How do you people afford to buy property in London?

[England101]

Im in my mid 30s and looking to buy a property, ideally in the outskirts on london. I have a deposit of 60K but (according to online calculators) can only borrow 155k. Ive began looking on the property for londoners website they have a shared ownership house on there for 725k!! full price and they asking for 290k for 40%!! Even with shared ownership how are normal people meant to buy property in/around london.

Most people who are buying their first property start at the bottom of the ladder - they don’t start with a house, they start with a small flat, perhaps in an area that’s not the best, then build up to a house over time or as they buy with a partner.

Hi, we are going to move this thread over to the property section to give you the best possible advice.

High earners (eg bankers)
Bought a long time so when it was more affordable
Buy a small flat.
Buy further out or in a grotty area
Buy with a friend or partner
Inheritance
Parental / family help

We rent in London currently and are buying in Croydon. So zone 5. Two bed flat in a niceish bit £330k. We saved a ten percent deposit, we are 35 and have a baby due any day and obviously took us a long long time to be able to buy on the first rung.

I don’t know how anyone would do it on their own on one salary unless they earnt mega bucks.

Was determined to avoid shared ownership and most of all the equity loan. Those new builds offered through that scheme are criminally overpriced.

And ideally we’d stay in the area of zone 3 we rent in now as we love it but flats here start at half a million, so we don’t have a lot of choice but to move further out, but I’m grateful to be able to get on the ladder in the vicinity at all- it shouldn’t be as hard as it is.

I bought a one bed flat in a shitty area of zone 5. Then I got lucky and met my now husband, and got a promotion at work which allowed me to save up enough of a deposit to buy my house in a slightly less shitty area of zone 6. That was 8 years ago though and we would struggle to afford the same house now. Despite it still being one of the cheapest London boroughs.

My friends in the London outskirts generally live in fairly normal modest houses (three bed terrace, maybe with a loft conversion if they're lucky). Both them and their partners generally work full time, or if they don't, one person in the couple earns £££££ in the City. Only as they get older and those City jobs progress (or parents die) do they buy anything bigger.

Started with a 2 bed flat in a dodgy area- but was convenient for work and had good transport links.

Rented a room to a friend and saved to move up the ladder.

I don’t see how anyone can go straight to the 3-bed house with garden, in any area, without family or some sort of help.

Bought in south east London but zone four. Only had 14k deposit but our income was quite high. We have three young children but I guess our affordability was good. We bought our two bed flat for £275k two years ago. With your 60k deposit, I’m surprised at your mortgage offer.

I bought in the 2000s when it was much cheaper than now but still considered unaffordable at the time, and much more expensive than the rest of the country.
I wouldn’t have considered buying a property on my own. And definitely not a house. We didn’t go beyond the first page of Rightmove and only looked at one bed flats. And was only looking at zone 3-4.
I think the expensive places were either bought a long time ago, and/or by high earning couples with bonuses or a windfall. There are plenty of places for less than £700k, especially out of the centre.

No-one buys a house as a first home in London England101 unless they are earning megabucks or have money gifted to them and/or have a partner also earning good money.

Even when I bought my first home on my own it was a 2 bedroom flat in the back of beyond.

GorgeousLadyOfWrestling The lowish mortgage offer is based on earnings and outgoings, not on the deposit.

I don't think buying a house & skipping the flat stage is a bad idea in this climate but this only works if you have a decent budget because Z2/3 flats are often similar prices to outer zones houses.

However in terms of how people do it, I don't know anyone who has done it without help or they bought in the 90s/00s so benefited from less regulation & cheaper prices.

A relative did it. Work for public sector on around £50k including shift allowance but with unlimited overtime. Trick is to climb the ladder and build the equity. And get the biggest mortgage you can without any expectation of ever selling it off. It’s just a more secure form of renting until you can cash in the equity and move out of London.

Bought an ex-council flat in a not-great area (SE24). Modernised bathroom and kitchen and redecorated. 5 years later sold for twice the purchase price.

Bought brand new shared ownership flat in swanky area (SW6). Decorated nicely. Stayed 7 years, sold for twice the purchase price.

Bought 4 bed house in swanky area (SW12) for £1m. That was 3 years ago.

I only own in London thanks to inheritance

*paying it off

Trick is to climb the ladder and build the equity.

This is becoming much harder to do though as the bottom rung is so high, building costs are high, stamp duty & what you are moving up too has also increased in price.

We don’t plan to build a lot of equity really and will probably be in that flat/bottom rung for a long time. That’s just the way it is really since the leap to the bottom rung is so high and couldn’t be reached until now, and we are already mid-thirties. Neither of us are going to be due anything much in the way of inheritance.

Move to Medway Towns, it's cheaper.

Getting in there before while I could still afford it. I bought a one bed flat now worth about £500k for £100k, about 15 years ago.

But like most of my friends, I sold up and moved out of London when I needed a family home. Will never be able to afford to go back now. I do miss it!

@GorgeousLadyofWrestling

Bought in south east London but zone four. Only had 14k deposit but our income was quite high. We have three young children but I guess our affordability was good. We bought our two bed flat for £275k two years ago. With your 60k deposit, I’m surprised at your mortgage offer.

Mortgage offers are a multiple of your income and nothing to do with the deposit. In this case OP will be on about £34K

A lot of people do skip the flat in London now. We did. Bought late 30s, both earn good salaries, bought 500k house in average area. A lot of later FTB do that now.
People seem to forget when they live in certain parts of London that they're literally living in some of the most desirable areas in the world - so it's expensive!

It's often a mixture of the factors already mentioned, plus perhaps adding value to a crap flat before selling it by renovating in some way.

What are you looking for OP?

There are lots of properties in London for your budget. They're mostly bottom rung, but this is how you do it. Get on the ladder and move up.

I've put £230k into Rightmove (assuming they might take an offer) looking in the whole of London + 1/4 mile, and there's nearly 2,000 properties.

More than 500 of them are 2+ beds.

Wow, I wonder if this is a typo? Lovely 4 bed Victorian house, guide price only £125!!

I know auctioneers tend to price low to bring people in, but that's got to be a mistake, hasn't it?

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/81575550#/?channel=RES_BUY