Depressing difference in house price outcomes

[coldaire]

I’m a teacher, as is dh. When training to be a teacher we made some lifelong friends who became a couple and got married.

None of us come from any family money. So just teacher’s salary.

We bought where we were from in the North. Bought in a nice place near a city. Paid £250k for our house in 2006. Our friends bought in a good part of London for £250k in 2006.

Our house is now worth about £370k. Our friends house in London is worth £1.6mil. Neither of us have extended and they’re both a similar size.

Friends have now sold up, retired to the coast, and given their daughter £800k towards a house so she can buy in London and is starting a family.

We could sell our house of course, but even giving £100k to our daughter is no where near going to help her buy a similar house to friend’s daughter.

250K for a house in Wimbledon is not my recollection of the property market in 2006. Are you sure they're telling you the truth, OP?

Luck of the drawer.

^

Indeed

Yes, but your friends had to live in London for all those years.

OK, I'm only half joking. We bought in London and lived there for 10 years, moved home and was mortgage free. But I had to give up 10 years of my, and dc, life without my family and sometime I wonder if it was worth it.

In my case, my family lived on the other side of the world, so I felt I did have to give up a lot.

That is a very very high jump. We bought a house in a desirable area on zone2/3 borders for £450k in 2012 and sold it in 2022 for £900k. Obviously your original point still stands, property prices have risen more in London but I don't know anyone who has made as much money as your friend