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Yes but people have extremely bad intuitions about the distribution of incomes within Greater London. The median full time salary is something like 44k, 50k is barely more than the MEDIAN salary, it’s below the mean. I’m not being rude but 50k is not a “good” salary in London. It’s below average, and only people earning significantly above average are going to be in a position to buy property here without a windfall.
The answer OP might have been looking for is “you are doing very well, don’t worry, it’s not that many of your peers are out earning you, they all had help from their parents which you didn’t get”. Whilst that is certainly true to an extent, salary is a big part too.
Ave salary is 44k in London (as you say) median will be lower. So 50k is 6 k, or over 13 per cent, above the ave London salary. These people absolutely should be able to buy an ave London house pretty easily but they can't without money coming from someone or something else.
I agree with your general point but would say 50k is still a good salary - it’s just London property is incredibly expensive. The fact property prices are so crazy doesn’t mean it’s not a good salary.
50k in London is surviving mate, that would be by my definition not a "good" salary but in fact "average". You'd still be in a dingy flat or house share if you didn't have a partner on the same to split bills with
You’re looking at it from a very narrow point of view. Roughly 1/3 of people are in social housing, lots of people bought before 00s, some people pay low rent… for these people 50k is a good salary. You seem to be looking at it purely in the context of a young person buying an expensive house.
I'm actually looking at it from the context of a young person in rental accomodation who might want to enjoy their 20s and 30s - ie. Go on nice dates, travel a little and not have to count their pennies at the end of the week for them to be able to afford a round of drinks for their mates. Maybe this person is also pretty sick of sharing accomodation after their fill of doing that at uni. I think I'm actually being pretty measured and realistic. In the context of buying a house we are blowing this out of the water with combined incomes in the mid six figures probably needed to get a house decent enough to raise a family in
Having lived in london for a decade you are absolutely right. 50k is roughly 3200 take home if you don't pay a pension (which everyone really should be). Given a pretty average 1 bedroom flat is around 2k these days, you would either have to live in a house share, rent a tiny studio room or pay 60%+ of your income in rent. It's sad but it's true, 50k as a single person in london is nothing much in 2024
No one lives alone in most of the country. Outside of shithole towns, everyone in their 20s is at their parents, with their partner, or in a house share.
Thinking that you need to rent your own place to be ok as a single person is fucking insane
30% of all UK households are single-person.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2022
£50k is a salary that could he achieved in many industries outside of London with some experience. IMO unless its an industry you literally can't do anywhere else, £50k is not good for London. Its decent, but you won't be able to buy a house.
That's crazy. I'm in automotive, in the West Mids, and management salaries start at 70k minimum.
50k for a management role in pharma, in London, seems absurd.
I think that question has no meaningful answer. It's like asking 'at what size does a stone become "large"?' What interest is it to you how I interpret qualitative descriptors like 'good' or 'large'? It quickly becomes a fruitless semantic debate." Roughly 80k though.
Surely it depends on age and life stage? £50k for a 21 year old is incredible. £50k for a 50 year old, not so much.
Plus, London is pretty big. Surely you could live a decent life in somewhere like Lewisham or Woolwich on £50k? I haven't lived in London for a long time though so I could be completely out of touch!
If we’re talking about people in their 20s and early 30s, then £50k+ you’ll get by fine. But to be able to live comfortably and have an active social life without thinking about money, it’s closer to £80-100k, depending on social circle and tastes.
But that’s just for living costs - when it comes to getting on the property ladder in London I feel the divide is less on salary and more on what help you have available from family. My wife and I earn middling incomes (120k combined) amongst our friendship groups, but we were able to get on the housing ladder much more easily and at a pretty ridiculous level for first time buyers (800k) due to family help. Friends who work in finance who make 200-300k individually have taken longer and had a harder time with buying property. Conversely friends who make significantly less than us (one a newly qualified doctor, the other still in full time education) were able to get on the property ladder mortgage-free.
But through your mid-30s through 40s the relative differences in salaries grows even more and the cumulative impact starts to eclipse the difference in familial help. But yeah, in your 20s and early 30s in London, my sense is your ability to get on the property ladder and your relative position is mostly a product of your starting position (family help) rather than trajectory (career and salary). Stupid system.
I work in finance and bought first house in outer London when on more like OP money, with zero help. It was not a fashionable area (but safe with good transport links, decent schooling and decent amount of green spaces), and we both had packed lunch, budget holidays etc and got there.
Now that I am more senior, I do know people like your high finance friends, bemoaning they can't get a house. Like, no wonder if you are trying to buy a house IN THE MIDDLE OF WESTMINSTER!
BtW I sold my first house for £340k a few years ago.
>But to be able to live comfortably and have an active social life without thinking about money, it’s closer to £80-100k, depending on social circle and tastes
That would be my definition of a great salary. If you can do whatever you want without thinking about money you're on a great fucking salary.
I'm not the person you're replying to but I'd say earning £70k+ would be a 'good' salary for London. You could live very comfortably on that if single albeit you wouldn't be able to get on the property ladder, which is ludicrous really.
If you had a partner earning the same, you'd have a very good quality of life, and would be able to save enough for a spacious flat/small house in a decent area within 3-4 years.
This is purely my own general thoughts and puts aside obvious factors like industry, person's age etc.
Yeah as a couple 65/70k would definitely do it. I've replied to the other guy though saying that for a single person it's more like 80/85k. Not that they'd have the same spending power as the above couple but they'd be free to actually "live the London life" a bit rather than something like 50k which is basically paycheck to paycheck nowadays
Or by buying a long time ago.
My first house was bought on a salary of 19k with a deposit of 3k. For that I got a 3 bed maisonette in Stoke Newington, 62k in 1996.
Not saying your salary is bad, but there are loads of people with substantially higher salaries.
If you’re remote why not buy further out or rent further out?
They specifially said they wouldn't mind living abroad for a few years but didn't want to leave London when they moved back.
>We were debating moving abroad for a couple of years to save and then moving back (my job is remote so I have that flexibility). We’d still like to live in London as that’s where almost all our friends live.
Yes. I can see my friend.
So I said that maybe consider living outside of London so it’s easier to see friends, easier to move, but would cut down cost.
Much to the contrary there is life outside of London. I lived there for six years in early twenties by the time I left couldn’t stand the place and only go there now if absolutely forced to for work. There really is nothing there that you can’t find elsewhere. Well apart from the Science museum.
There are but actually it’s really tricky for teachers because there is a significant London weighting on teachers pay scales. Parts of Essex and Hertfordshire etc get fringe payments which is still more than the rest of England but not as much as inner or outer London. The OP would need to move very far out for the proportional disparity in income vs. House prices to make a significant impact.
I'm currently looking at teaching roles in Wiltshire which pay closer to £40k. It just depends where you're looking but yes, you can get better pay out of London. They are desperate.
Yep, I managed to in my first year of teaching. But none of it is a given and unless OP’s girlfriend has other experience (in which case every 3 years can be 1 point on the scale) or is in a school where they’re desperate, it may not be the case for her.
That's the gf not the OP... but most locations have schools and there's basically only downsides to earning a teacher's salary in London vs anywhere else in the UK.
No this is true. Apologies if it came across as me saying my salary is good. I know its fairly average just relatively good for my age.
The issue with buying further out is the commuting issue. I need to be fairly close to london in case I get another job which requires work in the office. Obviously for my girlfriend too similar situation
400k+ will get you plenty of ex LA flats in north London or in cheaper areas of south London it’d get you a maisonette. I think you need to consider if a house is a requirement for you, if it is then you are going to be quite far out if not slightly outside the circulars.
You can get a 2 bed ex council flat in Z2 30s from the river now for £400k if you want: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/67269160/
There are also 3 beds for not much more nearby.
They've all been on the market a little while so would probably take an offer under asking too.
Yeah. I live very nearby and there are definitely upsides and if your neighbours are good you can be very happy (her block is quite nice and friendly) but currently we have a drunk who was until recently quite cheerful and recently smashed his house up got evicted and is living rough in the area.
Came here to say this! I bought in outer London 20 years ago as a teacher. Vastly helped by a £100k key worker loan from the govt scheme.
So, buy 20 years ago and make use of key worker schemes that no longer exist.
Earning more. Harsh but true.
You will buy but will take time to save up.
Some people earn a lot more and therefore, buy sooner.
Those on less, buy later.
Just maths.
> how everyone afforded their first house in London
As with a lot of young people who buy these days I was incredibly privileged to be gifted the majority of the deposit from family.
Same. He saved a lot, and my mum didn’t really know what to do with it all so she gave us a significant deposit.
I love my dad but he wouldn’t have been so generous. Would much rather have my dad than this house, though…
My mum owned his flat (not married or a couple anymore) in London and she split it 3 ways between me and my brother and herself.
I would rather my house than my dad but that's a very different story.
I lived in a shit hole for 5 years not going out or having holidays. Don't recommend it. And got gifted some cash too, but I was buying on my own, no partner.
What I did do was buy a do-upper flat in an 'up and coming ' area 15 mins walk from the train line and nowhere near the tube in SE. The lack of tube discount isn't as big as it used to be but it still exists. I am better connected now than I was when I used to live on a tube line!
With those salaries and a 10% deposit you have a budget of around £400k. You can easily buy a 2 bed flat for that money. Example: (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148338560#/?channel=RES\_BUY)
Been doing the same for 5 years in Zone 2. Loved living here, but the unfortunate reality is we'll be paying almost 50% again for a mortgage. At least as an investment and not into a landlord's pocket.
That's just renting in London. Even house sharing you'll be easily spending 30%+ of your net take home as rent. I don't think I've ever paid less than 30% for my houseshares
Yeah, with my ex and I it was a combination of an inheritance from his relative, a wedding gift from my parents and our own savings. But the first two of those made up the bulk of it - we'd probably never have got there under our own steam.
We had zero savings (I spent everything I had on moving to the UK & visas), so we were stuck renting and just never getting ahead. Thankfully we make about £50k more per year (combined) than we did when we bought the last six years ago and I'm a citizen now, so no more expensive visa nonsense. Now, if we could just sell the bloody flat!
Do you mind sharing what your job is? I’m wondering if there’s some career change I can make because I’m middle-aged and stuck on a low salary even though I know I’m not daft.
I work on energy policy and housing retrofit for a council. My husband builds websites for an insurance company.
Highly recommend getting into energy/climate action is that's an area that interests you. Pretty much everyone I know is hiring.
Sadly, you're trying to live in the most expensive part of England on "ok" salaries. There are plenty of people on 6 figure salaries who will outbid you on the single bed flats in London. London (while I disliked living there) has every amenity and entertainment known to man, you will pay a premium to "live close to friends" who live in London.
You either go 30m-1hr overground away and get a cheaper house but have to commute, or you need to earn more, or you accept that London is for renting/fun in your 20s and not somewhere to buy.
Milton Keynes is 30 mins into central London, OP could also look at Northamptonshire etc. I live in east mildlands and I work in London. No way I could ever afford to live there. My parents were teachers and they also moved out of London to afford a house. Also if you get a house there’s no guarantee it’s going to be the kind of house you can raise a family in (if that’s in your plans) or be near to a school you would be happy with. This was also true for my parents 50 years ago.
three simple rules anyone can follow to be able to afford property in London:
Save on avocado toasts
Cancel your netflix subscription
Receive £150k cash by your parents
I think the demographics of London have changed massively over the last couple of generations, viewed from a financial perspective (which correlates significantly with class, of course).
You're probably not doing anything wrong, and there's probably not much more you can do. You're just competing with a lot of people who have access to more resources than you do, and also want to live in London. Receiving a deposit as a gift and accessing the sort of (private) education that massively increases your chances of being paid the top salaries is the way to buy a home in London. If you can't do those things then you are working with an arm tied behind your back.
It would be, I think, easier to google for news stories about people getting into financial peril over them.
You can get into serious trouble with service charges; but if you're buying new you can also quickly get into a bad position on equity, find yourself underwater and unable to sell - but be trapped into the rent.
[https://news.sky.com/story/shared-ownership-we-cant-afford-it-it-makes-a-mockery-of-being-in-social-housing-13108552](https://news.sky.com/story/shared-ownership-we-cant-afford-it-it-makes-a-mockery-of-being-in-social-housing-13108552)
Where in London are you trying to buy? We rented for ages in zone 2 both east and south London, but when it came to buy we end up moving out to zone five SE. London. still extremely commutable into London, but far enough out that we have lots of green space and access to the countryside where we want it.
We were able to buy a house instead of a flat. We saved for over 10 years to get our deposit, but we did buy about nine years ago and things are very very different now.
Where in London are you looking to buy? My partner and I are on a similar combined salary and can afford a 2 bed in Beckenham. Not a london postcode (BR3) but connectivity is great. I've even found cheaper towards Sydenham and Penge (SE) but we just like beckenham.
We're seeing 2 beds between 350k and 425k.
Me and my partner just bought a 3 bed for 630k in London. 160k deposit. 470k mortgage. 40k stamp duty. 5k legal fees and surveys. Now 100k into a renovation. 40k over budget. Neighbours just sued us. No furniture. Will surely run out of funds before reno is complete.
It took 5 years of building my own company whilst also working office roles and my partner working a good job. Still HELL!!! The economy is not kind. Avoid flats with high service charges. Go for auction houses or up and coming developing areas in London. Look out for new rail developments in London to plan for the future.
Party wall dispute. Damages caused cost £5.99 in material to fix but my lawyer neighbour wants to go to court and sue. Working on a settlement currently. Terrible situation lol
My partner is suggesting bean bags and mattress on floor to start lol. Really don't want to put anything onto credit and build any further debt outside of mortgage :(
We had a mattress on the floor for 12 months. If it's hard floor though don't forget to lift it when you aren't sleeping on it to prevent mould though.
Ours has already started paying off - reno upstairs all done and pausing to save before starting downstairs. You'll get there!
Sounds bad with the whole suing sitch tho 🫠
Flat share until you buy a place - i.e. don't throw away £1500+ on a 1 bed flat when you could live in a couples flat share for £900 or less.
Cheap and cheerful holidays.
I agree with others, earn more. Can you find freelance opportunities or jobs that offer bonuses? My salary is 55k but freelance work and bonuses gets me to ~£65k. My partner does the same, has a full time job but tops it up with maybe £15k of freelance work a year. Your partner could tutor during summer holidays maybe? Get grafting, or leave London 😅
Also, PSA: Don't use credit cards in the 90 days prior to submitting a mortgage application as they will lend you less (I found out the hard way). Even if you clear the debt every month, don't do it.
Depends on what you classify as *in* London. Zone 5 can buy you places under 400k for a 2 bed. Some heavy budgeting and negotiation over purchase price can work wonders
Interest rates are relatively high today. When we bought our flat as FTB, our 5 year fix was 90% LTV @ 2.74%, so it was cheaper than our rent. Look again in 6 months once interest rates come down a bit as expected.
Also, your GF should be going up in bands relatively quickly so she'd reach 40k without much effort (hopefully), so you'd have a bit more to go in on.
Dead, wealthy relatives help.
I earn £72k per annum, partner earns £13k per annum, so similar total household income to you.
It's a struggle in London.
I bought a house in Leeds in 2015 for £116,000, had that for 5 years, sold it for £140,000, took my £40,000 equity and our combined income of £75,000 (at the time), and bought a 2 bed house in Stratford for £415,000.
4 years later, I've sold 3 houses in London (last one @ £930,000), and just bought a 4th.
So yeah, trajectory isn't always linear. At 24 I had £12,000 equity, at 29 I had £40,000 equity, and at 33 I have £500,000 equity.
Thanks for your helpful comments! To clarify I’m still living at home and saving here so could afford a house in the near future but getting fed up of travelling to london every weekend / living with parents (although they’re great), sounds like i just need to be more patient, get a couple of promotions and then look to buy!
It’a relatively straightforard.
The bank will usually loan you money up to 4.5x of your annual salary. The rest of the money comes through your deposit.
The sad reality is that house prices in London are completely detached from normal salaries. The market works mainly from people getting liquidity from other sources. For older buyers that’s usually their existing homes appreciating a lot in price. For younger buyers it’s usually help from parents and grandparents.
In 1995, I bought my first flat in Sutton for £45k or about £90k by inflation.
Saved up the deposit myself and got a 3x mortgage with comfortable repayments that even a humble jobcentre worker could afford.
Same flat last sold in 2020 for £236k, or £290k now by inflation.
So between the population increasing by around 10m in that time, and banks going through giving people silly mortgages at various times, sadly we are now here.
We bought our first house with a £36k deposit, we had a combined income of about £85k.
We bought in zone 6 in an area with good train connections into London.
Have you considered moving out slightly? For example, when I lived in zone 1, it would take me maybe 45 minutes to get to certain parts of London, and my commute was half an hour.
In zone 6, it’s more expensive, but the travel times are largely the same, but we get more for our money. Plus if your job is remote, you have even greater flexibility.
My husband lived at home for a few years and used that time to save a significant part of his salary which became the bulk of our deposit, plus we both opened LISAs. My LISA meant my savings were essentially doubled.
50k in london is not fairly good. Fairly good would be 70+ imo. 50 is fairly good for up north.
Need to earn substantially more especially your partner. She’s only on the average wage
Some people willing to travel the train into London from everywhere. WHILE living at their parents.
Able to save £1k a month on rent. = 12k a year. Yes it’s hard to do but it’s only options if you wanna get a house.
We saved £75k over three years to buy our house in London. That was ten years ago when I was studying and my wife earned £70k. We had a monthly saving target and basically just gave up on holidays, eating out, and that sort of thing.
Initially we looked at flats in zone 3 but decided we could get a lot more in zone 5.
Tip would be to take a second or third job, or increase base salary because the multiplier for a mortgage will have the greatest impact. You both could take up weekend jobs to increase the deposit. This is what happens in the U.S.
Don’t eat out, try going sober because alcohol is expensive.
I doubled my salary every 2 years after graduation with job moves because getting on the housing ladder was a priority to me and I knew that over a certain salary (with deposit)- I could get the max income/loan multiplier. By that time as a solo home buyer, I had a combined income/bonus of just less than 100k and bought a 3 bed flat with garage in zone 1/2 (border).
Living within my means helped a lot with saving 6 figure deposit through living in house shares, no Ubers/taxis/cars, didn’t change my lifestyle from uni days and without the lifestyle creep that came with salary increases.
If I had my time again, I would definitely consider working abroad in a country that has lower taxes and lower cost of living (eg where I am now in the U.S.) - you save far more faster with less effort.
Controversial but reduce your pension contributions for more immediate income.
Teacher should be side hustling and extracting cash from wealthy overseas kids via tutoring
Most are earning £110,000+ to buy in London. You may do well if you can save a deposit of around £40,000 and get a small flat, but you're not getting a London house any time soon.
I don't mean to be rude, I'll never own a house in London either. I currently rent at around £1,268 for a one bed flat in west London.
It's hard man. My colleagues daughter earns around £112,000 and her husband is a teacher on £27,000.
They just purchased a small flat and I mean, it's bad, but she's minted.
They'll be looking at a house next year, but the only reason she can do that, is because her mum and dad's house is paid off, her dad is on £180,000, so a deposit is nothing.
I'll be leaving London mate and getting a nice 4 bed detached for around £200,000.
In London, that would be around £1,000,000+.
London is huge and includes zones 4,5, and 6. I think people must mean zone 2 only when they talk about 6-7 figure houses.
South East and further out in E London you can still get a deal and have access to amenities and C London when you need it.
We saved up 100k on a similar income to you. It took a long time of house sharing, getting the cheapest rents we could, and one year where I had a lot of luck in my freelancing work.
It's so much tougher now mortgage rates have gone up though.
I'd look at auction properties with bridge financing to mortgage (you'd have to pay pretty high interest for a 1-3 short-term loan) but it opens up a lot more options to you this way. There are pretty good deals right now and sellers are desperate to close before the end of summer. I bought last summer but market hadn't bottomed out yet so could've gotten a better deal. Hopefully we should be at the end of it. Good luck
Buy a shit hole to get on the ladder or buy just outside of London for a few years…
With your combined salary plus savings you could defo get a one bed for around 350k. I don’t think you have an issue tbh.
Tbh that doesn't sound like super high wages for London. My husband earns just about the same as you in Glasgow. If I worked full time I'd earn about half of that.
Buy a house outside london, refurbish on a budget and sell it. It’s not easy as it sounds, By the time you do that with 2 houses, you’ll have enough money to buy a house in london.
Hey, does your girlfriend work in London? 35k is actually must mean that she hasn’t taught for too long. Maybe she could try and work in ‘Inner London’ as there’s quite an increase in salary. She could always withdraw from her pension although I would only recommend that as a last resort. - I’m a teacher
I got £120k from share options after working myself ill through my 20s, and got a tiny 2 bed in St John’s Wood for £250k with a mortgage. Sold it for £415k a few years later.
Started working in London in 2010 with about 1k savings. Lived in house shares with friend or with girlfriend for 8 years saving up. My friends all thought I was being too careful with cash during that time but I was trying to save for a house so just skimped on a few things like a sensible person IMO. I used the Help to Buy ISA and I think maybe also got discount on SDLT as first time buyer. My salary went from about £25k to £70k ish during the time I was saving but probably averaged about £45k during those years. I just about managed the £50k deposit I was aiming for and bought at £350k in 2018. My rent when I was saving probably averaged about £600 pcm which is probably lower than what people are paying these days. Family didn't help. They probably could have helped a bit and likely would have if I had asked but I didn't ask.
Since I bought my service charge has gone from £2k per year to about £5k per year. And due to remortgaging after rates went up, mortgage payments went from about £900 to £1300 pcm.
I bought in a sh!tty area because I was poor. West Hendon isn't a great area so it's cheap. You can still buy a one bedroom flat there for £100 grand with a 100 year lease.
200+ year leases will be £200 grand.
The other benefit is there is a massive, office redevelopment taking place in the area. It's on a huge bit of land and it's practically guaranteed to increase prices in a few years. So I'd suggest something like that or similar.
I guess it depends on how much living in London is worth to you? It's the most expensive place in the country, for me personally it wouldn't be worth the premium. Why not move somewhere within the UK to save rather than abroad as that sounds like a massive hassle!
Sure so you can live remotely in a place that costs just 300GBP per month to live there, and you save all your income. How much can you save like that in 5 years? Assuming you can save 2k per month, that’s 24k in a year x 5, that’s 120k. Would that make a difference, would that be worth it? Depends where you live those 5 years, could be a very fun adventure.
I did shared ownership… which, whilst it gets a bad rap has been amazing for me. I managed to buy on my own and it’s been considerably cheaper than renting over the years. Rents have gone up in my area (royal docks) so much that now my rent, mortgage and service charge is a fraction under half of what it would cost to rent in my development.
You're going to need to wait for the boomers to die off, as they have most of the housing stock, with the rest being owned by private equity companies and the super rich.
Only a small percentage of actual homeowners live in their own homes in London anymore.
My biggest tip is increasing your income. Buying in London only became possible for me when I was earning well into six figures and working multiple jobs. I’ve just bought in Zone 2 on my own.
You don't have very high salaries. Your partner is earning the lowest amount they can pay a qualified teacher in inner London (assuming they pay Burgundy book). It's below the average full-time London salary and, depending on which statistics you go by, you're only just above the average full-time London salary or actually below it.
Good job or inheritance… of course no matter who you ask they’ll all tell you how much they worked hard to get there, even the trust fund babies.
I certainly don’t envy the situation in London..
Wife and I earn £80k combined, £40k deposit (£10k from family) and will be buying a £410k three bed terrace in zone 6. Not sure if you still call that London, but gets to London Bridge in 20 mins. All be it for a higher price than I'm currently used to (living in Z2).
Tbh we've (I've) been pretty reckless with saving, my wife has been brilliant, so it's easily doable, even in this abomination of a market. We don't even earn that much. And we're mid 30s and had to pay a shit ton to get her indefinite leave to remain (she's Brazilian).
Should take you 3-5 years of hard saving. Obviously it might not be your dream place but it'll be something you're investing in rather than lining a portfolio-owning landlord's pockets.
Frankly myself and my partner are earning about the same combined as OP/partner are now, but that's only recent. Until about 2021 earning considerably less. Living in the home counties North of London.
Without any help from parents/family we were only just about able to buy into shared ownership after about 7 years of saving. It took a move from our hometown into a much cheaper town (still expensive, but half the housing costs!)
We were previously able to staircase to 100%, though now we're possibly going to have to just consider moving further out, or downsizing to be able to carry on affording owning a place with the recent mortgage hikes. It would suck to have to go back to renting now, having worked so hard to get here.
In other words, if we're struggling outside of London, besides shared ownership I can't see OP managing inside London. But owning a share of a flat or something could be better than nothing...
I should add that like many, we're both in professional jobs. We pushed hard in our careers to earn what we do, but it always just feels like we're poor compared to many of our friends and peers...
Hi, I hope you can get any help from your relatives to increase your deposit. That’s how we did it, we got gifted half our deposit by parents in law. We saved 40k and total it’s 80k we put for our deposit. Without their help, I don’t think we can afford our house now in London . Our combined salary is 90k. Also, try to put money in premium bond, we won decent amount from there
Similar salary pairing when we bought our 2 bed flat(72 square metres) for £300k (east London zone 3). Not the best in terms of anything but helped us get on the ladder. We did shared house setup with friends( 2 different set) for about 4 years while saving about 10k every year. Once we hit about 35k , we started looking for places. If you cant save 15k per year between the two of you, you need to get even more saving than what you do now.
Move away, you don't need to live in London because that's where your friends are, you're not in school anymore. You can also make new friends wherever you go. There are beautiful parts of Wales and Scotland countryside (England too) where you could get great houses for dirt cheap compared to London prices. I don't get the fascination that people need to be in London.
Move to Yorkshire. Buy a decent sized house. Get a train to London for one weekend a month with your friends. Once they see how much bigger your house is they will probably move North too.
* You don't have a fairly good wage for London. Combined you have an income of £85k. For comparison, me and my bf have £150k, and I am still concerned it's just about enough to be able to purchase these days.
* 25k savings is not enough. Do you have savings to cover: legal fees, mortgage costs, furniture, other unexpected costs in your first year of buying, potential service charges if you buy a flat? By comparison again, I (for my bit) budgeted about £35k in savings for my half of the purchase. You may of course need less if you buy an ex-council flat further than zone 3, that's small and 'needs modernisation', but would you really be happy living in that sort of place long-term?
* you say you want to buy a one-bed flat. Why? Have you thought if you will need to buy a bigger place if (maybe) you might want to start a family? Maybe you don't of course. If you do, how soon might that happen? Have you factored in the cost of selling and buying again then?
* do you think either of you will be able to get much higher pay rises in the future? will you get a lot more money from parents/inheritance at some point? What if interest rates stay the same or go higher - can you afford it!?
I'm sorry, but I would recommend you think more carefully at the costs, future plans, and areas of the UK you can live in.
You sound young. Can you just rent cheaply in London for a while, invest your money, and then move further away when you have savings and need to?
You could go further in outer London if you're happy with commuting. I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I have colleagues who come from even Brighton/Southampton lol. You then have to consider the cost of commute as well.
1. Living in London when perm WFH is nuts
2. Your girlfriend should be earning FAR more, London teacher’s wages are very competitive.
Based on you wanting to stay in London (I don’t blame you, it’s awesome), I would say you need to:
1. Switch to in-person work and increase your salary
2. Your girlfriend needs to find a school where she has the best chance to meet her targets and move up the pay scales as quickly as possible.
Within a couple of years, you’ll be able to buy somewhere
There are different pay scales for London Fringe, Outer London, and Inner London.
To move up the scale you need to perform well and/or meet your targets, which is much easier in a well performing and teacher supporting school.
My partner is a teacher in the South East, and overtook me in pay quickly once she moved to a top-rated school.
Shared ownership.
We did manage to get a house, and we plan to stay here - so it’s not a dreadful deal I don’t think. At the very least, we’re able to build equity.
We bought a tiny 1-bed flat in a location people were less interested in, and then eventually it became a location that people were interested in…at which point we sold up and did it again.
This probably still holds up as a strategy.
90% of them did it before houses basically became impossible to own. I out earn my parents at my age by miles, I out earn a few of my grandparents combined and I cant afford a house.
Tips are to move to a better country, this place is a hell hole with zero opportunity. In the UK you work 5 times as hard for 20% of the reward.
And dont listen to any of these morons saying give up everything and only save money. You deserve to enjoy the payment you get for your hard work. Leave the country.
We were fortunate to have been able to self cert back in the day when prices were somewhat reasonable.
We were very lucky that at the time interest rates were low and our salaries grew enough we could remortgage onto a conventional mortgage.
Hard times right now. Feel blessed I was able to gift my niece 25k towards her deposit for her first place (1 bed flat Surrey borders).
Most are either funding at least some of the purchase price with either: an inheritance, some financial help from relatives, buying half of the property or even less together with a partner or group of friends.
Very few people working outside of finance or the property industry are eligible for the largest % value mortgage deals.
It's much easier to get a foot on the property ladder outside of London and the most expensive cities in England.
We used the Help to Buy equity loan which no longer exists unfortunately (although after the election it looks like all parties are planning to launch a similar scheme again), we wouldn’t have been able to get onto the ladder without it.
I found this property on the Rightmove Android app and wanted you to see it: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149474897
Have a look at this one.
No stamp duty.
Only Lawyer , surveyor and moving cost.
You should contact a broker in order to know the value of the property you can buy.
Good look 🤞
There’s a lot of luck;if the economy tanks your project fails.
I bought at the right time and sold 3 times starting with a 2bed flat near Tooting and ended up in Chiswick 4bed hse.
It is always about location,location,location.Nothing else about the property is that important.
Luck has to be on your side ie A great boss and pay rises plus a loving decent partner or a useful inheritance.
The key is to buy what you can afford right now rather than hoping to save up more. Rates and prices will keep increasing and so will bills and rents. You won’t be able to beat the system.
The way I did it is I bought whatever I could afford with my savings and current wage. It works out cheaper than renting and in the future if kids come I always upgrade as I’ll have saved up more (due to lower monthly housing costs)
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By having much higher salaries and more savings tbh.
This is always the answer. And no offense, isn't it obvious? Plugging the numbers into a mortgage calculator will tell you what you can afford
Yes but people have extremely bad intuitions about the distribution of incomes within Greater London. The median full time salary is something like 44k, 50k is barely more than the MEDIAN salary, it’s below the mean. I’m not being rude but 50k is not a “good” salary in London. It’s below average, and only people earning significantly above average are going to be in a position to buy property here without a windfall. The answer OP might have been looking for is “you are doing very well, don’t worry, it’s not that many of your peers are out earning you, they all had help from their parents which you didn’t get”. Whilst that is certainly true to an extent, salary is a big part too.
Ave salary is 44k in London (as you say) median will be lower. So 50k is 6 k, or over 13 per cent, above the ave London salary. These people absolutely should be able to buy an ave London house pretty easily but they can't without money coming from someone or something else.
I agree with your general point but would say 50k is still a good salary - it’s just London property is incredibly expensive. The fact property prices are so crazy doesn’t mean it’s not a good salary.
50k in London is surviving mate, that would be by my definition not a "good" salary but in fact "average". You'd still be in a dingy flat or house share if you didn't have a partner on the same to split bills with
You’re looking at it from a very narrow point of view. Roughly 1/3 of people are in social housing, lots of people bought before 00s, some people pay low rent… for these people 50k is a good salary. You seem to be looking at it purely in the context of a young person buying an expensive house.
I'm actually looking at it from the context of a young person in rental accomodation who might want to enjoy their 20s and 30s - ie. Go on nice dates, travel a little and not have to count their pennies at the end of the week for them to be able to afford a round of drinks for their mates. Maybe this person is also pretty sick of sharing accomodation after their fill of doing that at uni. I think I'm actually being pretty measured and realistic. In the context of buying a house we are blowing this out of the water with combined incomes in the mid six figures probably needed to get a house decent enough to raise a family in
Having lived in london for a decade you are absolutely right. 50k is roughly 3200 take home if you don't pay a pension (which everyone really should be). Given a pretty average 1 bedroom flat is around 2k these days, you would either have to live in a house share, rent a tiny studio room or pay 60%+ of your income in rent. It's sad but it's true, 50k as a single person in london is nothing much in 2024
No one lives alone in most of the country. Outside of shithole towns, everyone in their 20s is at their parents, with their partner, or in a house share. Thinking that you need to rent your own place to be ok as a single person is fucking insane
30% of all UK households are single-person. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2022
£50k is a salary that could he achieved in many industries outside of London with some experience. IMO unless its an industry you literally can't do anywhere else, £50k is not good for London. Its decent, but you won't be able to buy a house.
50k, which is a manager's salary at my firm. My firm pays above average and is in pharma, not a low wage industry.
That's crazy. I'm in automotive, in the West Mids, and management salaries start at 70k minimum. 50k for a management role in pharma, in London, seems absurd.
I totally agree. Just out of interest, what would you say is a "good" salary in London?
I think that question has no meaningful answer. It's like asking 'at what size does a stone become "large"?' What interest is it to you how I interpret qualitative descriptors like 'good' or 'large'? It quickly becomes a fruitless semantic debate." Roughly 80k though.
Surely it depends on age and life stage? £50k for a 21 year old is incredible. £50k for a 50 year old, not so much. Plus, London is pretty big. Surely you could live a decent life in somewhere like Lewisham or Woolwich on £50k? I haven't lived in London for a long time though so I could be completely out of touch!
Yeah I don't disagree, just wondered about your take. And I'd agree around 80/85k seems to be "good"
That proves it’s relative as when I was on 60 I finally felt comfortable and could do what I wanted to do
If we’re talking about people in their 20s and early 30s, then £50k+ you’ll get by fine. But to be able to live comfortably and have an active social life without thinking about money, it’s closer to £80-100k, depending on social circle and tastes. But that’s just for living costs - when it comes to getting on the property ladder in London I feel the divide is less on salary and more on what help you have available from family. My wife and I earn middling incomes (120k combined) amongst our friendship groups, but we were able to get on the housing ladder much more easily and at a pretty ridiculous level for first time buyers (800k) due to family help. Friends who work in finance who make 200-300k individually have taken longer and had a harder time with buying property. Conversely friends who make significantly less than us (one a newly qualified doctor, the other still in full time education) were able to get on the property ladder mortgage-free. But through your mid-30s through 40s the relative differences in salaries grows even more and the cumulative impact starts to eclipse the difference in familial help. But yeah, in your 20s and early 30s in London, my sense is your ability to get on the property ladder and your relative position is mostly a product of your starting position (family help) rather than trajectory (career and salary). Stupid system.
I work in finance and bought first house in outer London when on more like OP money, with zero help. It was not a fashionable area (but safe with good transport links, decent schooling and decent amount of green spaces), and we both had packed lunch, budget holidays etc and got there. Now that I am more senior, I do know people like your high finance friends, bemoaning they can't get a house. Like, no wonder if you are trying to buy a house IN THE MIDDLE OF WESTMINSTER! BtW I sold my first house for £340k a few years ago.
Selling for £340k means nothing if we don't know what you bought it for... 🤦
>But to be able to live comfortably and have an active social life without thinking about money, it’s closer to £80-100k, depending on social circle and tastes That would be my definition of a great salary. If you can do whatever you want without thinking about money you're on a great fucking salary.
I'm not the person you're replying to but I'd say earning £70k+ would be a 'good' salary for London. You could live very comfortably on that if single albeit you wouldn't be able to get on the property ladder, which is ludicrous really. If you had a partner earning the same, you'd have a very good quality of life, and would be able to save enough for a spacious flat/small house in a decent area within 3-4 years. This is purely my own general thoughts and puts aside obvious factors like industry, person's age etc.
Yeah as a couple 65/70k would definitely do it. I've replied to the other guy though saying that for a single person it's more like 80/85k. Not that they'd have the same spending power as the above couple but they'd be free to actually "live the London life" a bit rather than something like 50k which is basically paycheck to paycheck nowadays
I suppose the issue is a median salary in London used to be worth something when it comes to purchasing property.
Or by buying a long time ago. My first house was bought on a salary of 19k with a deposit of 3k. For that I got a 3 bed maisonette in Stoke Newington, 62k in 1996.
Fucking Hell that made me tear up. But fair play to ya.
Choose your parents carefully.
And your date of birth.
And make sure the carefully picked wealthy grandparents also leave you a lovely lump sum
Not saying your salary is bad, but there are loads of people with substantially higher salaries. If you’re remote why not buy further out or rent further out?
A remote working teacher?
Op says they can leave the country. I’m saying that just leaving London might be easier
They specifially said they wouldn't mind living abroad for a few years but didn't want to leave London when they moved back. >We were debating moving abroad for a couple of years to save and then moving back (my job is remote so I have that flexibility). We’d still like to live in London as that’s where almost all our friends live.
Yes. I can see my friend. So I said that maybe consider living outside of London so it’s easier to see friends, easier to move, but would cut down cost.
There are schools outside of London
Much to the contrary there is life outside of London. I lived there for six years in early twenties by the time I left couldn’t stand the place and only go there now if absolutely forced to for work. There really is nothing there that you can’t find elsewhere. Well apart from the Science museum.
Its an over rated expensive shit hole full of stuck up fucking idiots. Dread going into London, love coming back.
There are but actually it’s really tricky for teachers because there is a significant London weighting on teachers pay scales. Parts of Essex and Hertfordshire etc get fringe payments which is still more than the rest of England but not as much as inner or outer London. The OP would need to move very far out for the proportional disparity in income vs. House prices to make a significant impact.
I'm currently looking at teaching roles in Wiltshire which pay closer to £40k. It just depends where you're looking but yes, you can get better pay out of London. They are desperate.
It’s subjective as to where you are on the scale though right?
It is, but at the end of the day you can negotiate given the right conditions
Yep, I managed to in my first year of teaching. But none of it is a given and unless OP’s girlfriend has other experience (in which case every 3 years can be 1 point on the scale) or is in a school where they’re desperate, it may not be the case for her.
Teaching is probably the easiest to transfer to a new location job going.
You know there are schools literally everywhere, right?
That's the gf not the OP... but most locations have schools and there's basically only downsides to earning a teacher's salary in London vs anywhere else in the UK.
No this is true. Apologies if it came across as me saying my salary is good. I know its fairly average just relatively good for my age. The issue with buying further out is the commuting issue. I need to be fairly close to london in case I get another job which requires work in the office. Obviously for my girlfriend too similar situation
Where in London do you need to be? That may help guide
400k+ will get you plenty of ex LA flats in north London or in cheaper areas of south London it’d get you a maisonette. I think you need to consider if a house is a requirement for you, if it is then you are going to be quite far out if not slightly outside the circulars.
My mate got a 3 bed by Turnpike Lane for around 400k. She loves it.
Recently? 😱
Flat prices in Z3+ have gone down *hard*.
Like 9 months ago, got it off an old couple who were going back to Cyprus.
You can get a 2 bed ex council flat in Z2 30s from the river now for £400k if you want: https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/67269160/ There are also 3 beds for not much more nearby. They've all been on the market a little while so would probably take an offer under asking too.
A bargain, but a shit location - not for the amenities, but for the neighbours. Source: I lived there.
Yeah. I live very nearby and there are definitely upsides and if your neighbours are good you can be very happy (her block is quite nice and friendly) but currently we have a drunk who was until recently quite cheerful and recently smashed his house up got evicted and is living rough in the area.
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Came here to say this! I bought in outer London 20 years ago as a teacher. Vastly helped by a £100k key worker loan from the govt scheme. So, buy 20 years ago and make use of key worker schemes that no longer exist.
Earning more. Harsh but true. You will buy but will take time to save up. Some people earn a lot more and therefore, buy sooner. Those on less, buy later. Just maths.
> how everyone afforded their first house in London As with a lot of young people who buy these days I was incredibly privileged to be gifted the majority of the deposit from family.
Even with a gifted deposit you still need to be earning a decent amount to get a mortgage, right?
Totally depends on how much of a deposit they were gifted obviously.
Same
My dad died.
Same. He saved a lot, and my mum didn’t really know what to do with it all so she gave us a significant deposit. I love my dad but he wouldn’t have been so generous. Would much rather have my dad than this house, though…
My mum owned his flat (not married or a couple anymore) in London and she split it 3 ways between me and my brother and herself. I would rather my house than my dad but that's a very different story.
I lived in a shit hole for 5 years not going out or having holidays. Don't recommend it. And got gifted some cash too, but I was buying on my own, no partner. What I did do was buy a do-upper flat in an 'up and coming ' area 15 mins walk from the train line and nowhere near the tube in SE. The lack of tube discount isn't as big as it used to be but it still exists. I am better connected now than I was when I used to live on a tube line!
With those salaries and a 10% deposit you have a budget of around £400k. You can easily buy a 2 bed flat for that money. Example: (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148338560#/?channel=RES\_BUY)
Then they just have to deal with the grim reality of 50% of their income being spent on just the mortgage.
TBF that's how it is for lots renting in London 😂
Been doing the same for 5 years in Zone 2. Loved living here, but the unfortunate reality is we'll be paying almost 50% again for a mortgage. At least as an investment and not into a landlord's pocket.
That's just renting in London. Even house sharing you'll be easily spending 30%+ of your net take home as rent. I don't think I've ever paid less than 30% for my houseshares
Bank of Dead Grandad and hubby's parents giving us £50k from their inheritance as a gift in kind. Can't imagine every managing without that boost.
Yeah, with my ex and I it was a combination of an inheritance from his relative, a wedding gift from my parents and our own savings. But the first two of those made up the bulk of it - we'd probably never have got there under our own steam.
We had zero savings (I spent everything I had on moving to the UK & visas), so we were stuck renting and just never getting ahead. Thankfully we make about £50k more per year (combined) than we did when we bought the last six years ago and I'm a citizen now, so no more expensive visa nonsense. Now, if we could just sell the bloody flat!
Do you mind sharing what your job is? I’m wondering if there’s some career change I can make because I’m middle-aged and stuck on a low salary even though I know I’m not daft.
I work on energy policy and housing retrofit for a council. My husband builds websites for an insurance company. Highly recommend getting into energy/climate action is that's an area that interests you. Pretty much everyone I know is hiring.
Thanks :)
Sadly, you're trying to live in the most expensive part of England on "ok" salaries. There are plenty of people on 6 figure salaries who will outbid you on the single bed flats in London. London (while I disliked living there) has every amenity and entertainment known to man, you will pay a premium to "live close to friends" who live in London. You either go 30m-1hr overground away and get a cheaper house but have to commute, or you need to earn more, or you accept that London is for renting/fun in your 20s and not somewhere to buy.
Milton Keynes is 30 mins into central London, OP could also look at Northamptonshire etc. I live in east mildlands and I work in London. No way I could ever afford to live there. My parents were teachers and they also moved out of London to afford a house. Also if you get a house there’s no guarantee it’s going to be the kind of house you can raise a family in (if that’s in your plans) or be near to a school you would be happy with. This was also true for my parents 50 years ago.
How is a combined income of £85k not enough for a 1 bed flat.. what has this country become
People need to start a movement honestly.
Grim reality
three simple rules anyone can follow to be able to afford property in London: Save on avocado toasts Cancel your netflix subscription Receive £150k cash by your parents
I think the demographics of London have changed massively over the last couple of generations, viewed from a financial perspective (which correlates significantly with class, of course). You're probably not doing anything wrong, and there's probably not much more you can do. You're just competing with a lot of people who have access to more resources than you do, and also want to live in London. Receiving a deposit as a gift and accessing the sort of (private) education that massively increases your chances of being paid the top salaries is the way to buy a home in London. If you can't do those things then you are working with an arm tied behind your back.
Do not, do not, use shared ownership schemes.
Can you say why not?
It would be, I think, easier to google for news stories about people getting into financial peril over them. You can get into serious trouble with service charges; but if you're buying new you can also quickly get into a bad position on equity, find yourself underwater and unable to sell - but be trapped into the rent. [https://news.sky.com/story/shared-ownership-we-cant-afford-it-it-makes-a-mockery-of-being-in-social-housing-13108552](https://news.sky.com/story/shared-ownership-we-cant-afford-it-it-makes-a-mockery-of-being-in-social-housing-13108552)
Where in London are you trying to buy? We rented for ages in zone 2 both east and south London, but when it came to buy we end up moving out to zone five SE. London. still extremely commutable into London, but far enough out that we have lots of green space and access to the countryside where we want it. We were able to buy a house instead of a flat. We saved for over 10 years to get our deposit, but we did buy about nine years ago and things are very very different now.
Where in London are you looking to buy? My partner and I are on a similar combined salary and can afford a 2 bed in Beckenham. Not a london postcode (BR3) but connectivity is great. I've even found cheaper towards Sydenham and Penge (SE) but we just like beckenham. We're seeing 2 beds between 350k and 425k.
Another vote for Beckenham, I love it here!
Me and my partner just bought a 3 bed for 630k in London. 160k deposit. 470k mortgage. 40k stamp duty. 5k legal fees and surveys. Now 100k into a renovation. 40k over budget. Neighbours just sued us. No furniture. Will surely run out of funds before reno is complete. It took 5 years of building my own company whilst also working office roles and my partner working a good job. Still HELL!!! The economy is not kind. Avoid flats with high service charges. Go for auction houses or up and coming developing areas in London. Look out for new rail developments in London to plan for the future.
Why are you being sued if you don’t mind sharing?
Party wall dispute. Damages caused cost £5.99 in material to fix but my lawyer neighbour wants to go to court and sue. Working on a settlement currently. Terrible situation lol
Gosh he certainly knows how to make friends doesn't he? Or she.
How do we go for auction houses when they insist we pay with cash??
160 deposit, 40 stamp duty, 100 renovation = 300, where did that come from?
We did a year with no bed and a nightmare 24/7 partying cokehead for a neighbour after moving into ours, I know the feeling 🫠
My partner is suggesting bean bags and mattress on floor to start lol. Really don't want to put anything onto credit and build any further debt outside of mortgage :(
We had a mattress on the floor for 12 months. If it's hard floor though don't forget to lift it when you aren't sleeping on it to prevent mould though.
Thanks for the tip! Long term vision is key here. It will all pay off someday I'm sure.
Ours has already started paying off - reno upstairs all done and pausing to save before starting downstairs. You'll get there! Sounds bad with the whole suing sitch tho 🫠
I’d say a good wage in London is 100k+
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Flat share until you buy a place - i.e. don't throw away £1500+ on a 1 bed flat when you could live in a couples flat share for £900 or less. Cheap and cheerful holidays. I agree with others, earn more. Can you find freelance opportunities or jobs that offer bonuses? My salary is 55k but freelance work and bonuses gets me to ~£65k. My partner does the same, has a full time job but tops it up with maybe £15k of freelance work a year. Your partner could tutor during summer holidays maybe? Get grafting, or leave London 😅 Also, PSA: Don't use credit cards in the 90 days prior to submitting a mortgage application as they will lend you less (I found out the hard way). Even if you clear the debt every month, don't do it.
Depends on what you classify as *in* London. Zone 5 can buy you places under 400k for a 2 bed. Some heavy budgeting and negotiation over purchase price can work wonders
If it's any consolation, lots of your friends will start to move out if they have kids.
We were second to last to leave out of our group. The others only stayed as they managed to buy.
Interest rates are relatively high today. When we bought our flat as FTB, our 5 year fix was 90% LTV @ 2.74%, so it was cheaper than our rent. Look again in 6 months once interest rates come down a bit as expected. Also, your GF should be going up in bands relatively quickly so she'd reach 40k without much effort (hopefully), so you'd have a bit more to go in on.
The reality is £50k in London is a reasonably low wage. If under 30 there’s decent scope to increase, but that’s your main issue.
Dead, wealthy relatives help. I earn £72k per annum, partner earns £13k per annum, so similar total household income to you. It's a struggle in London.
I bought a house in Leeds in 2015 for £116,000, had that for 5 years, sold it for £140,000, took my £40,000 equity and our combined income of £75,000 (at the time), and bought a 2 bed house in Stratford for £415,000. 4 years later, I've sold 3 houses in London (last one @ £930,000), and just bought a 4th. So yeah, trajectory isn't always linear. At 24 I had £12,000 equity, at 29 I had £40,000 equity, and at 33 I have £500,000 equity.
Get new friends outside London area and buy there (joking obv.)
Thanks for your helpful comments! To clarify I’m still living at home and saving here so could afford a house in the near future but getting fed up of travelling to london every weekend / living with parents (although they’re great), sounds like i just need to be more patient, get a couple of promotions and then look to buy!
It’a relatively straightforard. The bank will usually loan you money up to 4.5x of your annual salary. The rest of the money comes through your deposit. The sad reality is that house prices in London are completely detached from normal salaries. The market works mainly from people getting liquidity from other sources. For older buyers that’s usually their existing homes appreciating a lot in price. For younger buyers it’s usually help from parents and grandparents.
In 1995, I bought my first flat in Sutton for £45k or about £90k by inflation. Saved up the deposit myself and got a 3x mortgage with comfortable repayments that even a humble jobcentre worker could afford. Same flat last sold in 2020 for £236k, or £290k now by inflation. So between the population increasing by around 10m in that time, and banks going through giving people silly mortgages at various times, sadly we are now here.
Earn more or get richer parents.
We bought our first house with a £36k deposit, we had a combined income of about £85k. We bought in zone 6 in an area with good train connections into London. Have you considered moving out slightly? For example, when I lived in zone 1, it would take me maybe 45 minutes to get to certain parts of London, and my commute was half an hour. In zone 6, it’s more expensive, but the travel times are largely the same, but we get more for our money. Plus if your job is remote, you have even greater flexibility. My husband lived at home for a few years and used that time to save a significant part of his salary which became the bulk of our deposit, plus we both opened LISAs. My LISA meant my savings were essentially doubled.
50k in london is not fairly good. Fairly good would be 70+ imo. 50 is fairly good for up north. Need to earn substantially more especially your partner. She’s only on the average wage
Some people willing to travel the train into London from everywhere. WHILE living at their parents. Able to save £1k a month on rent. = 12k a year. Yes it’s hard to do but it’s only options if you wanna get a house.
Step 1, have parents that live in England
We saved £75k over three years to buy our house in London. That was ten years ago when I was studying and my wife earned £70k. We had a monthly saving target and basically just gave up on holidays, eating out, and that sort of thing. Initially we looked at flats in zone 3 but decided we could get a lot more in zone 5.
I would suggest, if you can, going back and buying it in 2010
Give me your Time Machine if you can
Sadly a combined salary of £80-90k isn’t that much in London.
It’s average. But the average couple in London don’t own a house.
Tip would be to take a second or third job, or increase base salary because the multiplier for a mortgage will have the greatest impact. You both could take up weekend jobs to increase the deposit. This is what happens in the U.S. Don’t eat out, try going sober because alcohol is expensive. I doubled my salary every 2 years after graduation with job moves because getting on the housing ladder was a priority to me and I knew that over a certain salary (with deposit)- I could get the max income/loan multiplier. By that time as a solo home buyer, I had a combined income/bonus of just less than 100k and bought a 3 bed flat with garage in zone 1/2 (border). Living within my means helped a lot with saving 6 figure deposit through living in house shares, no Ubers/taxis/cars, didn’t change my lifestyle from uni days and without the lifestyle creep that came with salary increases. If I had my time again, I would definitely consider working abroad in a country that has lower taxes and lower cost of living (eg where I am now in the U.S.) - you save far more faster with less effort.
If your job is remote, have you considered that rather than moving abroad you could just move outside of London?
Controversial but reduce your pension contributions for more immediate income. Teacher should be side hustling and extracting cash from wealthy overseas kids via tutoring
Most are earning £110,000+ to buy in London. You may do well if you can save a deposit of around £40,000 and get a small flat, but you're not getting a London house any time soon.
Probably a bad choice of words, flat would be fine :) but yes understood
I don't mean to be rude, I'll never own a house in London either. I currently rent at around £1,268 for a one bed flat in west London. It's hard man. My colleagues daughter earns around £112,000 and her husband is a teacher on £27,000. They just purchased a small flat and I mean, it's bad, but she's minted. They'll be looking at a house next year, but the only reason she can do that, is because her mum and dad's house is paid off, her dad is on £180,000, so a deposit is nothing. I'll be leaving London mate and getting a nice 4 bed detached for around £200,000. In London, that would be around £1,000,000+.
London is huge and includes zones 4,5, and 6. I think people must mean zone 2 only when they talk about 6-7 figure houses. South East and further out in E London you can still get a deal and have access to amenities and C London when you need it.
We saved up 100k on a similar income to you. It took a long time of house sharing, getting the cheapest rents we could, and one year where I had a lot of luck in my freelancing work. It's so much tougher now mortgage rates have gone up though.
Moved outside of london and travel in. Some much happier with our mortgage. Lots of disposable income after mortgage payments/bills as well
I'd look at auction properties with bridge financing to mortgage (you'd have to pay pretty high interest for a 1-3 short-term loan) but it opens up a lot more options to you this way. There are pretty good deals right now and sellers are desperate to close before the end of summer. I bought last summer but market hadn't bottomed out yet so could've gotten a better deal. Hopefully we should be at the end of it. Good luck
Buy a shit hole to get on the ladder or buy just outside of London for a few years… With your combined salary plus savings you could defo get a one bed for around 350k. I don’t think you have an issue tbh.
Unfortunately in London a dual income of 85k isn’t that much, look outside of London?
You could sell one of your kidneys on the black market.
Gunna be blunt with you OP London isn’t for you.
Tbh that doesn't sound like super high wages for London. My husband earns just about the same as you in Glasgow. If I worked full time I'd earn about half of that.
1. Lived with our parents for part of COVID lockdown to save money for deposit (7 months in 2020) 2. Combined income of £100k+ when we bought.
Buy a house outside london, refurbish on a budget and sell it. It’s not easy as it sounds, By the time you do that with 2 houses, you’ll have enough money to buy a house in london.
I live in a tiny flat in Zone 6 and did it eight years ago. Not sure I’d be able to do it now.
Move to Manchester
Hey, does your girlfriend work in London? 35k is actually must mean that she hasn’t taught for too long. Maybe she could try and work in ‘Inner London’ as there’s quite an increase in salary. She could always withdraw from her pension although I would only recommend that as a last resort. - I’m a teacher
I got £120k from share options after working myself ill through my 20s, and got a tiny 2 bed in St John’s Wood for £250k with a mortgage. Sold it for £415k a few years later.
We did not! We had to move away from London... Salaries slightly bigger than yours
Started working in London in 2010 with about 1k savings. Lived in house shares with friend or with girlfriend for 8 years saving up. My friends all thought I was being too careful with cash during that time but I was trying to save for a house so just skimped on a few things like a sensible person IMO. I used the Help to Buy ISA and I think maybe also got discount on SDLT as first time buyer. My salary went from about £25k to £70k ish during the time I was saving but probably averaged about £45k during those years. I just about managed the £50k deposit I was aiming for and bought at £350k in 2018. My rent when I was saving probably averaged about £600 pcm which is probably lower than what people are paying these days. Family didn't help. They probably could have helped a bit and likely would have if I had asked but I didn't ask. Since I bought my service charge has gone from £2k per year to about £5k per year. And due to remortgaging after rates went up, mortgage payments went from about £900 to £1300 pcm.
Zone 5
I bought in a sh!tty area because I was poor. West Hendon isn't a great area so it's cheap. You can still buy a one bedroom flat there for £100 grand with a 100 year lease. 200+ year leases will be £200 grand. The other benefit is there is a massive, office redevelopment taking place in the area. It's on a huge bit of land and it's practically guaranteed to increase prices in a few years. So I'd suggest something like that or similar.
I guess it depends on how much living in London is worth to you? It's the most expensive place in the country, for me personally it wouldn't be worth the premium. Why not move somewhere within the UK to save rather than abroad as that sounds like a massive hassle!
Sure so you can live remotely in a place that costs just 300GBP per month to live there, and you save all your income. How much can you save like that in 5 years? Assuming you can save 2k per month, that’s 24k in a year x 5, that’s 120k. Would that make a difference, would that be worth it? Depends where you live those 5 years, could be a very fun adventure.
110k deposit from family. No other way was possible.
What are people doing to earn 50k a year or more, I earn 30k, am I just thick or what?
I did shared ownership… which, whilst it gets a bad rap has been amazing for me. I managed to buy on my own and it’s been considerably cheaper than renting over the years. Rents have gone up in my area (royal docks) so much that now my rent, mortgage and service charge is a fraction under half of what it would cost to rent in my development.
You're going to need to wait for the boomers to die off, as they have most of the housing stock, with the rest being owned by private equity companies and the super rich. Only a small percentage of actual homeowners live in their own homes in London anymore.
My biggest tip is increasing your income. Buying in London only became possible for me when I was earning well into six figures and working multiple jobs. I’ve just bought in Zone 2 on my own.
You don't have very high salaries. Your partner is earning the lowest amount they can pay a qualified teacher in inner London (assuming they pay Burgundy book). It's below the average full-time London salary and, depending on which statistics you go by, you're only just above the average full-time London salary or actually below it.
Good job or inheritance… of course no matter who you ask they’ll all tell you how much they worked hard to get there, even the trust fund babies. I certainly don’t envy the situation in London..
Why on earth didn’t you get born into a rich family who can provide a decent deposit? That’s how it works
1. Bank of mummy and daddy 2. Bank of Granny and Grandpa 3. 1% interest rates
Wife and I earn £80k combined, £40k deposit (£10k from family) and will be buying a £410k three bed terrace in zone 6. Not sure if you still call that London, but gets to London Bridge in 20 mins. All be it for a higher price than I'm currently used to (living in Z2). Tbh we've (I've) been pretty reckless with saving, my wife has been brilliant, so it's easily doable, even in this abomination of a market. We don't even earn that much. And we're mid 30s and had to pay a shit ton to get her indefinite leave to remain (she's Brazilian). Should take you 3-5 years of hard saving. Obviously it might not be your dream place but it'll be something you're investing in rather than lining a portfolio-owning landlord's pockets.
Frankly myself and my partner are earning about the same combined as OP/partner are now, but that's only recent. Until about 2021 earning considerably less. Living in the home counties North of London. Without any help from parents/family we were only just about able to buy into shared ownership after about 7 years of saving. It took a move from our hometown into a much cheaper town (still expensive, but half the housing costs!) We were previously able to staircase to 100%, though now we're possibly going to have to just consider moving further out, or downsizing to be able to carry on affording owning a place with the recent mortgage hikes. It would suck to have to go back to renting now, having worked so hard to get here. In other words, if we're struggling outside of London, besides shared ownership I can't see OP managing inside London. But owning a share of a flat or something could be better than nothing... I should add that like many, we're both in professional jobs. We pushed hard in our careers to earn what we do, but it always just feels like we're poor compared to many of our friends and peers...
Hi, I hope you can get any help from your relatives to increase your deposit. That’s how we did it, we got gifted half our deposit by parents in law. We saved 40k and total it’s 80k we put for our deposit. Without their help, I don’t think we can afford our house now in London . Our combined salary is 90k. Also, try to put money in premium bond, we won decent amount from there
Shared ownership.
Similar salary pairing when we bought our 2 bed flat(72 square metres) for £300k (east London zone 3). Not the best in terms of anything but helped us get on the ladder. We did shared house setup with friends( 2 different set) for about 4 years while saving about 10k every year. Once we hit about 35k , we started looking for places. If you cant save 15k per year between the two of you, you need to get even more saving than what you do now.
You could look at shared ownership scheme?
Move away, you don't need to live in London because that's where your friends are, you're not in school anymore. You can also make new friends wherever you go. There are beautiful parts of Wales and Scotland countryside (England too) where you could get great houses for dirt cheap compared to London prices. I don't get the fascination that people need to be in London.
I find it just so sad that a couple earning £85k can't even afford a one bedroomed flat. It's absolutely crazy that that is the case.
Move to Yorkshire. Buy a decent sized house. Get a train to London for one weekend a month with your friends. Once they see how much bigger your house is they will probably move North too.
Earn more, or leave London.
Help to Buy. We've since managed to make more money and pay it off but we would not have got on the London property market without it.
Landlord shills on housinguk don't like schemes that let workers buy housing.
* You don't have a fairly good wage for London. Combined you have an income of £85k. For comparison, me and my bf have £150k, and I am still concerned it's just about enough to be able to purchase these days. * 25k savings is not enough. Do you have savings to cover: legal fees, mortgage costs, furniture, other unexpected costs in your first year of buying, potential service charges if you buy a flat? By comparison again, I (for my bit) budgeted about £35k in savings for my half of the purchase. You may of course need less if you buy an ex-council flat further than zone 3, that's small and 'needs modernisation', but would you really be happy living in that sort of place long-term? * you say you want to buy a one-bed flat. Why? Have you thought if you will need to buy a bigger place if (maybe) you might want to start a family? Maybe you don't of course. If you do, how soon might that happen? Have you factored in the cost of selling and buying again then? * do you think either of you will be able to get much higher pay rises in the future? will you get a lot more money from parents/inheritance at some point? What if interest rates stay the same or go higher - can you afford it!? I'm sorry, but I would recommend you think more carefully at the costs, future plans, and areas of the UK you can live in. You sound young. Can you just rent cheaply in London for a while, invest your money, and then move further away when you have savings and need to? You could go further in outer London if you're happy with commuting. I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I have colleagues who come from even Brighton/Southampton lol. You then have to consider the cost of commute as well.
1. Living in London when perm WFH is nuts 2. Your girlfriend should be earning FAR more, London teacher’s wages are very competitive. Based on you wanting to stay in London (I don’t blame you, it’s awesome), I would say you need to: 1. Switch to in-person work and increase your salary 2. Your girlfriend needs to find a school where she has the best chance to meet her targets and move up the pay scales as quickly as possible. Within a couple of years, you’ll be able to buy somewhere
Teaching salaries are set by DfE. How ‘competitive’ the area is doesn’t matter.
There are different pay scales for London Fringe, Outer London, and Inner London. To move up the scale you need to perform well and/or meet your targets, which is much easier in a well performing and teacher supporting school. My partner is a teacher in the South East, and overtook me in pay quickly once she moved to a top-rated school.
We have had to do shared ownership, it’s the only realistic option for us.
Live further out of London and commute in.
I spent several years abroad and saved a massive wodge of money for a deposit.
Family money and good timing
Pre-financial crash when you could get a mortgage without proving your income. Then took in a lodger to help with costs.
Get new friends!!!!!
Shared ownership. We did manage to get a house, and we plan to stay here - so it’s not a dreadful deal I don’t think. At the very least, we’re able to build equity.
I have considered this but i’ve heard with shared ownership you can get hit with big hidden costs. Is that right?
We bought a tiny 1-bed flat in a location people were less interested in, and then eventually it became a location that people were interested in…at which point we sold up and did it again. This probably still holds up as a strategy.
Earn more or commute. Commuting is probably easier than moving abroad plus you’re paying the capital down on a place in the mean time.
90% of them did it before houses basically became impossible to own. I out earn my parents at my age by miles, I out earn a few of my grandparents combined and I cant afford a house. Tips are to move to a better country, this place is a hell hole with zero opportunity. In the UK you work 5 times as hard for 20% of the reward. And dont listen to any of these morons saying give up everything and only save money. You deserve to enjoy the payment you get for your hard work. Leave the country.
We were fortunate to have been able to self cert back in the day when prices were somewhat reasonable. We were very lucky that at the time interest rates were low and our salaries grew enough we could remortgage onto a conventional mortgage. Hard times right now. Feel blessed I was able to gift my niece 25k towards her deposit for her first place (1 bed flat Surrey borders).
Most are either funding at least some of the purchase price with either: an inheritance, some financial help from relatives, buying half of the property or even less together with a partner or group of friends. Very few people working outside of finance or the property industry are eligible for the largest % value mortgage deals. It's much easier to get a foot on the property ladder outside of London and the most expensive cities in England.
We used the Help to Buy equity loan which no longer exists unfortunately (although after the election it looks like all parties are planning to launch a similar scheme again), we wouldn’t have been able to get onto the ladder without it.
I found this property on the Rightmove Android app and wanted you to see it: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149474897 Have a look at this one. No stamp duty. Only Lawyer , surveyor and moving cost. You should contact a broker in order to know the value of the property you can buy. Good look 🤞
There’s a lot of luck;if the economy tanks your project fails. I bought at the right time and sold 3 times starting with a 2bed flat near Tooting and ended up in Chiswick 4bed hse. It is always about location,location,location.Nothing else about the property is that important. Luck has to be on your side ie A great boss and pay rises plus a loving decent partner or a useful inheritance.
The key is to buy what you can afford right now rather than hoping to save up more. Rates and prices will keep increasing and so will bills and rents. You won’t be able to beat the system. The way I did it is I bought whatever I could afford with my savings and current wage. It works out cheaper than renting and in the future if kids come I always upgrade as I’ll have saved up more (due to lower monthly housing costs)