Hands up please

Our first house in London cost £35k and our current one is worth over £800k. We have been fortunate, but it has also come at a price .... stressful jobs, high cost of living, frequent moves to climb the ladder.
We've recently been looking at potential properties in the South West for retirement, and it seems to us that this time round we are going to have to get the best possible deal in a property as we will never see our investment increase to the same extent again.

Some people who own mansions in the West country or Lincs have sold very ordinary homes in London and made ££££
There has always been inequality between London prices and most of the rest of the country; but in fact there is so much more of a discrepancy now - it is extraordinary.
We sold a very small ordinary house in GL area in the 1980s and bought a nicer, larger house in the West for the same price (definitely not a mansion) but we could not afford to buy back our London house now.

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/property/london/worple-road-sw20/sw20-8rq/?include_retirement_homes=true&include_shared_ownership=true&new_homes=include&price_max=1200000&price_min=950000&q=SW20%208RQ&radius=0&results_sort=newest_listings&search_source=refine

We lived in the house next door but one to this one. We sold it 5 years ago.

I am NOT a millionaire!

Not huge is it? One bathroom,no utility and in need of modernization. Here in the North west that may make £300,000 but of course location is everything.

And it is on a busy road with night buses trundling past the window every 40 mins during the night! I loved living there..good for DDs as brilliant transport links etc. But if I had a million I would not but my old house..not worth it

I just checked on the monthly costs and our council tax in Stockport, not the most salubrious area in the country is more than that as are our heating costs. I would suggest that those figures are massaged to get interest.

annesixty did you mean on the Zoopla link or are you referring to another post?

Charges 2016-2017
BandMain part of the borough
(annual charge)Wimbledon Common Area*
(annual charge)
A£918.83£936.81
B£1071.98£1092.95
C£1225.11£1249.08
D£1378.25£1405.22
E£1684.52£1717.49
F£1990.81£2029.77
G£2297.08£2342.03
H£2756.50£2810.44

London Borough of Merton Council Tax We were band F

Ours is more than that in the West.

'Halls Adjoining' semis always go for more

The two railway stations were also very close so that would tick many boxes.

Penstemmon sorry I didn't reply earlier , I was already in bed and couldn't be bothered to go back downstairs. It was on the link you posted that the monthly council tax was £202 and ours has just gone up this month to £204 it was a rise this year of 3.6%... Off hand I have not got the relevant banding but we are E. I was just comparing the location and I know £2 is nothing, it just surprised me.

That astonished me when we moved to London Charleygirl - the nearer to the railway station the more expensive the houses!!
The converse is true wherever we lived before.

That council tax is about the same as here.

I think it was the value of the property compared to the value of ours, but of course that doesn't count, it is the service provided which matters.

We bought a 1948 ex council house semi in Barkingside in 1975 for £13K and sold it 12 yrs later for £69K when we moved to Cheshire.
We were then able to but a new 4 bedroom detatched house up in Cheshire withough a massive increase in our mortgage.

It was just about being in the right place at the right time. We could not have afforded any really big increase in our mortgage.

Nellie you put yourself in the right place at the right time, you made the decision to do that, it was a wise decision.

I know I have mentioned this before but for anyone not already aware of it shared ownership schemes are a great way for those who cannot afford to buy a property to get on the housing ladder. When they can afford more they can do what is called 'stair-casing' and buy another chunk of the property and reduce the rent they pay. My friend's son has done this in order to buy in London, he has a good job but it was the only way he could afford to buy.