To think in London, your choice of partner matters more than a career?

[zippythetoad]

I work in London, came from a working class family in north, state comp, went to Cambridge, blah blah.

Work in a well paid job in financial services. You’d think my kind of salary would afford a nice house etc. You’d be wrong.

Looking around at people in the office, some of the same background as me, the only people who have actual houses or are starting families are those who have married someone with generational wealth.

It doesn’t matter how hard you work, you will never catch up to someone who has bern given a £1-2mil contribution to buying a house through inheritance or family. This all boils down to whether your partner comes from a family who bought London property in the 80s or 90s.

Yes, I think your partner’s financial position makes a huge difference, but the people I know who’ve managed to buy in London before 40 were the ones who married someone working in financial services! So perspective plays a big part too…

Wherever you live, you'd struggle to ever catch up to someone who was given £1-£2mil

Thing is, everyone knows those people will have had family help or good fortune to afford their lovely homes. You've done brilliantly off your own bat to land a great job in a lucrative industry. Over time I expect you'll have a lovely lifestyle that will make others a little green eyed. I'd far rather enjoy my own achievements with satisfaction than be gifted everything. And those super wealthy are really quite few and far between in the scheme of things.

I can relate OP, and the London sub on Reddit is full of this kind of observation, particularly by posters in their 30s wanting to buy a place and being increasingly priced out. The only ones I know who have managed it have been saving for years and have been renting with a partner/staying with family for years so can afford to pool costs and get the deposit together for a shitty flat (which at least will appreciate in value tbf). It's impossible for a single person without family money as rental costs are too high, unless they were REALLY determined to save since their early 20s, but then theres no point being in London if one isn't going to experience all the expensive social side of it.

Mind you I've had multiple boyfriends in London with wealthy parents and could have bought with several of them but after a bad run and seeing how unhappy they/their families still are I decided it's not all roses for them either.

So, having experienced all that, I've fucked off back up north. 😁at least there are still options here for single people.

You're not wrong.

I would also say that it depends on parents' generosity. I have friends / family whose parents completely bankroll them leaving themselves with little security. And I have friends who parents are very comfortable but aren't generous.

You’re right.

But the problem is there are strings attached to this model.

Thats why I have avoided financial dependence on a partner like the plague: because I would loathe the feeling that my assets could all be taken away if we split up.

Its grotesquely unfair though.

I think you’ve just explained why there are so many miserable marriages and relationships. People feel trapped!

100%. I was in similar boat (no family wealth, good job) & I found that people I thought were ‘like me’ in my 20s and was out drinking with etc. suddenly all brought property in their early 30s and I was baffled and thought I had gone wrong somehow to not be able to do this. But then I realised they all had been gifted £100k+ from their/ their partner’s family. I got on the property ladder via shared ownership which I think is a good option in London.

You are absolutely 100% correct.

The only reason I own a (tiny) home is exactly that- my (very middle class salaried) parents bought in London in the 80s and could help me
With a deposit for my flat

Yes generational wealth has become the biggest determining factor in being able to afford property for people in their 30s. Don't agree this requires marrying into wealth though - women can inherit too these days...

It wasn't always like this - amongst my friends in their late 40s, all in London, hardly any had financial help from parents in buying their first property (though they, like us, then benefited massively from property prices rising).

(Incidentally, none are financially dependant on their partners either - all work and over half of the women earn more than their partners.)

I think your definition of a well paid job in financial services in London is different to mine if you can’t afford a nice house. Unless by nice house you are restricting yourself to Knightsbridge etc.

I have to agree with this. Yes, of course being given thousands (I don’t know anyone who got millions) towards a deposit helps widen your choices. I’m also from a working class background, parents don’t have two pennies to rub together.

But I bought as a single person in London with no help in 2021, so pretty recently, and I earned 45k at the time. I’d lived in cheap house shares up until then and saved whatever I could, I didn’t find I had to curtail my life either really I just socialised cheaply, pre-drinks before going out etc. my flat cost 200k. There are literally hundreds more properties under 300k in south east London, a huge area people seem to conveniently forget exists when they complain they can’t afford anything on a 6-figure salary. Is it my dream home? No. But rather than leaving London for a bigger property, it was more important to me to stay in London where my life is based, and have the security of owning a tiny flat, so I made choices within my means. If I can, I’m pretty sure you can, OP.

1. Of course you can’t catch up on a £1m headstart unless you win a Premium Bond or something
2. You will never get a ‘nice house’ in London for the same price as in the North, but in your sector you might not get the salary either. It’s a lifestyle choice.
3. You don’t need a £1m house to start a family. I live in a small 3 bed terraced house on a decent rail network where plenty of similar houses are £400-500k, and millions of families live in flats that are cheaper
4. The capital and earning power of your partner affects your lifestyle wherever you live
5. You have a great headstart in having brains, a Cambridge degree and a good high earning potential career. Enjoy it and don’t make yourself miserable with comparisons
6. Especially don’t go chasing a rich man just to get a house!

Thanks Ted for the validation. Funnily enough my nice house is also in a decent part of SE London.

For sure.

I've worked hard and made very conscious career choices to get my income up to over 6 figures, but don't come from money. My friend has always prioritised artistic and creative fulfilment in her career, never money, and makes less than half what I do, yet she can afford to take a year off for mat leave (which would be a huge struggle for me) purely because her partner was bought a flat outright by his family, and given money towards a deposit for their new family home, so they got to live for free for a year in the flat and now get to keep all the rental income from it as they move into a house. I can't imagine how much I'd need to earn to compete with that.

It's hard not to feel frustrated at times - I am glad for my friend, but it just feels depressing to realise there is almost nothing I could do (save getting a MASSIVE finance job) to compete with the benefits of a partner with family wealth. It's dispiriting and makes me wonder what's the point of even trying.

Then again, life has never been fair. It just hits particularly hard sometimes.

We did - DH came from a council flat background in the north. Had successful career - in fact he helps his mum out. We had a nice terrace house in London.

The only thing, I've ever had from my parents is a small inheritance from my grandmother - I think it was around 25K.

We live outside London now, in an area where lots of well off people live and at least half the people we know went to state schools.

How much do you earn OP? I wonder if your idea of a large salary isn't actually big for London

I have been where you are - living in London and feeling that everyone else had somehow got 'ahead' - so can empathise, although times were a bit different. However, you have the main ingredient which is a good job. Apart from that, make sensible decisions, try not to get distracted by others and you will be absolutely fine. By sensible decisions I mean:

Buy any property you can afford and improve it
Pick your partner wisely
Think very carefully before having more than two children
Invest and put money into pensions
Enjoy life but don't squander money either. You can't spend money twice. Those £200+ nights out eventually come home to roost.

Oh and take risks, if the possible return is good. We undertook a massive building project in our second home (which we had bought in a dilapidated state), virtually a rebuild including a new roof. It was a huge financial risk and nerve-wracking as once you have ripped a house apart you cannot turn back the clock. We weren't sure if we had the money to see it through. But we held our nerve, completed the project and that decision paid off several times over.

But also count your blessings as you already have more money and choices than a huge proportion of the population. Things happen in life that no amount of money or property can change.

Why is it just London? Its everywhere from what i see. If someone is gifted enough money to make home ownership possible then they are going to be in a better position than someone who has not. Unfortunately thats how life works.

This sounds like it may be pretty accurate. London property is ruinously expensive (for no justifiable reason) so therefore it would be a chunk of Mummy/Daddy's money or inheriting their London house that would get you there before you are maybe mid 50s. I grew up in London and the increases and developments really are shocking.
I hate the notion of profiting from property. Everyone should have a decent home.

Kind of right for us- but no £1.2m gifts from family!

Mr Monkey is 9 years older than me and managed to buy a very modest ex council flat in London in his early 20s (no parental help). The money he made from selling that 20 years later allowed us to buy somwhere larger in London with a very small mortgage.

But then my now much larger salary has allowed him to pursue a post redundancy career change .... so 🤷‍♀️

My husband would say so. He married me and I have a 'gold dust' social housing place in a nice part of West London.

We wouldn't have a hope in hell of buying. Prices here are insane.

@zippythetoad How old are you? Just wondering as I'm 37 and have lived in London for 15 years (also grew up in the north) and I and all of my friends around my age own property in or very close to London - nobody has inherited or married into significant money in order to do that, just benefited from being able to get onto the property ladder at a time of low mortgage rates and in some cases (but not all) a leg-up from parents to help get their deposit together. So I'm struggling to agree with you but perhaps there's a generational difference at play and you and your workmates are suffering from the combination of high property prices and higher interest rates.

DH and I live in London zone 2 and we've had no family help at all. No inheritance or gifts. I don't have a career, just a min wage pt job. DH works in tech and has an excellent salary package including share options. He kept them invested for over a decade, and only sold when we wanted to buy property (bought first flat in 2011 . We live in a 4 bed house and have 2 dcs at private school. Plenty of his colleagues own houses without family help, and all of the families at dcs school (they might have had help, it's a bit taboo to discuss it).

Bollocks, there are many people that have become wealthy through hard work and commitment.