on the profession - and I would still count six figures as a high income. Lots of people will be on 30-70k range even in their 40s.

We live In Zone 4, had a gift from parents of £250k, my husband lived at home for a long time so saved a lot, mortgage is £2,400 a month for a house that cost us £1.25m a year ago. Combined salary is £200k per year.

We absolutely couldn’t live in zone 1. The closest our friends live to central is Z3 and they are very very wealthy.

@seekinglondonlife

How do poor people manage? One of the breakfast ladies told me both her and her husband are both hotel staff (so I assume NMW) and they have 3dc (all teens). They live 15 minutes walking distance from Hyde Park. Is the housing benefit very generous here? I was under the impression that families were being forced out of London due to benefit caps.

There is quite a bit of help with in work top up benefits. And also help with rent. Depending on earnings most of the rent could be paid by housing benefit/universal credit. They have to make sure the rent is within the local housing allowance. But there is help for low income familys.

With the gangs thing you mentioned . There is crime everywhere . But London gas a big population so there's going to be more crime as there are more people.

My thoughts on the actual gang side of it is that (most not all) are not overly effected by it . Most gangs are fighting/killing each other. Of course that does not make it ok. But the average person is not really effected.

I live in west London and we bought our house in the late 90s. We could not afford to buy the same house now on our incomes as house prices in London have completely outpaced salaries.

@HotChoc10 because that is how people afford to live in London. The reality is that people on "average" wages don't afford it, at least if not if they're trying to buy now or rent at current market rates. If they live in Zone 1/2/3 they live in council or housing association properties, or live in a property that's been owned by their family for generations (often in a multi-generational household), or they bought their own property decades ago. I manage to live in London and have a "normal" job (teacher) because my husband earns a City salary. Most other teachers I know are in similar relationships. Everyone else lives in much cheaper areas, further out, which are nothing like Hyde Park or Shepherds Bush.