London property prices are STILL going up!

[teapotl]

I live on the zone 2/3 border in what is now considered a desirable part of London (but didn’t used to be). I’ve been keeping an eye on the market over the past 4 years and property prices in my area have continued to rise and rise. I thought the London market was meant to be falling due to Brexit and now Covid, but it doesn’t seem to have had any effect at all. Will London prices ever plateau or are they just destined to go up and up forever?

@serenada thank you for that post. Really interesting to read about a London upbringing; I can see how it conditions you for success, at least materially, but perhaps doesn’t nourish you very much spiritually?

My hometown experience sounds a bit more cosseted than @Allington, but it was bleak nonetheless. Very low expectations and an almost vitriolic hatred of people who wanted more.

Maybe I’m bigging up myself and home friends, but I do feel our trajectory (former secondary modern to a RG university to a very competitive creative industry) has been way tougher than the well-worn Westminster/St Paul’s to Oxbridge to /Bar/Magic Circle/BBC route, and that’s before we get to the years of uncertain housing, inability to network because all the events are unaffordable once you’ve paid your rent etc.

Negotiating this mire requires such huge abilities, but we’re wasting so much time and energy just trying to live whilst our better-settled contemporaries leapfrog us.

I don’t know whether the movement of people and money is always going to be London-centric (after all, Liverpool and Halifax were among the richest cities on earth for a giddy 5 year period), but I don’t think it’s going to change in my working lifetime.

What I can tell you is this - that fom a young age we have to deal with our lives being dominated in a way I don't see outside of London. There is no breathing space. We are run by tube and bus timetables. Everything is run on such a tighter schedule, its suffocating and it never lets up. We grow up with much more aggression in our faces on a daily basis and in an ebevironment that is constantly challenging: physically, intellectually, emotionally. I just don't see that in teh people who come to London as adults.

@serenada
That really wasn't my experience or any of my friends experience at all. Maybe because my parents are immigrants & I grew up in a diverse area? Yes we are probably more streetwise but I don't understand what you mean by "weight", I was born in the mid 80s so maybe that makes a difference?

We all were helped by our parents in some form either some deposit/living at home & we all went to Uni (not Oxbridge though).

The main difference I noticed at uni that someone who came from a roughish area of London tended to not touch drugs whereas mc kids treated them as nothing. Drugs were a fast route to trouble!

Recreational drugs, alcohol and 3-star restaurants seem to be essential requisites to success in many fields these days @bilbotoy.

I love the Michelle Obama quote, “They aren’t that smart.” Still, it’s the less able people that are at the table, and improving the insecurity of housing is one of the ways we can dramatically improve equality of opportunity.

Good luck doing that with Etonians and Wykehamists in charge.

I mean I knew people who ended up getting stabbed or going to young offenders institutions but they were never friends. I certainly didn't have a silver spoon private education upbringing but I thought my childhood was actually quite idyllic & can only hope my dc are as happy.

There is a divide though, I think the opportunity to be successful & get that 100k -150k job is quite obtainable but the 400k plus jobs, they are only for a very select & similar few.

@allington I think you have missed the point of my post. We had all that but at the speed of London life because everything is focused on the material

@bilbotoy

Immigrant family, disadvantaged part of London, too.

I had to pay housekeeping to be at home - there have always been families that held the view that once you are an adult (16) you pay your way. I had my first job at 14.

Very different to 'We all were helped by our parents in some form either some deposit/living at home & we all went to Uni (not Oxbridge though).'

Thank you @breadcakebiscuits for your gracious response but my point is that you are the privileged (secure background, RG, etc)

It is you I have to run faster than just to stand still from a young age because of the hidden poverty in London.

Even now, if you are working and in your own home you are better off than I am. We are competing, from the start against the small amount of Westminster/St Pauls without any of the scaffolding that goes on to support communities outside of that (and it can be cultural as much as anything else).

That is why Oxbridge attract a certain type - someone on here described it once. A refugee, from a minority group, state school, hard working ethos in family, upwardly mobile supporting, parents life revolves around children, parents typically do low paid jobs. Those children know that they have to shoot for the very top because they don't have the middle class cachet that exists in communities outside the country.

But the world has fixated on a very narrow stereotype: male, white, Eton raised, to define all Oxbridge graduates.

Whose agenda does that suit, I wonder?

I had my first job at 14/15, a paper round & a proper Sat & holiday job from 17. I also paid a small rent after uni when I lived at home. That was the norm & didn't seem harsh to me since my mum left for a different country at 17. Every family is different & I didn't feel hard done by.

Perhaps I would feel more disadvantaged if I went to Oxbridge as I would stick out more. My parents had there own business & did become quite successful so owned their home etc

A high percentage of colleagues & neighbours are privately educated but I've never felt less then them. Yes some of them are very privileged, 200k gift here from the parents to move up the ladder, or pay for their holiday etc.

I agree with you there is hidden poverty. My friends on council estates "got out" & did well whereas I reckon that's harder to do now. Plus their families could buy their housing.

The most concerning thing today for social mobility is that education & a good job probably isn't enough the most important thing in terms of "success" will be if your parents own property or not.

But life is unpredictable. happens. If you don't know where you'll be working 3 years from now

In many cases it is. Three years worth of equity can still be a good few grand. You can rent it out. Seldom is it not worth it.

Absolutely @bilbotoy

And I don't mean to get into a competition of who had it harder - it is just that an easy conflation has developed that really doesn't help anyone.

One of my closest friends is Northern, from a very privileged background (not without its own issues, I'm sure). She is firstly, a dear friend but the class issue historically cannot be underestimated as a factor in social mobility. Today, i suspect it is not so much class but physical ability - many physical jobs are well paid and wil get you on the housing ladder and from there the access to other things is open as you are not caught in that limbo of renting and can do online courses, etc.

Of course, previous generations did do all of this - they should be our inspiration.

And for the record I felt very comfortable at Oxford on the whole because everyone was so fixated on work. At my modest undergraduate university, there were many people who were discontent at being there. Probably a UG vs PG thing but one person stands out to me as having a bit of an issue and he was a state grammar pupil, parent was a teacher. He was quite the intellectual snob as I remember but couldn't compete in a debate with real scholars.

an UG vs PG, sorry.

@breadcakebiscuits Agree 100% with every one of your posts, and your situation appears to be quite similar to mine too (no help from mum/dad financially, saved and saved for my deposit, mortgage a fraction of rent price, 32yr mortgage repayment, well paid solo buyer). I feel we could almost be the same person!

I was born and bred in London. It's all I've ever known. My family and friends are close by. I too am BAME, which is another reason why I probably wouldn't leave - the diversity is this city in unmatched. I've actually considered working outside of London (there have been opportunities I've turned down), however, my London base would have remained.

My daughter is BAME - it has become another reason to stay in a large city. I would not want to expose her to the high levels of prejudice that were universal where I grew up.

@bilbotoy

There is a divide though, I think the opportunity to be successful & get that 100k -150k job is quite obtainable but the 400k plus jobs, they are only for a very select & similar few.

Wow.

@serenada what's wow?

This statement

'There is a divide though, I think the opportunity to be successful & get that 100k -150k job is quite obtainable but the 400k plus jobs, they are only for a very select & similar few.'

100k - 150k job is quite obtainable.

I don't know anyone on that kind of money.

I do think for my generation if you're academic & have some opportunity & good luck you can get a 100k job/income despite not attending private school or Oxbridge. I don't think this level is easy to get to by any means but it's not completely unobtainable. As another poster said I think some people don't realise other people's salaries, 1 of my friends a plumber & easily earns 100k, I have a teacher friend who's a deputy head on 80k,

My point is the door can be open to jobs/income at that level despite ones background whereas the 400k jobs generally are behind a closed & bolted door.

I understand. Thank you for clarifying.

Yes, Plumbers, property people and other professions may well get that kind of salary.

I am on a repayment mortgage. Bought in 2002 for £160k a flat in South London. It's now worth £360-£400k. But transport links to the City and Canary Wharf have improved dramatically and there is a lot of foreign money in London. My flat isn't particularly special but people will pay to be close to the London Overground or Tube. Flats in other parts of London are double the value of mine.

I cannot afford a house in my area (£800k-1.5m) so if we want a house we can move to a much cheaper area like Barking and Dagenham or Erith or move much further out. I can't move further out because my job demands I do extreme shift work and without a car it means making do on public transport, which is lousy between 12 midnight and 7am. So until I get a job with "normal" hours we are stuck in the rabbit hutch. Oh, and my daughter's school is excellent so I don't want to move for that reason too.

@serenada you were quite right to remind me of my privilege. I live and work in such a small world that I forget how lucky I am. The opportunities I have are ones even my mother‘s generation couldn’t possibly have dreamt off, and there are many obstacles I’ll never have to face.

I agree with @bilbotoy that the £100k-£150k salary bracket is attainable to many professional and trades people. I’ll be crossing that six figure threshold with my next promotion, so not much more than a decade after graduating. That said, that’s what a university graduate starter would be earning at Slaughter & May!

The £400k jobs are Partner or VP level in a household name business, yes? I have an idea of what it takes to break into that circuit, but it involves being public school, Oxbridge, and probably a Mason . I only know two women in that world, both financiers, but very much the female equivalent of the men - and who have married very well too.

I also wonder whether shifts in working behaviour / commuting pattens will depress the London Z2-4 house prices which are often obscenely high for very average properties in nothing special areas - but within a 30-45 min commute to the office.

If we are only in the office once or twice a week, a longer commute is far more tolerable.

Depressing, but even if I did make it into those stellar earnings leagues, I’d still only be able to afford a terraced house in zone 2/3 with no garden and no parking. It’s a thread for another time but marriage is still a very good way of vaulting up the property ladder, and ensuring those high prices stay high.

One thing I didn't clarify that for women it's harder. I think I read that only about 155k women earn over 100k approx 1 in 5 vs men which is obvs a bit shit!

The NQs at the MC are facing a pay cut but only of about 5k!

@breadcakebiscuits

It’s a thread for another time but marriage is still a very good way of vaulting up the property ladder, and ensuring those high prices stay high.

And I think that is entirely intentional.

Meanwhile, I'm going to put my head under a pillow and scream at the frustration of it all.