I don't get it either, and I'm a hedge fund manager. To my mind nothing seems like it's a sensible price in any of the cities I look at. I mean I get that there's a fair few people making good money who can buy a £2M home, but it doesn't make any sense that there are entire swathes of London where every home is like that.
A quick google suggests that a £100K income is in the top 3% in this country, and top 1% is about £176K.
Sure, there's a few hundred football players averaging maybe £3M a year who can thus buy maybe a £15M palace, but if you go on a property site they could each buy one and still have pages and pages of places left on the market.
Similarly there's a bunch of finance/media/law people who've climbed to the top of the greasy pole and could afford a £3M house. But how many can we really be talking about? A few thousand? Ten thousand? Are there really that many MDs and law partners in London?
Average income is still well under 6 figures in this country, and I know a load of doctors who are only just scraping into that category in their 30s. So if you're just scraping into 6 figs as a highly trained and rare specialist, how can there be so many houses that cost 7 figures?
Even if you add parental help, how many people who are splitting inheritance between 2/3 kids is it actually going to help?
I suspect a lot of people have actually drawn on all reserves: found a high income partner, got help from the parents, got a max leveraged mortgage, and possibly some have lied about their income.
I get the feeling it will end badly.
A quick google suggests that a £100K income is in the top 3% in this country, and top 1% is about £176K.
Sure, there's a few hundred football players averaging maybe £3M a year who can thus buy maybe a £15M palace, but if you go on a property site they could each buy one and still have pages and pages of places left on the market.
Similarly there's a bunch of finance/media/law people who've climbed to the top of the greasy pole and could afford a £3M house. But how many can we really be talking about? A few thousand? Ten thousand? Are there really that many MDs and law partners in London?
Average income is still well under 6 figures in this country, and I know a load of doctors who are only just scraping into that category in their 30s. So if you're just scraping into 6 figs as a highly trained and rare specialist, how can there be so many houses that cost 7 figures?
Even if you add parental help, how many people who are splitting inheritance between 2/3 kids is it actually going to help?
I suspect a lot of people have actually drawn on all reserves: found a high income partner, got help from the parents, got a max leveraged mortgage, and possibly some have lied about their income.
I get the feeling it will end badly.