London home 'needs £93,000 wage'

Raffles99

OK, let me explain London property. Firstly, at least 50% of property above £1m is bought by foreigners - some of whom admittedly work in London. Around 90% of £10m+ property is bought by foreigners. I would imagine that 90% of billionaires on the planet have a London house - Michael Bloomberg has a massive house near us which by his own admission he has used once in 10 years. But he can afford to keep it staffed 24/7 anyway. Walk around Chelsea and South Ken in the evenings and see how many places are empty, their foreign owners out of the country. Not a single British citizen has bought at the over-hyped Candy & Candy development opposite Harvey Nichols, where flats start at £20m.

Wealthy City types, of which I am one I suppose, have 2 choices. You can either buy in Chelsea / Kensington / Notting HIll / St Johns Wood, where you are looking at £2-3m minimum for a small terraced house with almost no garden and a council estate round the corner - but which is a 10 minute cab ride from the West End. Alternatively, you move out to Sevenoaks etc and buy a large pile. Those who feel this is selling out go to Richmond / Wimbledon instead where you can still easily spend £5m+ on a decent sized house if you want but where there are more modest options.

You then have other belts. Non-council south east London (Clapham, Battersea, Balham) is popular with young families who can spend £750k-£1m on a house, but even at this level your local High Street will have a disproportionately large number of fried chicken shops etc. Most of the rest of SE London is a no-go zone for professionals with a few exceptions (Dulwich, Greenwich). East London between the City and Canary Wharf is popular with single professionals who can often walk to work. Further east than Canary Wharf is also a no-go zone for most.

West London beyond Chelsea (Fulham etc) is again OK for c £1m family homes, as is North London beyond Notting Hill and St Johns Wood. There are no real 'no go' zones in these areas of the scale you get in South London.

A few examples of the senior guys in my office - Hampstead, Weybridge, Winchester, Chelsea, Putney, Wimbledon. PA's on £30-40k may live in Guildford, Battersea, Kings Road, Borough. Back-office guys on £50-70k would tend to live further out and commute in, eg Bedford, Harpenden because they are older, usually with families.

lostinrates

Raffles99 wrote: »

West London beyond Chelsea (Fulham etc) is again OK for c £1m family homes, as is North London beyond Notting Hill and St Johns Wood. There are no real 'no go' zones in these areas.

Gospel Oak estates have a pretty bad rep! I looked at an ex LA flat as a single girl in a block in Kensington....my at the time squeeze told a friend of his in some sort of policing and he called me and told me to walk out on the viewing, walk calmly but quickly out of the building nd call from an agreed point, and if he hadn't heard from me in ten minutes they were coming to get me :rotfl: The 'no go' areas can be as small as one building, I think I find that a bit peculiar.

inspector_monkfish

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I think I'd hate being away overnight more than a 4 hr daily commute. I cant imagine taking any job that would require me to be away from my gf all week, every week. What would be the point of being together?

awwww bless..... :smileyhea:heart::heartpuls:heartsmil:smileyhea

LittleMissAspie

Raffles99 wrote: »

You then have other belts. Non-council south east London (Clapham, Battersea, Balham) is popular with young families who can spend £750k-£1m on a house, but even at this level your local High Street will have a disproportionately large number of fried chicken shops etc. Most of the rest of SE London is a no-go zone for professionals with a few exceptions (Dulwich, Greenwich).

Blimey you make it sound like a warzone or something. The £323k starter home I mentioned above is in Penge. Your £30-40k secretaries couldn't even afford to live in Penge then.

Which begs the question I am always asking myself - who the hell is buying them? Not the million pound houses but the normal houses. Who is buying 3-bed mid-terraces for 10 times a good salary?

inspector_monkfish

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Blimey you make it sound like a warzone or something. The £323k starter home I mentioned above is in Penge. Your £30-40k secretaries couldn't even afford to live in Penge then.

Which begs the question I am always asking myself - who the hell is buying them? Not the million pound houses but the normal houses. Who is buying 3-bed mid-terraces for 10 times a good salary?

prob the secretary, that married the lawyer

lostinrates

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Which begs the question I am always asking myself - who the hell is buying them? Not the million pound houses but the normal houses. Who is buying 3-bed mid-terraces for 10 times a good salary?

I have said before that a colleague of DH's (a lawyer ;0) bought a 2 bed ex LA flat...coincidentally in the near vicinity of Chalk Farm/Kentish town are I refer to above. He is on a decent salary, and can afford it, but my query is where the people for whom that housing was envisioned then go?

chucky

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

Blimey you make it sound like a warzone or something. The £323k starter home I mentioned above is in Penge. Your £30-40k secretaries couldn't even afford to live in Penge then.

Which begs the question I am always asking myself - who the hell is buying them? Not the million pound houses but the normal houses. Who is buying 3-bed mid-terraces for 10 times a good salary?

depends on how you look at it - on a single salary very dificult

on a joint income it's easily achievable
£40k x 2 = £80k x 3.5 salary = £280k + £43k deposit = £323k
The £43k deposit is only 13%.

there are a few costs too i know but more importantly that £40k salary today won't be the same £40k salary in 10 or 20 years time so it will be higher and be even more affordable.

and the mortgage it would be 7 times salary not 10 times salary
still extremely high though

and the point made about London being a war zone... it's not...

Bonia77

Also, quite a few of well-paid young professionals choose not to buy at all but stick to renting :cheesy:

inspector_monkfish

chucky wrote: »

depends on how you look at it - on a single salary very dificult

on a joint income it's easily achievable
£40k x 2 = £80k x 3.5 salary = £280k + £43k deposit = £323k
The £43k deposit is only 13%.

there are a few costs too i know but more importantly that £40k salary today won't be the same £40k salary in 10 or 20 years time so it will be higher and be even more affordable.

and the mortgage it would be 7 times salary not 10 times salary
still extremely high though

and the point made about London being a war zone... it's not...

until wifey quits to have kids :eek:

chucky

inspector_monkfish wrote: »

until wifey quits to have kids :eek:

quite true - how long will she be away from work for?
in theory she can come back in less than a year.
this is a bit of a can of worms because for me it is good for mums to raise children at home - so i agree with you.

but the point i was trying to make was property is affordable but it is still expensive. they are different things.