London prices £1.3 million to 3 million

[Subprime]

Anyone have any observations about this (very broad) bracket for London houses in the bracket of £1.3 million to £3 million?

Have you sold a property recently in this bracket and was it easy?

Have you bought recently in this bracket and did you have much competition? Did you pay over the asking price?

We have equity of about £1.5m and have been looking to trade up. The reason for the broad price range in the headline is it reflects houses priced in the rung below us and also our absolute maximum purchase price (that we would move heaven and earth and sell everything for).

We have been looking in more expensive areas and it strikes me that there’s either nothing coming on the market or it’s still going up compared to what we would have paid less than 2 years ago.

I was dismayed at how much people who had not maintained let alone improved their homes are asking for when we went to viewings last summer and was convinced they would have to take a hit. How wrong I was: all sold above asking price

Do you think redundancies and slow economic growth will inhibit the London market or will it forever be immune?

From an economic point of view, it has nearly always made sense to trade up in London.

However, given that we have an ageing population, will there be the same demand and ability for the current Gen Y/Z to buy these homes for a decent price in 15 years or so when we are ready to downsize?

If anyone can point me to any good economists’ projections specific to London please do! The general property price thread is too broad hence I’m trying to start one on decent sized
London homes (but not mansions).

Houses go for about £1.2 around here - Wimbledon, with a few at the park end just over £2m if double fronted, £2.5m if double fronted and across from the park. All terraced or semis for the double fronted, three to four beds (my fourth bed is not even 6' wide) about 1250sq ft for the terraced, so not that big. Near two 'good' and one 'excellent' primary schools. Walking distance to tube/train/shops. Several parks.
Yes it's still a fairly brisk market. Rentals go very quick, but I haven't seen the houses stay on the market for long either. It's a grid of streets of mostly identical Victorian houses, and I reckon it's the schools that will keep prices up. It's a very nice neighbourhood in terms of families and community feel. I bought two and a half years ago when things were flying, but I don't think I overpaid and managed to get it £20k under ask as they had just lost a sale and had already moved to abroad. I've improved it and reckon £1.2m is about what I'd get now, giving me a profit of £100k if you take into account stamp duty. Not bad. Only reason a house would be significantly cheaper is if they haven't converted the loft or extended out back, but most already have (and my neighbours have just spent over £120k converting their loft to add one bed and en suite).
My take on London having bought my first property in the 1980s is that it will occasionally stall but it will always going up. Just when you think it can't go higher it does. My first flat cost me £80k. They sell for £800k now - and you can't extend it at all.
My house is worth now what my husband and I paid for a house twice as big near the Village (which carries s huge premium). About three years after we bought it we couldn't have afforded to buy it again, iyswim. And my husband had a high salary. It's probably doubled since I sold it for over £2m in 2010. We bought from teachers, my husband was a city lawyer, I sold to a banker.
A fair few houses on the market in Wimbledon between £3-6m range on the streets leading up to the Village and Wimbledon Park area. I think the highest I ever saw was just under £30m across from the Common.
The area has gone from where you elderly aunt might live there a vibrant young professional and young family area. If live to know what these 30 somethings do to be able to afford it!

Also have a look at the SE22 roads of the Village area.
Eynella, Dovercourt, Woodwarde, Beauval, Townley are a few.

I know it’s a lovely bit of the road but some of the houses seem comparatively narrow. This is further up the road and on for more than £1million less… It’s not the same period but still has decent proportions. What am I missing?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139914674

Have looked at the roads you mentioned re Beckwith and Aardberg @cheesescheeses thank you! But the gardens (and some of the houses) are too small. Never looked at Eynella - will take a look! Have viewed properties on the others and they’re smaller with lower ceilings than our existing house. There’s a huge one on Dovercourt but it’s over 3m and has a smallish garden for the price. Townley is too busy, others usually have no offstreet parking. I’m a fussy cow but it will be our forever house I hope!

I like that Court Lane house but I think it's been on and off the market a bit. My guess to why it's not selling is that it's very close to the end of the road which gets traffic noise from the South Circular. Court Lane from the Park down towards the Village has always been more desirable than the top end.
The houses on that side of the road however are great, not pretty from the outside but wide and very extendable with long gardens backing onto the park.
I think for under 3 million, it will be a smaller house generally that's been extended, the larger houses like the Court Lane Gardens house will usually be around 4 unless they need work.
I would view the Court Lane house in rush hour and see how affected it is.

and yes, the Dovercourt house is overpriced imo. The garden is a let down for what is actually a lovely house.
Gardens aren't all huge here, those backing onto the park are the largest but lots are around 60ft.

We just accepted an offer in this bracket. We were offered slightly below asking, counter proposed slightly more (but still a little below asking) and they agreed to that. We bought the house in 2015 and are selling it for about 150k more than we bought it for. Decent but not amazing condition. 5 beds but only 1 small family bathroom and a little shower room at the top, no en-suites. We got the offer on day 1 and a couple of others seemed interested. We had heard bad things about the market and thought it might be hard to sell but fingers crossed it goes through.

That’s so funny I was in Highgate yesterday and walked past that house & looked it up - I thought it was a really good buy!

How old are your kids?

Good luck @consideringachange ! Hope
it goes through smoothly and that you’ve found somewhere lovely.

The more central / better areas I think the less chance you have of getting a double fronted house in that budget. I don't this is a problem as long as the individual rooms are a decent size. I wouldn't call that Court Lane Gardens house narrow - it just isn't double fronted. I think the Highgate house is breathtakingly pretty but the layout looks a bit odd & I suspect as listed not much you could do to change it. Also looking at the map - near Archway road which 40 odd years ago I looked at a rental flat whilst at university and then it wasn't a great area.

One quick point at this price point , those who haven't downsized already , stamp duty is onerous & I think it means fewer people who are mortgage free are prepared to move even if they don't need a house the size they have. I think stamp duty to some extent is slowing the market , but that is personal opinion only.

Thanks @BasiliskStare that’s a fair analysis about housing styles closer to central London.

Stamp duty is onerous but if you bought for 300k 28 years ago and sell for 3m plus, then 100k to move into a proper home step down out of the total profit isn’t too much of a stretch if you’re mortgage free! Also, one thing that stops me
moving is inheritance tax. If I don’t move out in time, my DC will be saddled with a huge bill. I would rather reap the capital gain, distribute it to DC at least 7 years before my demise inshallah and then live in a lovely spacious apartment with low maintenance, views and easy access to amenities.

I think the Highgate house is breathtakingly pretty but the layout looks a bit odd & I suspect as listed not much you could do to change it.

No problem with changing the layout. I love the width and the garden.

thanks for sharing these million £ houses, OP. Makes me feel better with my smaller budget and reno project I'm buying in SE London. Sometimes I wish I had a bigger budget (don't we all) but I think there are similar problems across the board. The main problem is that London and outskirts just have shit houses.

You won't find everything for your budget, so we have to prioritise. It's easier in the USA maybe where they have more land and options, but then again, there's only one or two states I'd ever choose to live in there, and even then, there would only be tiny pockets within those states I'd live in.

I've always believed it's more important to see the house as a home first and foremost.

oh are you Muslim? :)

Gosh, I wouldn't even know. I can't afford to buy there. I just know it was a lovely time while i was there before i went backpacking in SE Asia.

It’s under offer but this is a good house on a good road.

https://www.winkworth.co.uk/properties/sales/st-john-s-avenue-london-sw15/PUT230182

That St John's Avenue house is almost opposite one belonging to a friend of mine. Putney has some gorgeous houses many with decent sized gardens.

wow I think this one gorgeous-like it much more than the blue one above

I’d wouldn’t pay 4 million for that in Dulwich, so I understand OP’s dilemma. And it needs a lot of work. The extension needs to be rebuilt, the ground floor needs to totally reconfigured, the entire house needs refurbishment. But the view at the back is lovely.

No - you would want to reconfigure the ground floor, and so it's not worth £3.75m to you. But there are clearly other buyers out there who don't think extensive building work is needed, or think it would add enough to the total value of the house to be worth doing.

OP - 2 things to remember. 1) The prime market behaves very differently to mainstream London, because it's much less debt dependent. And your price bracket is prime! (Not superprime, which is where the different KF team come in). Outer Prime London is down about 1.2% over the last year, but in the £2m+ price bracket, prices are maybe only 0.5% off. It's barely moved at all. And to international buyers, Prime London looks incredibly well valued compared to c. 10 years ago, because of both the currency play, and also how purchase and holding costs compare to other global cities.

2. No one is building new top end houses in London, apart from a handful of demolitions & rebuilds in places like Wimbledon Village and Bishops Avenue. Everything new at the top end is flats (and getting more constrained by restrictions on size of unit in Westminster, K&C, and now Camden). So everyone who wants a family property, in a good location, near a school etc etc has to go for the shabby older house that needs work. The value is in the location, the land and the implied consent for residential use, not the bones of the house itself.

No - you would want to reconfigure the ground floor, and so it's not worth £3.75m to you. But there are clearly other buyers out there who don't think extensive building work is needed, or think it would add enough to the total value of the house to be worth doing.

I didn’t say it’s not worth 3.75, I said I wouldn’t pay 4 million for a house in Dulwich. Not because it’s not a nice area but it’s a marooned over in SE London and the transport’s not great.

It’s not about what I want personally, it’s about what any buyer will do to it. I know this market off by heart.

Apart from anything else, for 4 million you’d want a better interior. It’s tatty, with a cheap kitchen, a south facing conservatory that will be far too hot in summer (very familiar with south facing conservatories), that was put up in the 80s, and needs a proper brick extension across the back. They may dig a basement too.