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

@TedMullins

Unless you’re involved with drugs or gang life there is next to zero chance of a middle class white person having bother with gangs. The violence is usually between gang members. I’ve lived in London 8 years and never been the victim of a crime but I was burgled when I lived in Leeds. Crime can happen anywhere.

DD lives in central London. 3 weeks ago had her phone snatched by a passing youth on a bike whilst walking near St Paul's Cathedral at 5pm. A local security guard said it happens so often round that area.

DD is a uni student and works on Reception for a hotel in Bloomsbury. She gets £14 ph. Many of the hotel staff have other jobs. One works in recruitment during the week and does a couple hotel shifts at the weekend.

@BoudecaBains I really don't recognize your experience but am sorry to hear it. I live in north london zone 3 and while i don't have a car, i don't think any cars in my flat's carpark have been stolen! The controversy is usually about parking in my area! Too many huge cars and not enough space! I am not sure about bullying but surely bullying can happen in any setting; but I suppose in a private school as a paying customer, the teachers are more likely to take it seriously.

@Orchid876 is that how teachers afford it? I was always wondering as the salaries really are low. No idea how nursery workers or nurses afford it

People I know of for example a former teacher disabled has HA one bed flat zone2 since decades ago
Couple in low wage jobs in H A flat zone 2 since some years
Single parent in lower wage gets H,B to help with rent flat zone 3 thru private landlord who has,arrangement with council to rent long term to people getting h b
Young professional buys flat with help to buy /shared ownership
Most families in 2 or 3 bed flats, not a 3 bed semi
Couple 30s professional bought first floor one bed flat zone 2
Key worker family , HA flat zone 1
Lone parent 2 dc did council swap from outside london to zone 1 6th floor flat
Families in Mansion block flats in a housing coop in zone 2 so cheaper rent

Bit if you coming in fresh then you need good earnings and prepared to compromise eg flat , no or small outside space. No private parking etc

Unless you have that big inheritance...

I bought a wreck of a flat in zone 2 twenty years on a 100% mortgage, spending my savings on doing it up. I always had a lodger to help pay the mortgage and bills, which was stressful as it’s quite unnatural to live with a relative stranger in such a small space. Utility bills are small in London because our homes are small, and council tax is relatively low, so I was okay financially despite not being a high earner.

Then I married DH who was both a high earner and whose parents were financially very astute so had gifted him a very large deposit as an advance on his inheritance. (My parents actually have more money than my in laws but are much less shrewd about IHT, and don’t have the same appetite for risk nor the same level of trust). We bought a four bedroom house in the same area on a 30 year interest only mortgage, and make overpayments whenever we can to reduce the capital. An interest only mortgage means we have flexibility if one of us were to lose our job but thankfully we’re well ahead of schedule on repayment because of low interest rates.

People working in hospitality earn London Living Wage plus usually a share of tips and so they may be earning more than teachers and nurses (at least in non-Covid times). They’ll live with family or as lodgers or in private rental flatshares. HMOs tend to be for people receiving benefits and most people move out as soon as they can. It’s quite a depressing way to live as you have all the dissatisfaction of living with others without any of the benefits such as communal cooking or companionship.

London has always been an expensive place to live and a bit of a struggle, but most people are here to work and when they move further out or back to their home countries they usually do so with an impressive CV and sometimes a big chunk of equity.

A lot of teachers seem to be either very young, or have a high-earning partner. It's barmy of course and broken and not sustainable - teachers should be able to live in the city they teach in.

The other teachers I know either don't live in London (or they might be on the very edge, Zone 6) and commute in, or yes, they're in relationships with higher earners. It's not unusual, most professional occupations are much better paid than teachers in London. Six figures for full time work is normal.

The same applies for nurses. The nurses I know are also in relationships with higher earners.

@isitthestew my DH went to a london faith school and he said most of his teachers came from wealthy backgrounds...and my DH is 31...

[quote seekinglondonlife]@KittenKong I went for a walk yesterday in Hyde Park area and fell in love with the mews houses. Then saw an estate agent advertising them for £3-4m! DH and I were wondering who on earth lived in them and how they can afford them![/quote]
I know a few people who have inherited these having grown up in them in the 80s (when they were considerably cheaper to buy).

A friend's parents live in one. They had bought a detached Edwardian villa in Ladbroke Grove in the 70s. They paid nothing for it as it was run-down as was the area. They sold that property about a decade ago for £6m and purchased two mews houses in Hyde Park (at a few million each) that were side by side and converted them into one property. I think its recently been valued at £10m.

Also, overseas investors. It's London, there will always be people who can afford to live in these prime locations.

By living in zone 5 in a small 3 bed semi that was bought a long time ago. I dream of moving away to the coast one day. Our road is now out of reach to ordinary working class families and house that go on the market are bought by investors. They then rent out for £2000 a month and also knock up a building at the bottom of the garden that ends up as another rental. These houses are tiny and in one a couple of doors up there are 2 families of 4 each living together. They are lovely hard working people and it's so unfair that they have to pay so much for so little. This area now has so many new flats being built it's more like an inner city area.

Whoever asked, yes nearly all of the workers I have spoken to are Kosovan or Albanian.
I have 3dc who are mid to late teens, unfortunately I don't think I could convince them to share a bedroom together when they are used to having their own rooms. (The rent on my 4 bed detached house is £750) I think as hard as it would be it would be worth the compromise, more job opportunities would be available for the dc, although I'd worry about how they would afford to live independently!

The thing about London is that it really is a group of villages. Sometimes those villages are very unfashionable and cheap to buy in, until they're suddenly fashionable and expensive. This can happen very quickly. It happened in the 90s when I lived in Wandsworth (once young families got priced out of Clapham) and Shoreditch. More recently Peckham, Walthamstow etc. So people might be living somewhere that they bought into on the cheap and now be sitting on some serious equity. Problem is that there are not many cheap areas remaining...

@Onelittleone it really isn’t a necessity to earn a 6 figure salary to live in London. Perhaps if you have more than one child, yes, you might find you need that kind of income for childcare but as I said upthread I earn 46k and bought a flat with no help last year. I wouldn’t be able to afford a family home, no, but I don’t need one. If you’re single and on a decent middle income, saving a 10% deposit for a small flat is not out of reach.

I have a 3 bed house it’s a council house but it’s in a horrible area of London, my council waiting list is 10 years long minimum, and you can’t join unless you’ve lived in the area for 5 years, my ex has a 3 bed HA flat in Notting hill, it was his mums but she died and it was given to him even though he’s a single man and lives alone

[quote TedMullins]@Onelittleone it really isn’t a necessity to earn a 6 figure salary to live in London. Perhaps if you have more than one child, yes, you might find you need that kind of income for childcare but as I said upthread I earn 46k and bought a flat with no help last year. I wouldn’t be able to afford a family home, no, but I don’t need one. If you’re single and on a decent middle income, saving a 10% deposit for a small flat is not out of reach.[/quote]
Exactly. London is full of people who don't make anywhere near 6 figures!

@seekinglondonlife I don't think you need to get a 2 bed flat in zone 1/2. Young childless couples do it because many of them work long hours and the stress of additional commuting is just not worth it, plus the extra commute costs for 2. You would get the same job opportunities living anywhere in the commuter towns; the reason why it wouldn't make sense for me is because both of us work in london and the cost of a mortgage plus 2 season tickets and the cost of running a car is far more than a london mortgage and as we are only planning 1 child, we don't really need a big house either. Many young people who work in london commute from their parents' houses in the home counties and they can afford it because their parents charge them low rent.

I have several teachers among my schoolrun friends in my West London area (well regarded state primary in Z4). They do tend to have a partner who has a corporate job, but they all own a family home, albeit it may be a 3-4 bed terrace with a fairly compact footprint which has had a loft conversion and rear extension done. Some of them are quite leveraged on mortgage, I suspect, but it's doable.

My ex’s sister bought in a not great area in 1998, her 1 bed was £55k. She’s a city lawyer though, sold flat about 3/4 years later for treble what she paid for it. Bought a bigger place in a nicer area.

Friend lives in Central London, in her 40s, still lives with parents. They bought their house for less than £30k under right to buy nearly 40 years ago. She’s been on housing list for over 20 years but never has enough points to bid. She doesn’t want to move out as all her friends and family are there.

I’m just hoping for a lottery win, as I’d love to live in the area again for the reasons you listed. Also, driving is becoming an expensive pain in the arse and it’s the only city (IMO) with truly decent public transport.

@sansucre I'm suddenly feeling very resentful my dparents will not be bequeath ING me anything like a mews house

Depends on how old you are, lots of older people would have much more affordable housing plus more social housing.

I did read the that a record number of FTBs left London to buy a home.

Oh I live in London and we dont earn 6 figure sums (both in professional jobs but public secotr/civil service doesnt pay all that well). Am also in my 40s with a kid so I do know that you dont have to earn lots of money. However, with one kid, we can still have a reasonably ok standard of living that we just couldnt with two kids i.e. two bed flat is fine with one kid, I can also afford to take him to activities without having to think too hard about it.

Life in London can be tough. It is basically a city that feels ok if you have a family income of around 200k ( and by ok I mean reasonable housing, can afford activities, clothes, hobbies, holidays etc). If you dont then you are a lot poorer than elsewhere in the UK

I think that London looks quite cheap! I just saw a studio flat online in zone 3 for 550 pounds a month.

That's cheap for a place for yourself

Live in Zone 6, suburbia. Mortgage is roughly £1,200 on a house worth roughly £500,000. Work in Central, 30 minute commute in.

In z2/3. Our mortgage is about 1.5k a month as had equity/gifted deposit originally. Moving out of London next yr though which is something I would never have considered but I want a bigger house/garden & I'm not really a fan of the outer zones as they don't tend to have the amenities on the doorstep which I like.