Who is living in London?

[Theredbears]

I am a mother to 3 children, all in their mid - late teens, and a whole bundle of DN who are out of uni and are working.

The common complaint most of the DN who are working is how difficult it is to get into the housing ladder. These are bright, motivated and hardworking people.

One DN is in her late 20s and is working as a teacher, with a net pay approx £2.5k - gross is £43k but after tax, student loan and pensions. After rent, bills, food etc she has approx £700 to save towards her deposit.
Even a basic flat in around her area will set her back £350k which will be a struggle.

This leads me to my next question, if ateacher cannot afford a basic flat in London, who is living in London? People who purchased their house 20 -30 years ago?. Where are London's police officers m, nurses, teachers etc all going to live?

I suspect a lot of Londoners are working poor. People who get on the ladder are usually supported by parents. There are some parts of London where there are no children being born.

Unless you're earning a huge amount you have to buy with a partner/sibling unfortunately. If your DN had a partner on the same salary they could easily afford a flat for 350k. That's what we paid for ours in 2021. 2 bed zone 3.

I was born in South London and it feels like a different world now to the one I grew up in. We're public sector and we left London last year to finally get out of the rent trap and onto the housing ladder. I genuinely wonder how a lot of jobs are being filled in London what with the cost of commuting as well as housing. It just wasn't worth it for us to stay in the area at all.

Here in north outer London, young families with keyworker jobs are already living out in places like Harlow and Stevenage and commuting in to work. This has been going on for a long while. You can't afford to live here if you're a teacher or a policeman or a nurse and also have kids to feed, clothe and house.

So who does live here?:

Older people who bought 20+ years ago
People who work in very well paid jobs in the City
People who live hand to mouth and have an empty bank account and maybe an empty stomach for the last few days of the month.
People who rent and probably get some help from housing benefit.
People whose parents have been able to give them a financial leg up.

You'd need to have an income of at least £70k to rent even a small 3 bed terrace in this not very posh area of London suburbs. The sums don't add up any more, especially if you're paying nursery fees or saving for a deposit.

The friends I have who own in London either don’t have kids, had huge amounts of help from parents, or have £3k+ a month mortgage payments. Sometimes all three.

I'm born and bred in London. Almost all my London based family and friends either rent (mixture of private and social housing), purchased 15+ years ago or have left.

I bought 15 years ago, but lived a very frugal life for ages to afford my flat. It’s a bit easier now. But at the time I wasn’t going on holiday ever, didn’t eat out, had to budget extensively. My friends had more ‘fun’ lives than me but they didn’t have a house.

I'm a teacher and for a long time I worked in Cambridge.

Some commute in. I have friends who commute in to London schools from Cambridge.

Others live in house shares, as most young teachers do in Cambridge as well.

Many Cambridge schools have trouble keeping teachers as house shares us all very well for a few years but then they move somewhere with cheaper houses and buy and work there.

Younger people and families are leaving but maybe people are helped by family

many not maybe

Rich people and poor people (the poor people get their rent paid). Old people.

Middle earners room share or live miles outside London or inherit or couple up and scrape together enough for a flat.

This sums it up.

The school I work in has more than one teacher in their 30s who are still in house shares. They want to stay because they have roots here, but it is getting harder and harder to.

We chose not to have kids. Most of our friends did the same.

It’s difficult for single people on low and average incomes to buy - and always has been, there’s never really been some golden age where a single person with not a lot of money was getting by easily in London. But a couple each earning £43k and who have spent their twenties saving for deposits are going to be in a much better position. Two people each saving even a couple of hundred a month over, say, even five years adds up to a pretty decent chunk of money. It might mean managing expectations and accepting that their first home probably isn’t going to be a house with a garden unless they look at smaller houses or areas which are yet to gentrify, but it’s not impossible to buy.

Young people I know on moderate salaries who buy, do so through housing association part-buy part rent schemes. I thought teachers were classed as key workers? Has she tried Peabody?

My family and friends had parental help to buy or did shared ownership and then sold that and bought outright. This is 10+ years ago now. House prices have shot up even in that relatively small length of time.

I have family in SW London and there are generally spaces in the schools and some classes have been amalgamated so fewer families in a traditionally middle class area.

Accepting that you won't be able to buy until your mid/late 30's is part of it I think.

You need to work your way up the ladder a bit more and save for a longer period of time.

Perhaps putting off having kids until later in life too.

But as PP say, a partner really help. Buying by yourself is hard!

there’s never really been some golden age where a single person with not a lot of money was getting by easily in London.
I don’t think that’s true. I lived in London for years on a low income. I rented a nice 1 bed flat in North London zone 2 for 650 a month in 2006. It was doable. As a student 10 years earlier I lived in house shares in great areas for 200 a month. Very easy.
Now I think a lot of young people still live with their folks and a lot of low paid workers are recent ish immigrants who share with a lot of other people.

I bought shared ownership 5 years ago in zone 3. Salary at the time was about 45k but I didn't have any student loan, which probably makes a noticeable difference to net pay. I was gifted 25k deposit by parents as I'd saved nothing. I do also have a financially defendent partner who does not work due to ill health and does not claim benefits, so we were living on that salary between us. I have since purchased more of my flat (mortgage is on 80%) as my salary is now around 85k.

People slate shared ownership but I think it can work very well for people who know their income will go up over time. Obviously I've also been very lucky not to be in a building with illegal cladding.

If you DN is a teacher I'd expect her salary to go up quite quickly and she might then be able to start saving.

Everyone I know either has inherited wealth/property as well as professional, well paying jobs, or they’re in social housing. A few live in shared houses but none of them anticipate ever being able to buy. I’ve been here 25 years. When I came you could get a decent bed sit - or one bedroom flat for an affordable rent - usually house conversions, but that is rare to hear of now.

We bought our v average semi in zone 5 a long time ago 1997. At the time both working, no kids. It was tough but attainable. No way would we have been able to do the same today's climate. New people.buying in our road, tend to be either buy to let or multi generation where young couples live with their parents. First home.improvement is the loft, then a side and back extension and then a house at the bottom of the garden. I don't know what my kids currently.at uni will do. They like our area for the ease of getting in to town but dh has dreams of moving away to the coast.

Renting maybe. Not buying. I’ve been in London since 2004, and even back then I’d not have been able to afford to buy on a low income in all but the sorts of areas and flats I probably wouldn’t have been able to get a mortgage for.

I'm in social housing, my sister is a teacher and is also in SH. Won't get one in my area now though

I grew up in North London, so looking at some of my school friends:

• one moved further out into the outskirts of London with her partner so that they could afford to start a family. Partner already owned a property that he then rented out. She had parental help for her portion of deposit.
• one moved to Europe with her partner to be able to start a family, no financial support available from family.
• one is renting and has been saving up for a deposit for years, she is looking at leaving London to get more for her money. No financial support from family.
• one bought a really lovely 4-bed house in London but his partner inherited a 2-bed house in what used to be a shit part of London that became gentrified. They lived there to begin with and sold that to buy the 4-bed.
• one was clever and bought a studio flat back in the day in a now gentrified area of East London, then sold up and moved to Hertfordshire to afford a family home with his partner.
• my partner and I bought a 1-bed flat in outskirts of London about 8 years ago when interest rates were rock bottom. We both had parental support for our deposits. It was only because of the financial help from family that we could afford to get on the ladder because at the time our joint income was around £50k. To be able to afford a 3-bed house we left London too.

The property prices in London have always been high but it feels like it will continue to outpace salaries even for those who have had financial support from family, unless they are very high earners (earning closer to 6 figures and above) or have the luxury to able to live with family and paying no/low rent so you can save a big portion of income.

My partner and I now have a combined income of £130k and had a flat to sell, and still wouldn't have been able to get anything we wanted in the parts of London we wanted to stay (a 3-bed house in North London). I know there are more reasonably priced properties in the South/South East but it would take us away from all friends and family so we might as well leave London altogether for even better house for the price.