Wealthy young people!

[Sushi4Dins]

There just seems to be a lot of them, suddenly! I just don’t understand how, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, droves of young people are still buying all these houses!

I live in a London suburb (leafy, green, ‘naice’ schools) and a young couple just bought the house next to us. They’re lovely, first time buyers in their 30’s and both consultants of some kind who used to live more centrally. There’s lots of similar people moving into the area.

This particular house was on the market for £750K. We’ve lived here just over 10 years, but certainly couldn’t afford to move here now! How is that affordable for first time buyers? They’ve also been on long haul holidays twice in the last three months.

I have teenage DC and I’d like them to become these people. How do I make that happen?

@ImmigrantAlice ime the couples earning hundreds of thousands each are buying far more expensive houses!

I only mention family help because I'm in the OPs bracket as are lots of my friends, family & colleagues. I do not know anyone who bought without some kind of family help.

Isn't the bank of mum & dad in the top ten of "lenders"?!

I have a friend who bought a new built with her husband at 25 in the most expensive area of the city. The are now in their early 30's and bought a piece of land to built a house in the same area. They also bought a holiday home and investment property. I ld love to know how they managed to do that! I know what they do for a living. Also what their parents do. I know close relarives havent died and you cant get insane loans. Maybe some distant relative left an inheritance or they have made damn giod investments. Would love to know how they do it. Cause im jelous and want the same!

As you get older going people seem older. Professionals earn good salaries eso in London, our grads are coming in on 40k plus. Golden handshake of 10-15k if they complete their chartership.

Education and knowledge about how to get into high earning careers is paramount.

Shoot me down if you like but I won't won't be directing my kids into low paid work.

We bought a flat for a little over a million as our first purchase in our thirties. That was about eighteen months salary at the time.

A lot of people on very high wages are careful about over-extending, as they know that losing their job may see them having to work for much less in the future.

There’s also less need to; if you can easily buy a great home in a good area then stretching for something “OTT” isn’t necessarily any better.

I think OP means business consultants not NHS consultants eg salaries at the likes of McKinsey etc are quite higher than average salaries.

I agree with you. I've told my children that your luck in life starts with the parents to whom you are born. After that it's education, then up to them.

@ImmigrantAlice there's a difference between mortgaging yourself to the hilt & borrowing hardly anything. A couple on 400k can borrow enough for 1.5m house without over-extending. Obviously jobs make a difference, a surgeon would likely have more security than a banker.

There’s also less need to; if you can easily buy a great home in a good area then stretching for something “OTT” isn’t necessarily any better.

I guess it depends on the market, A "good" area & close to good schools can often cost 1m.

Yes, as I said that’s what we spent in our early 30s.

We could have spent £2m, but that would have been stupid.

@ImmigrantAlice I'm saying there's a middle ground between 500k - 2m....

This, I know hoardes of them, without parents' help.

This is me and my partner.

I am genuinely offended at all the posters assuming we inherited money or were given money.

We bought our house for 800k. Nobody gave us any money. We saved long and hard. We both lived in horrid house shares when we were in our twenties. Saved in ISAs which served us well as our investments grew in value. We have really good jobs so we were able to borrow 80%.

The only luck we had was that we were able to go to university and happened to choose careers that are lucrative. But the rest was hard saving and work.

Interest rates are currently VERY high and very unpredictable. We’re in the bracket you’re talking about and, if I were buying now, I wouldn’t buy a £1.5m house. It (to us) wouldn’t seem financially prudent when we could afford a nice home in a nice area with extremely limited risk.

We’re on the London/Surrey borders, it’s a lovely area and the schools are great (good mix, as well). £700-800K will get you a very nice home. Particularly if, as stated in the OP, it’s a ‘starter’ home from their perspective. Get on the ladder, live somewhere pleasant and see what happens to the economy. Makes sense to me!

Inheritance mostly. High house prices means huge inheritance for many young people these days.

This is why house prices will keep rising long term. It's self perpetuating.

@PousseyNotMoira I wouldn't disagree with you! Borrowing now is a completely different landscape but the OPs neighbours presumably already completed?

We bought ly for with 50% equity & I wouldn't borrow the same amount now. We didn't borrow the max either, just grateful I fixed for 5 yrs.

There's a lot of 30 somethings earning great salaries through hard work. Also a lot that are given a leg-up because parents/grandparents could have profited greatly from the huge inflation in property prices between the 70s/80s and present prices, especially in London and the SE.
I have friends who (theoretically) will eventually inherit multiple hundreds of thousands because of that very reason.

Except that our house was £70k more id think you were my NDN speaking about me and my husband 😬

True! She said ‘just bought’, but suppose that could mean anything, really. They might have missed the current madness!

I think wages can rise quite quickly in professional jobs but don't necessarily go that much higher after many years which may be why they seem comparatively well off.

If a couple have two good incomes and lived in cheap accommodation or with family while they saved their deposit it is definitely doable to buy a 750k first home.

@PousseyNotMoira yes it's not pretty, we were about 3 wks away from our deal expiring. Stress!

I'm not on huge salary £50k but I spent 10yrs saving up all my twenties..no holidays nothing much. Then just after recession bought my first house, 3 bed terraced and I got this because I knew I would not be able to move again due to the expense so its a forever home.

Once I was in, I have been going on multiple holidays cos I have £1k disposable income a month after bills and food.

You would of thought the same about me

This is so true. An area near me used to be a cheap place to live. If a kid at school said they lived there, you'd assume their family didn't have much money. Now it's full of middle class well off people.

"She’s Nigerian and he’s Scottish"

Racist much?