To ask how you managed to buy a property in the South East

[Marghe87]

I’d be interested to hear from people
in their 30s and early 40s mostly (ie; not those that bought a house a long time ago before the crazy pruce increases of the past 2 decades.
How far from London are you and what type of house do you own?
DH and I are in middle management jobs earning over £110K between the two of us. We live outside London and have a DC in full time nursery and a high-ish rent + London expenses (ie: commute cost etc). I appreciate we’d be considered rich with our income in other parts of the country but we can barely save for a deposit whilst paying for childcare and all we’ll manage to get when we finally get there, will be a 2 bed cottage in zone 6.

A few clarifications as I know I might get these questions:

• our salaries have increased a lot in the past 2-3 years, before then we were on a much lower income and that’s why we never managed to save big amounts. Then we got DD and now the majority of our spare income goes to childcare


• our jobs are tied to London and we are not interested in relocating too far away from here (DH from here and I am from abroad and have no interest in living in other parts of England as feel no attachment to it)


• we want to buy somehwere nice, easy commute and with good schools

it just seems so bloody hard!

What is your budget?

max commuter time etc

Oh and distance-wise it was about 45 mins train ride to Waterloo so relatively easy journey.

The house we bought was a fixer upper and not on a good state so we did loads of work to it over about ten years.

We had similar salaries at your age. We lived in a 1 1/2 bed flat in one of the cheapest areas of London (zone 5), non London postcode until the kids were in school.

Once we had lost both sets of nursery fees we upped the mortgage and bought a modest sized house, which we still live in.

Lots of my daughters friends still live in flats with two professional incomes. I can't imagine how people afford anything better, but still literally millions of flats/houses across London sell for £600k plus.

I always think people must earn more than I think, but the stats suggest not.

Bought a tiny scruffy flat and did it up.

Sold, & bought a tiny scruffy cottage without a kitchen or central heating, a reclaim sale after the old lady who had lived in it died. It was sold with all her furniture in situ. Learnt to install a kitchen.

Sold, & bought a marginally larger cottage with a hole in the roof so the rain ran through the middle bedroom and dining room. Lived in the dry rooms while I did it up.

I'm doing my fourth now. I spend evenings and weekends decorating and plastering. But ds has his own room and we have enough space.😊

We sold it last year to relocate out of the SE in search of better quality of life .

@ReeseWitherfork I thought she meant more recently as house prices saw huge growth from late 90s to Brexit.

@Floweryflora I didn't know that, you normally see much lower figures quoted.

I am 29. Bought a flat in zone 3 north london with DH in 2019 when I was 27 and DH was 29. Lived with family for three years which is how we saved our deposit.

Trying to upsize to a bigger flat now but it is not easy!

Tecnically im in your category of early 40s but i did buy 2 decades ago aged 21 so totally irrelevant to today.

My much younger brother bought 3 years ago and he did it by living at home rent free and saving hard. He has a 2 bed terrace in Woking.

"I’d be interested to hear from people
in their 30s and early 40s mostly (ie; not those that bought a house a long time ago before the crazy pruce increases of the past 2 decades."

Then a thread full of people who bought in the 2000s 🙈. I can't imagine how you'll do it OP, my story is irrelevant (like most who have replied)

In the process of buying our first home on the South Coast. Husband is local but I am a Londoner originally. A three bed early Edwardian terrace is going to set us back 290k.
It's only been possible thank to the large redundancy payout he got last year which were fortunate enough to be able to save.
Just waiting to exchange now 🙏

We bought a renovation project by scraping together 5% deposit in Scotland (help to buy scheme). Slogged and renovated it for 6 months, all our evenings, my husband pretty much did it full time. Made £60k profit. We now live in the south east and bought our house for £425k with 10% deposit. (Combined income £130k) we have a child at private school (£12k per year) and other outgoings. It wasn’t easy and I’m grateful every day we managed it.

My DH is a Londoner and I am also from abroad. We also couldn't move too faraway as DH's mum's kids have moved to Israel so we would be her only support in later life; in fact we are maybe a 8 minute drive from where DH grew up. We were pretty much restricted to zone 3 north london, maybe zone 4 at a push. However our budget can only get us flats as the larger houses (that are at least 100 square metres) are a million pounds so I would rather live in zone 3 rather than zone 4.

DH and I earn just over £70k between us and bought a small mid-terrace 3 bedroom house in Berkshire 3 years ago. When I met DH he owned a flat that he'd been able to buy because his grandad gave him £40k for the deposit. We sold that flat to buy that house. We wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
We have one DD in nursery and I'm on mat leave with DD2, but we are able to save a bit each month because we're paying the mortgage rather than paying more to rent. I know we're extremely lucky DH's grandad was able to give him that money.

An estate agent told me that he just sold a 600k 2 bed flat to a 27 year old and 29 year old.At that age, DH and I could only afford 400k and that was after 3 years living at home. The estate agent told me they had help.

No, she said not more than two decades ago, which seems to be in line with most people’s posts.

my friend sold a 700k flat to a pair of siblings in their 20s, parents had bought it for them. Apparently it was the 3rd one in the road to be sold to parents.

I bought in zone 3 about a decade ago, when prices were still a bit lower post the 2008 dip. Location-wise I'm very near an area that's up and come a lot, but am in the shitty postcode area right next door. The estate agent pointed out that that had probably saved me about £10k. Deposit was a mix of some money that family had saved for me and my sibling over the years and money I had saved. My salary was I think around the UK average at the time and I bought by myself in my early 30s but I was very focused on making it happen. I was also very realistic about what my budget would buy me as I was looking at the very cheapest flats on the market.

@LaFemmeNicola that is an awesome achievement and good on you for exploiting that field when it was most lucrative. With no family money and in the absence of a posh or monied background, that's really unusual.

OP I'd say focus on what you actually want out of life. Is it actually your current career, social circle, and location? If so you're going to have to just suck it up I think, and either live in a small unappealing property for a bit or continue renting indefinitely. It sucks but it's the way it is. Look at Tokyo and how families live there. It's not unusual to live in tiny spaces.

I agree with looking at places like: Mitcham, Stoneleigh, Morden, Croydon, Carshalton, Chessington, Epsom, Penge, Feltham, Hounslow, etc. Not lovely but perfectly liveable and with good schools. That's just west/south west, there is a whole ring around London of outer suburbs.

You can get an e bike or moped to save on transport costs longer-term and if you are commuting in daily.

Make sure you are claiming absolutely everything you are entitled to as well. 30 hours free childcare as your child grows, tax free childcare, cycle to work scheme etc. Sell what you don't need. Ditch car if you have one.
Too good to go app for food, lidl £1.50 veg boxes, etc. It truly sucks but your (and my) income isn't very high for London given costs. In cash terms it is great but it does not go far.

Also could you take up a second job or sideline? Translation, audio typing, matched betting, some sort of consulting allied to your job? Again, this is the reality for my peers (and me) right now.

@LaFemmeNicola I thought she meant the crazy price increases in the last 2 decades. Personally I don't think buying 10-15 years ago is particularly relevant to buying today but we can agree to disagree.

We bought in North Hampshire in 2013, new build using help to buy. We got a 3 bed terrace for £250k, stayed there for 5 years, made a reasonable profit on that house and then moved to a 4 bed detached in the same area. We are about an hour from Waterloo. Original deposit plus stamp duty was £15k, mortgage was £900 a month.

Help to buy is definitely worth a look, I know it gets a fair bit of criticism but it's worked out really well for us.

I don't think buying 10-15 years ago compares either - except that some areas increased faster and that will still be the case (in that new transport etc comes to areas). Unless there will be no growth at all, and then everything will be different.

We first bought in 2020 during covid. We made use of stamp duty holidays. People who bought 10 years ago frankly have no clue

DH & I both 36, live in SE, about 45 mins train ride from London. Bought a complete wreck of a bungalow in 2009 for 175k. I was a newly qualified nurse at the time, DH worked in IT. Our fixed rate interest for 5 years was 6%. We spent the 5 years renovating it ourselves as and when we could afford things. Worked a lot of overtime, every spare second was spent working on the house. Sold it after 5 years and bought our current house, good size 3 bed semi, which we are slowly renovating. We have 2 small children now - there is no way we could have afforded (with time or money) our first house & mortgage if we had the kids.

Fair enough.

In that case we bought our current home in the commuter belt for £1.5m just under three years ago.

We didn’t sell our first home, so again we did this with a saved deposit and a mortgage.