It feels crazy that nearly £900k isn’t enough to buy a nice house with a garden in a safe area of London!

[Propertyahhh]

A complaint post really.

I know, first world problems. But we have almost £900k to spend and it won’t get us a house with a garden in any London neighbourhood we like (Blackheath, Hackney, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, East Dulwich). So we thought we’d look at Bath, Bristol, Hove, etc and it doesn’t even stretch very far there. Tiny terraces with tiny gardens - if that.

Why is property so expensive?!?! How can so many people afford excess £1m to spend on houses?

It must be terrible. People here in my corner of West Yorkshire can’t afford a house at £80,000.

Makes me laugh some of the houses people put on here and say that’s nice for 900 grand 😀 , I like visiting London but for that kind of money you can keep them. Similar houses up here would go for around 2-300k and you could semi retire on the rest 🙂

That particular house is absolutely massive, one of the biggest houses in the area and extremely rare to find one that size not turned into flats. The house in Dulwich looks pretty bog standard so a much better deal in Brockley. This is a great example of the value of the area because you would find similar comparisons at the 900k region. There are lovely big houses in Halesworth road/shell road near hilly fields or Ashmead road right by St. John’s station for around 900k

@Propertyahhh Have you thought about Dorset or is it too far? Some bargains in cute local roads/villages around Bournemouth.

@ManyMaybes

That particular house is absolutely massive, one of the biggest houses in the area and extremely rare to find one that size not turned into flats. The house in Dulwich looks pretty bog standard so a much better deal in Brockley. This is a great example of the value of the area because you would find similar comparisons at the 900k region. There are lovely big houses in Halesworth road/shell road near hilly fields or Ashmead road right by St. John’s station for around 900k

That was rather my point. Yes, it’s possible to spend £2m in Brockley but you’re not buying a regular house.

@snotf that is my point. I bought a small flat years ago for that as soon as I got a job (Thatcher era).
This is what all my feiends did back then - often buying with two or three friends. One lived in a bedsit for three years to get a good enough deposit. I'm buying at £950k house now. It takes time to build up to affording £900k+. My friends that are in that bracket (or more) either have some kind of high salaried jobs or are older and have climbed the ladder.

Bit I agree - I'm older and being buying and selling fir decades. A young couple buying their second rung home in much of London would have to have a healthy budget.
The job I had when I bought my first flat has quadrupled in salary. But the flat has gone up 8 times the value.

But most people have no choice but to buy much later these days & the bottom rung is so high that it's actually quite hard to build equity now. Plus stamp duty & moving costs make multiple moves very expensive.

If I was a ftb again I would skip the flat stage & try & buy something that is pretty future proof first.

Plus ever increasing prices make moving up the ladder harder for most

I was fortunate to get a shared ownership flat 9 years ago. This was before shared ownership was well known and the government was promoting it as a way for people to get on the property ladder. The flat was in Peckham, i knew Peckham was slowly becoming trendy and was pleased with the price of the flat i bought as it was great value. I then sold it 2 years later for 60% increase in value.

I then met my DW and she owned the house she grew up in, which was fairly small in an unfavorable part of SE London, it's all she could afford. She sold it for a small increase in value over 10 years

Combined we had some equity to buy a 450k house. We sold that 5 years later for 500k and bought a house for 660k last month.

My BIL bought a flat in Brockley 5 years ago for 300k and has just sold it for £370k.

These increases are so much faster than someone can save for, it's getting so out of reach for first time buyers as a couple, single first time buyers have no chance.

@Propertyahhh

A complaint post really.

I know, first world problems. But we have almost £900k to spend and it won’t get us a house with a garden in any London neighbourhood we like (Blackheath, Hackney, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, East Dulwich). So we thought we’d look at Bath, Bristol, Hove, etc and it doesn’t even stretch very far there. Tiny terraces with tiny gardens - if that.

Why is property so expensive?!?! How can so many people afford excess £1m to spend on houses?

I feel your frustration. We are recently married and wanted to start a family ASAP. Have £900k once the sales of our individual flats complete in the coming weeks (well paid jobs, early 30s) - looking for a family home in Wanstead/South Woodford.

I hold my hands up - we want a semi detached ~2,000sqft w/ 3 bed (ideally 4) off street parking, communal kitchen and a >70ft garden. It's hard but we are hoping that once we are chain free we'll have that as a positive when putting in offers.

It's so difficult. We attended a viewing yesterday 30 people! Tbh the house was far too small for what we wanted but plenty of people with kids liked it. We are spoilt I guess because we have large flats and refuse to go backwards in terms of space.

Good luck with your search.

I can remember reading this woman from Richmond bought her flat for £900k in 2013 and sold it this year at an £125k loss as it was a flat. Crazy. I love London and would live there in a heartbeat however the house prices for something I have where I live now would be so much more expensive in somewhere like London.

OP, I understand what you mean. You would think nearly £1m would buy you something nice but London is another planet when it comes to housing compared to the rest of the UK!

I live in Dorridge, Solihull. Supposedly the most expensive area to buy a property outside of the South East. £900k here would buy you a nice detached house (albeit not a mansion). How important is it that you’re in London? My local station has an hourly service to London (pretty amazing for a village of less than 8,000 people) which takes about an hour and 40 minutes. Alternatively you could drive to Birmingham International station and get the mainline from there which is about an hour and a bit. Schools here are among the best in the country. Explore your options OP.

@Blueskyemily

Try Wanstead?

We're currently trying to buy in Wanstead and the market is moving so fast even at the price point mentioned. We're struggling to even get viewings!

Out if interest, if secondary schools are a number 1 priority, how many of the areas being mentioned here fall by the wayside? I.e. where's left? Richmond surrounds (too expensive), Alexandra Palace, Streatham/Tooting, East Dulwich. I can't think of anywhere else with excellent non-denominational mixed secondaries that aren't grammar.

It's because so many people have equity from getting on the ladder earlier, difficult when younger without a time machine.

900k will definitely get you a house with a garden in Hove and in many areas of Brighton.

I think I'd be tempted to look at Cambridge if you are okay with a long commute.

E.g. www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/59345653/

275k under budget, 3 bedrooms, probably 15 mins walk to station with a 53 min fast train into king's cross.