How do buy a house in London. Just, how?

[Shinebright21]

Married, two kids, mid thirties, husband is not a first time buyer but I would be.

How? It seems absolutely impossible, and house prices are through the roof.

Anyone successfully done it? How did you work?

I brought my first place outside of London on my own. I was on a £30k Public Sector salary. So no chances of bonus or any pay rises! I also have tough love attitude from my very well off parents- so no support either.

I used the shared ownership scheme. But purchased second hand rather than a new build. I found that new builds were 15-20% price difference in value between the mortgage valuation and the sellers price.

I had to work a part time care job on top of my full time hours. No treats, no gym membership, I loved a very basic life.

I held onto this for 5years and built enough equity for a deposit on a house.

However as the houses were so expensive we had to buy a renovation project to enable us to move up the ladder.

Its 650k and a great illustration of the issue

*and is quite a small 3 bed in my mind but the description on the advert catches my eye:

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120378533#/?channel=RES_BUY*

Back in the day i bought a 3 bed flat to do up in zone 2 nw for three times my grad trainee salary and 7 k deposit.
Fof that one a buyer needs huge deposit and or 150k salary ,

Sorry 630k this one
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120378533#/?channel=RES_BUY

Similar layout size and decor to what i bought back then. Nostalgia.

Did you read the full post? It was clearly deep sarcasm...

Spend less. Save more.
No holidays. No consumption of food or drink outside the house, unless it is packed lunch/picnic. No alcohol. No pubs. No restaurants. No takeaways. No ready meals. Cook everything from scratch. Extend or substitute meat with beans and pulses. Value range products from supermarkets. Offal. Tinned pilchards. Carrots. Cabbage. Potatoes. Swede. Turnips. Onions. Tinned tomatoes. Just salt & pepper & hot curry powder or chilli powder. Batch cook and freeze. Frozen peas, green beans, sweetcorn. Clothes/shoes 2nd hand from charity shops, ebay & vinted. No smart phone. £5 month contract or PAYG. No subscriptions Netfix, Prime. No houshold internet (limit to contract or use free wifi at library). No heating except to keep house above 5C to prevent pipes freezing. Wear extra layers.

will that help when rents are so high?

I didn't have to pay much rent as I could live at gone to save, a huge benefit

Even though rents are high, people can still save.

But if we believe the story, the current owner stayed in it for 36 years and 4 kids there. Maybe she was very poor, but that location isn't exactly a poor area either. So not everyone was buying 1930s semi detached houses. DH and i have a combined income of less than 150k but could just about afford that but as a second property (having built up equity).

When I bought my flat I earned £13k in central London, similar jobs are now paying £50k. There's a flat for sale currently in the same block for £395k. Property is basically double the cost based on income now.

DH and I bought in the very outskirts, no family help but with the proceeds of DH's house which he cleverly bought during the recession. I feel for you, we bought in 2018 and I would dread trying to get in the ladder now.

Even though rents are high, people can still save.

again difficult with ever increasing prices, stagnant wages & low interest rates. It will be interesting to see what happens to interest rates over the next 5-10 yrs.

Definitely not a house but my sister and I brought a 2 bed council flat in Deptford. She is a social worker, I am a nanny so modest salaries. Left school at 18 and saved every penny that I could and managed to buy at 21. It’s not glamorous, the very bottom of the ladder but it’s something!

Higher interest rates will favour savers. And put a brake on house price inflation.

We bought a 3-bed in 2019, albeit in zone 3.
Our combined incomes are £90k but had a lot of equity in a flat my husband bought over a decade ago in an area that’s now very desirable, so we had a huge deposit - over half the cost of the house.
Without that, it would have been impossible.

Also people expect too a high a standard of living these days. What people think of as essentials would have been thought of as luxuries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Someone dies and leaves you money. Then you buy in a crappy area and hope it gentrifies.

Years ago, as a young married couple, we bought a small flat on a main road in one of the cheapest parts of zone 3. Nobody used the bank of Mum and Dad back then and interest rates were higher. We had saved for a few years first. It has never been easy to buy in London unless on very high salaries.
You can buy a flat in areas such as Thornton Heath for £200-£300k. This is doable for many working couples. You just can't be fussy.

Higher interest rates will favour savers. And put a brake on house price inflation.

Well my savings rate is still shit so it depends how high they go

Also people expect too a high a standard of living these days. What people think of as essentials would have been thought of as luxuries in the 1970s and 1980s.

🙄

statistics actually show young people have less disposable income now vs the past.

We bought 20 years ago, a small flat on a PBPR basis. The full value back then was £165k. We bought the remaining part at a full value of £250k about 15 years ago. A recent valuation put it at £450-500k. It's not in the best shape but it's near good transport links. Some flats in our area go for as much as £600k. It's ridiculous.

At some point our DD will need her own place. The only way we can help her is flog the rabbit hutch and move somewhere out of London and give her some of the profit to put down as a deposit.

People I work with live all over. I once had a coworker from Hastings. Another lived in Bristol!

“What other way is there?”

buying a flat in zone 1 and not even 30 and on £150k+ is very very unusual!

Mortgaged up to the hilt that's how!

It's very difficult and we haven't managed yet (late 30s). My parents can't help out, and I'm in the public sector. I think both people in a couple must have high paying jobs and money from their parents to help them.