How do people end up living in a £1 million house?

[shortsaint]

As I do my nightly peruse (daydreaming) on Rightmove (most expensive first) I am wondering how people end up living in a million plus property?

I do not live in the south east or Home Counties, just an ordinary Midlands town. I consider myself fortunate as we come to the last couple of years of the mortgage. We probably have the lowest value house of my friends, with an above average joint income, 2 kids, both work f/t. We have had 2 houses in 20 odd years so haven't followed the property ladder, had no inheritances or windfalls. Is that what it is?

In the case of some relatives - bought a house 30 years ago for (I believe) £120k.

Lived in it, neglected the structure of the building, and now it's worth about 7x more than what it was despite being in far worse condition (worth nearly a million in bad condition; would be worth over a million if done up).

Normal inflation, by comparison, would have put it up by 2.2x. Madness.

@CharlotteGoldenblattYork

I'd be interested to know this too.

An acquaintance and her husband lived in a rented house until about 4 years ago. They suddenly bought a house for just under a million, did quite a bit of work to it, sold it recently for I think 1.4 million and have just moved into a 3 million pound house! No idea how they have done it. Neither are from wealthy families.

Lottery/Premium Bond win? You never know....

@bettyboodecia

Someone in a commercial/professional job in London should be on +£100k plus by their early thirties at least. Two salaries like that x4 and and a deposit = £1m easy. Hence mile after mile of small London houses all costing +£1m.

slight exaggeration there I think... average salary for 'professional' jobs is 50k.