Help to Buy in London

greyroofer

Does anyone else feel a bit disgruntled with HTB in London?

£600k gets you absolutely nothing. I don't want to live in an apartment that costs £600k or a house in some dodgy 'up and coming' area that still has 50 takeaways on the highstreet or a plane overhead every 90 seconds.

I earn a really good salary (£100k) but it's just impossible to buy a house in London below £600k. My job is in London and my career would end if I left but I feel so miffed that I work like crazy and cannot even buy a house.

I cannot use shared ownership as I earn £10k too much so I am stuck there too!

ComputeAngel

Why cant you move just outside (40-45 minutes by train) London? St. Albans, Watford etc Many people commute to London on daily basis :-) Just an opinion.

dlmcr

Yep you can certainly commute in like many others do.

However: we as a nation are obviously not that bothered that no "normal" person can buy in London or much of the south east for that matter, because if we were we would be out on the streets protesting, lobbying government etc etc.

csgohan4

Move to Ashford, Kent, easy to get to Central London

amnblog

Is Grey Roofer suggesting that London H2B should have a bigger cap than £600,000?

Zones 1 and 2 have always been at a massive premium. You can certainly buy houses in Zones 4 5 & 6 that are not near takeaways or on the flightpath for £600,000.

ap1985

This is the exact reason why I moved out of London....a lot of people commute from outskirts of London ...i moved to Leicester and noticed a lot of people commuting from Midlands to London also...you just got to weigh up the pros and cons..

adindas

greyroofer wrote: »

Does anyone else feel a bit disgruntled with HTB in London?

£600k gets you absolutely nothing. I don't want to live in an apartment that costs £600k or a house in some dodgy 'up and coming' area that still has 50 takeaways on the highstreet or a plane overhead every 90 seconds.

I earn a really good salary (£100k) but it's just impossible to buy a house in London below £600k. My job is in London and my career would end if I left but I feel so miffed that I work like crazy and cannot even buy a house.

I cannot use shared ownership as I earn £10k too much so I am stuck there too!

Are you talking about central London or Zone 1&2 ?

If you are talking about London (e.g London Postcode) there are reasonable number of house under £600k. My House is in London zone 3, I could get to London city center within less than 45min and the value of my house is less than £600k.

Look at the East and/or South East London served by Cross rail ...

muhandis

"but it's just impossible to buy a house in London below £600k"

Your view of a "nice area" and a "nice house" might differ from mine, but 600k is an awful lot of money and there are plenty of areas in zones 3-4-5-6 (and even slightly run down nooks of zone 2 in the east) London where you can easily get a decently sized 3-4 bed terrace/semi for well under 600k which is a 10-15 minute walk from the nearest tube station and does not have 50 takeaways on the local high street. Most of the Zone 3/4 areas are in the East, North East and South East.

Shared ownership is meant to (not saying it works as it should) help people on average salaries get a foot on the property ladder, so imho being on an income of 100k (median household income in London is ~40k) it doesn't surprise me that you are ineligible for the same.

greyroofer wrote: »

Does anyone else feel a bit disgruntled with HTB in London?

£600k gets you absolutely nothing. I don't want to live in an apartment that costs £600k or a house in some dodgy 'up and coming' area that still has 50 takeaways on the highstreet or a plane overhead every 90 seconds.

I earn a really good salary (£100k) but it's just impossible to buy a house in London below £600k. My job is in London and my career would end if I left but I feel so miffed that I work like crazy and cannot even buy a house.

I cannot use shared ownership as I earn £10k too much so I am stuck there too!

LeagueOfWolf

I feel annoyed definitely. I was out-priced since the day I was born.

I would gladly live near a street with 50 takeaways but at this moment in time I can't even afford the door handle of a front door of a house in London.

Captain_Shambolic

I'd echo the comment above. Ashford is a decent enough town (I grew up there) and the HS1 will get you to St Pancras in about 35 minutes.

It's a pain, but I'm also very much aware that if I moved back down South, I'd be commuting to work in London. A friend of mine got H2B on her house and when she told me it cost £700k I almost spat my tea out.

Petite_Anglaise

We are just looking into HTB London at the moment.

The 600k limit does seem low...but that is because everything is so bloody expensive!

I've posted a thread about this in another part of the forum.

We have tried shared ownership as we earn under the threshold, trouble is, there are so many people viewing the properties we have not yet come out top of the list to buy a re-sale property.

Shared ownership is kind of like bidding on a bloody expensive council house.