How do young people get on the property ladder in London?

Curtlink When did you get on as a first time buyer?

In 1975 we bought a £13K house in Barkingside in Ilford on a joint professional starting salary of £8K. That was about 61% of the house price.
A similar property would now be above £380K on an equivalent joint salary of £46.250. This is now only 12% of the house price. I just don't know how people manage. I hope the maths is correct.
This property sold for £69k 12 yrs later in 1987 and we bought a new 4bed detached property in the Potteries area for £75k with a mortgage of £20K. We sold at the height of a London area property boom which hadn't then moved north.
It was purely a question of the right move at the right time. This huge difference in price has evened out a bit since.

As you move up the A50 towards Manchester the prices seem to go up £10k in price for every 10 miles further north.

I cannot see though how this house price inflation can continue if the bottom of the market becomes unafordable.

Hi there,

Get onto the property ladder without a problem, mortgages were not too highly priced and wages were in proportion to the property prices. I live in a 2 bedroom house in Hammersmith. It is an area with some of the most expensive property in the country. There are plenty of 2 bedroom flats in W6 for considerably less than your expectation you can easily buy them as well.

Research conducted by Plazaestes.co.uk in London proved that a quarter of newly married young couples that want to buy their own homes, are in fact unable to do so. So as much as the younger generation would love to get a step onto the ladder, chances are that they won’t be able to.

Helped DD with a large chunk of the deposit on her flat a few years ago. Indexed it to the value of the property so the repayment on sale would reflect its value at that time, but nothing for her to repay in the meantime.

At the moment we are sitting on a nice profit (she bought in Kensington and Chelsea), but when she sells and moves on I expect the loan will move on with her to her next place!

In London it depends on where you choose to look and what you choose to buy. DD bought a 2 bedroomed ex council flat in a very nice part of Brockley and lived there very happily for 12 years. These flats still sell for well under £200,000. I Right Moved London, under £200,000 and 1000s of properties came up. £200,000 is not cheap I know but two people on the national average wage would be able to buy a property like this. The biggest problem facing todays first time buyers is the size of the deposit required, 20% plus compared with the 10% we had to find

Buying one's first property has never been easy. DH and I both had good well paid jobs when we married, but property in London was beyond our means and we move 30 miles out with a I hour train journey just to get to the London terminus. We also accepted living with a minimal quantity of begged and borrowed furniture and no carpets until we could afford our own.

We commuted for about 30 years from our home in North Kent to work in or near London. There was no way we could have afforded to live anywhere near where we worked, and when we were selling, there were lots of viewings from people working and renting in London, who had, or were hoping to have, children. They too were going to have to commute in order to afford a house.

The deposit they were going to have to pay stunned me - I'd never given it much thought before; we were mortgage free. Younger couples loved our house, but couldn't afford it. So hard for them.

oh dear. Depressed myself now. But if any youngish person asked my advice re migrating to NZ or Australia at the moment I would strongly caution against. Property boom and high cost of living. Combined with a very low pound - so if people have property or income in the UK they will get a lousy exchange rate if they move.
There are many expenses that we don't have in the UK - hugely expensive dental care, extra payments if your kids are in state schools. A very divided secondary school system (in australia) public/fee paying - far more fee paying in Aust.
Bah Humbug.

I think, in a nutshell, greatnan if you live in London and earn 2 average salaries you haven't got a prayer of getting on the property ladder. Increasing numbers of commuters from MK area where property is a bit cheaper because there is masses of building land available. Elsewhere in SE this is not the case.
But whether you are in SE of England, New Zealand or Australia if you have a family before you get on the property ladder you probably ain't going to get on it now unless you earn a very high wage indeed. Or even if you haven't got a family. I can't see either of my migrated sons getting a home of their own unless me and (younger) DH both die young.

I live only a stone's throw from you Deedaa and have the same experience.My daughter ,husband and twins live in rented accommodation in Wokingham . My daughter saves and saves and they never have a proper holiday but getting a mortgage is proving impossible. One of my sons still lives at home for the same reason. They both have degrees and good jobs.

I can't imagine any young people being able to buy a home in London. My daughter and her husband are still living in the same one bedroomed flat (with two children now) that they bought seven years ago in Bracknell. They both have "good" jobs with the student debts that go with them and there's no sign of them being able to move on yet. My son and his girl friend are renting a flat near Reading and have been turned down every time they've enquired about a mortgage.

My nephew works in banking in The City and with bonuses (let's not go there) is doing very nicely.

He could not afford to buy a family home in London. So commutes 90 mins from the village in Kent where he grew up. There he has a 5 bed 3 story house.

Buying in London is impossible, even with 2 good salaries. Daughter and sil therefore have no choice but to commute 1 hour each way in order to be able to afford a family home. And that of course is a/ very stressful and b/ means a lot of money has to be spent on childcare. Worst is that trains are often delayed, for technical reasons, and sadly and increasingly train 'jumpers' meaning that emergency childcare has to be in place just in case, and costs another bomb!

Nightmare!

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I totally supported my daughter's move to NZ as they are now living the life they really wanted. She doesn't have to go out to work, although she is kept very busy in growing their fruit and vegetables and looking after the hens and pigs. They are thinking of getting a couple of sheep next as it takes about three hours to mow their huge lawns. She is able to volunteer three days a week at the Riding for the Disabled stables and now her 14-year old daughter is also volunteering.
They had much more income in England, as she had a very well-paid job, but they hardly saw each other. Even in Yorkshire, the size of house they needed for their large family needed two incomes to cover the mortgage.
It is a huge decision, to move your family to the other side of the world, and I know many parents and grandparents are devastated when their children decide to go, but of course we all want the best for our families. It was easier for me as I am able to visit for two months a year, and I had lived abroad myself, albeit in Europe, for many years.
I know several members have widely-scattered families - how did you all react to the decision to emigrate?

In the late seventies, when DH was still in the Army, we lived in a village at the end of the Northern Line. We were, at that time, saving our money to buy a house, but there was no way we could have afforded to think about the sort of prices even small houses around us were fetching then. I dread to think what they are fetching now. Both my children have been lucky; they were able to get on the property ladder without our help, although it was offered, and are now quite well set up. We have just moved to a four bedroomed, two bathroomed house here in the north but I doubt that what we paid for it would buy us a one bedroomed flat in the less desirable parts of London. Anyone from here wanting to enhance their employment prospects by moving to the South East have an almost insurmountable hurdle in respect of accommodation. It's easier and cheaper to improve your chances by moving to the Antipodes!

I was amazed at how expensive it was to keep DS at university in London, every penny he had came from us. The rent for his room alone would have paid a small mortgage. Now that my children have had financial help I should feel justified in leaving what I have left to a cats home. DH's great aunt did exactly that, the family did not get one penny.

One of the biggest problems was the rush to buy-to-let. When I was in my twenties, renting was far and away the cheaper option. Monthly rent was nothing like the mortgage repayments. Then lots of greedy people jumped on the buy-to-let bandwagon and now it sometimes costs more to rent than to make monthly mortgage repayments. As a reasonable and responsible landlord, I particularly resent this as it gives us all a very bad name. (My properties are in lieu of a company pension as I am self-employed, not a shameless get-rich-quick scheme.)

My son and his partner have just bought their first flat in London. We were not able to help them with the deposit.
What we did do though, was to support our son financially for the 4 years he was at university, which meant he didn't finish university with an enormous debt. It wasn't easy, but we were still both working, and we were able to make that choice. Our other son didn't go to university, but went to Africa for a time, where we supported him too.

The only thing I got from my widowed mother when I got married was a quilt and two blankets! However, we bought a 3-bedroomed semi near Bolton for £1,500 with a mortgage of £8.50 per month, at two and a half percent. We gradually moved up the property ladder and when we divorced we had a four bedroom bungalow with three acres of land, stables, tack room, hay store, etc. Of course, splitting it 50/50 drastically reduced my funds, but soon after that I got the job in Monaco, where my boss provided my living accommodation. I was able to use my half share of the matrimonial home to put deposits on small terraced cottages for both the girls, and then they also moved up the property ladder. When I went back to live in England, I had to start again from scratch, but my employer gave me the deposit for a starter home.
My daughter in NZ has paid less than £300,000 for a four bedroomed bungalow with just under two acres of land. She won't be able to help her children, but her eldest son is a high-earner, so he will soon be buying a small flat. Her second son, his fiance and their two little girls live in a rented house in Deal, Kent. They won't be able to buy anything until she is able to start work. I think his mum is hoping they will consider NZ!
Renting is far more common in France, but I think people in the UK are going to have to get used to the idea.
The great shame is that successive governments have failed to maintain the rate of council house building. I find it laughable when they say a development will include 'affordable housing' - affordable to whom?

Same here. No help from parents but we managed. I have helped dd to buy in Gloucester.

I think to buy in London young people need their parents help. My DH and I paid the deposit on a flat for DS and then they managed the mortgage. When he sold the flat he was able to buy a large detached house in the north of the country. My DD lives abroad and there is no chance of buying, the rent is astronomical by our standards. She needed to keep her property in England so again we had to dig deep and pay off their mortgage.
I am struggling to remember how we managed, there was no chance of our parents help.

This is in London by the way I forgot to mention that fact..

None of my children have been able to afford to buy in the city they were born in both daughters rent and my son has gone abroad to work and intends on buying there. We were never in a position to help them either and I don't think any of my 7 grandchildren will be able to buy here either. My eldest grandson pays £800 for a small 1bed flat and thats hardly on the outskirts of London. I guess eventually they will all move out and away from family if they want to buy, or continue to rent as long as they can afford it even renting is becoming difficult.. a younger grandson would love his own place but his job simply doesn't pay enough so he continues to live at home.
I can't see an answer to the problem to be honest.

I feel very scared for the young couples starting on the property ladder and the price of the average house now is in the £170.00 price range throughout the country,when you think back to the income you had to be on to afford this kind of mortgage you would be expecting to earn about £40.000 joint income as a couple after you had found 5% deposit of £8.500,not very many couples now have a joint income of £40.000 and the building socities are requesting much more in deposits,there is also the fact that they would have to put off having children until much later in life.everyone should also remember that jobs are now not for life and things can change from day to day,as I say I would be very scared if I was starting off on the property ladder now,in answer to your question greatnan we have helped all three of ours get on the property ladder but not by way of buying but by supplying their deposits for their rented properties and furnishing them with essentials,two are in the process of putting together their deposits but it will take a while,we will maybe be needed again in the future to contribute.

I lived in a four-bedroom house in Hammersmith until two years ago. It is an area with some of the most expensive property in the country – by the riverside and Parson's Green, for example – and some of the most run-down. There are plenty of 2 bedroom flats in W6 for considerably less than £500,000 but they are probably less attractive and, perhaps, in less appealing parts of the borough. That said, places to live almost anywhere in London cost silly amounts of money and young people often need a lot of parental help to get on the housing ladder.

I loaned my younger DS and his partner part of his deposit - interest free - and was repaid in regular instalments. Similar arrangement with elder DS and his wife for a car, also repaid regularly. They are now firmly on their own feet.