How do people afford £1m+ houses on here?

[Hellodotcom]

For those who bought their house for £1m+, how did you afford it? Where do you live? I live in a terraced house in Newcastle with DH. We only spent £180k on it!

I always think these are strange questions.

Clearly - some people earn huge salaries

• some people inherit money or property


• some people are gifted property / the money for property


• some people win the lottery or the Premium Bonds


• Some people bought 30 years ago and have moved up the property ladder


• Some people have bought 40 years ago and benefitted from their property going up in price


• Some people buy together, having both done one or more of the above.

My inching up the ladder, moving in with partner and buying together, time and price increases.
The first flat I bought in the 1980s is worth ten times what I paid for it. The house I bought with my husband in 2001 is worth three times what we paid for it. But I didn't wait that long to sell, but as I sold and moved I could afford to borrow that much more each time as my salary increased and with the built up equity the properties I bought were increasingly expensive, but the biggest jump was buying with my husband as he earned much more than me so could borrow more.
My friends daughter is buying her first home for £550k (all from her own savings and mortgage). In 20 years it will probably triple or more in price (its ex council and the area is coming up), and people will be asking her the same question.

We bought a 780k house but by now it might well be nearly a million

First house bought at £37 k in early 90s sold
Second house bought for 45k late 90s sold
Third house bought for 135k early 2000s in a village that suddenly got extremely popular and prices rocketed a few years later Sold for 445!!!!!!

Dh had inherited parents money from sale of house so we could then offer on the house for 780k with a very small mortgage. However we STILL had to leave the other village as we just couldn't afford to stay there.

Family live in £1m+ houses because they bought in London years ago when prices were a lot more affordable.
Quite a few of our friends live in £1m+ houses. They are mostly high earners with both earning 100k+ a year or one of them earning 200k+ a year. A few were gifted houses or flats by family.

massive interest only mortgage

In our case a mixture of good luck and bad luck - good luck as our first flat had doubled in price when we sold it, bad luck that we had lost all of our parents by the time we were in our 40s, but good luck that they left us (and our siblings) houses in desirable areas to sell as many people lose their parents and there isn't much to inherit. We do still have a mortgage of around £300k though. We are in the London/Surrey borders.

£140k flat in East London c.2000.

£290k house SE London c.2004
£650k house outside London c.2008
£1.3m house nearby c.2018

All done through rising house prices and additional savings. We started off with a £100k mortgage and when we moved last got a £200k one, now paid off. I’d like to say there was some great skill or nous involved in it all, but really it has just been a combination of rising market, rising earnings, and not stretching ourselves too much so we could save.

Bought a very run down house in a then unfashionable area of West London in 1981 on a primary school teachers salary.

House now worth about £1.6mln.

However downsizing then frees up cash for adult children to put down big deposits - despite earning more (even adjusted for inflation) than their parents did, they will never buy even a reasonable small flat in London without a boost.

we bought a 3 bed cottage in 2004 for £400k. It is now worth around £1m. Could never afford to buy it now!

I bought my house for £110k almost 10 years ago and love it. My salary is now three times what it was then, without a mortgage and savings I could buy a house for £400k and start moving up the ladder. We looked to move when DD started secondary school but honestly couldn't find anywhere as nice as where we are now, and bonus is that my mortgage is so low. Am wondering now whether I should be moving up the ladder as my current house has doubled in price since I bought it but not sure I'd find anywhere I'd love as much or be prepared to take a larger mortgage out for.

Having a high paying job in London (to get the mortgage), plus having a tendency to save rather than spend, bordering on being a penny-pincher (to get the deposit).

Prices seem crazy though, I don't understand how any people outside of finance/law/medicine can afford to buy in London going forward. Something will need to change since it's unsustainable.

In our case DH and I pooled our resources when we got married - I sold my house and paid off what was left of his mortgage, then with inheritance we added a large annexe to the house so it's worth a lot more now.

I think those of us who live in high priced areas have just had to put a lot of income into our properties.
I'm just retired now (59) and my husband and I have had a house built on the Thames (circa £1, 750 million.)

My (now ex) DH worked in finance and earned a ridiculous amount of money. I earn a decent amount and was “lucky” enough to have inherited nearly £200k but if he was earning my salary, even with the inheritance we’d have bought a house probably around the 350-400k mark. I can never get my head around just how many people have insane amounts of money to buy 1 million pound houses. Some towns seem to have average family homes all around that mark and not everyone can work in finance, surely ?

It's all those people on the other thread who earn 6 figure salaries I imagine 🤷🏻‍♀️

In our area, it's generally people with two professional jobs, earning high salaries. Usually with large mortgages and family help with the deposit. It's also self-selecting... many people either afford it or they move out for more space, since £1+ million doesn't get you a mansion, only a 'cosy' family-size home with 3/4 beds max (though we do know a few families who are bringing up 2+ children in tiny 2-bed flats).

This is an example of what you'd get for around £1m (although admittedly you're paying slightly for the presentation in this case)...
www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/61528055/?search_identifier=db6237b8099dcd47c18b1724da316556

Fine, but not what you'd normally think about when picturing a £1m+ house. I'd be interested to know how it compares in size to your £180k house? It just shows the disparity in house prices in different areas.

How are people so confident that properties will triple in value?

House prices increase. Ours has doubled/ potentially tripled in 5 years.
The area we bought in has now become unesco protected and it’s now virtually impossible for new houses to be granted building permission. (Not uk)
We had no idea this would happen, so bought just at the right time.

Doesnt really help though, as we have no plans to sell, and can’t buy anywhere else locally any cheaper either, so wouldn’t make a huge profit unless we sold and moved somewhere completely different.

@Goldbar slightly bigger than your Wandsworth one, the price has gone up nearly 200k in 6 years !

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/96585571#/?channel=RES_BUY

I climbed the ladder and got some lucky increases along the way.

East London flat - bought 250k, sold 365k 5 years later
South London 3 bed house in an "up and coming area" - bought 465k, sold 750k 6 years later
Moved out to the Burbs and bought jointly with husband - bought 760k, sold 7 years later 950k
Bought semi rural house on the outskirts on London for over a million.

I bought my first flat in 2003 so those moves are over just under twenty years.

Married someone 5 years older who worked in finance and is very good at savings and finding good mortgage deals.

We bought a 4 bed family home in a nice but not trendy commuter town in 2014 when we got married. Our friends bought in St Albans or places like Crouch End and bought a 2 bed flat there instead. We paid £480k.

Fast forward to now, and because of hybrid working the town is much more popular than it was. The house was revalued at £950k.

As for how people afford it, looking at the families from DC school it’s a combination of being older, moving up the ladder in London with rising prices, inheritance and buying wrecks and spending lots of time doing them up.

@BirmaBrite . It's an interesting question, isn't it?! Though not the one the OP is asking.

How much does a 'comfortable' family home cost in different areas? Of course, people will have different ideas of 'comfortable', but going on a family of four living in a 3/4 bedroom house, 2 bathrooms and some outside space, there is an incredible variation throughout the country in how much money you have to pay to get what people would consider a good amount of space for an average-size family (especially with the rise in wfh and need for more space). And of course that will affect things like where people are willing to live and the proportion of income they're willing to spend on housing.

Bought first flat in 2000 for £100k, sold it for £190k five years later.

Bought three bedroom terrace house in sought after London commuter town for £400k in 2005. Did loft conversion on it three years ago at a cost of £65k. Now worth £1.1m.

We got lucky. We also made a point of not moving every few years to get on the next rung and waste money on stamp duty. Sure we’d like a bigger garden, parking, a garage, a large kitchen diner, a downstairs loo and a utility room but we can’t be beat on location. The house is also plenty big enough for us and we are mortgage free after overpaying on it over the years. We couldn’t afford to buy here now.

I think people are confused, she has asked for people who paid a million plus. Not for folks who bought for a small sum and it escalated. It’s not a complex op to read.

A short google suggests average house prices vary from under 200k to over 500k in London so even taking into account regional variations over a million is the top end