Last year, there were almost 65,000 properties sold in London, according to Land Registry data. While the average home cost £508,000, the most expensive, Aberconway House, in Mayfair, sold for £138 million.
“All buyers want value, especially in the current market,” says Toby Simmonds, agent at Hamptons. “Location and layout are pretty common themes.”
But this, really, is where the similarities end. As budgets increase, so too do buyers’ expectations. First-time buyers are usually looking for smaller homes and having to compromise on their property — be it on elevation, light, security or location — while buyers at the top end want “the whole shebang”, says Simmonds: “a big garden, terrace, lift within the building, gym, swimming pool… Everything you could ever want in life.”
“With first-time buyers, there’s more emotion involved than further up.”
For big-budget buyers, their property is more of a “discretionary purchase”, says Simmonds. “At the lower end, or with first-time buyers, there’s more emotion involved than further up, where buyers tend to be investing.”
Likewise, whereas higher-budget buyers might employ a buying agent to handle the sale, the experience tends to be more stressful for buyers at a lower budget, who may have less experience, have mortgages and are more likely to be part of a chain. “Certainly, the first-time buyers have more stress. They have far more going on, and they’re on a tighter budget.”
Whether it’s a one-bedroom flat or a 10,000 sq ft house, each property sale has a story and a cast of characters with hopes, fears and frustrations. Three London buyers, all with different budgets, share their experiences.
£5.1 million, Belsize Park
Sandra Luehrmann and her husband bought a five-bedroom, 5,213 sq ft house in Belsize Park for £5.1 million in 2020, through Vita Properties. Sandra, 41, works as a buying agent. The property was sold freehold.
My husband and I bought our house in February 2020, before Covid. We had been living in a maisonette on Harley Road, between Primrose Hill and Swiss Cottage, with our two children (we now have three). We bought it in 2016, renovated it and moved in in 2017.
We wanted somewhere slightly bigger in the same area — it didn’t have to be huge — with a garden, beautiful volumes, and, ideally, priced between £3 million and £4 million. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a garden in that price range, so we increased our budget to £5 million. Because of stamp duty, it didn’t make sense to buy, sell, and then buy again. This was the time to stretch.
I run a buying agency called Properly Home, so I leveraged my own skills and relationships with agents in the area. Nouri Alexander, from Vita Properties, spoke to his contacts, and heard that this house was potentially for sale. I fell in love with it straight away. It hadn’t been touched since 1960, but it was flooded with light.
The living room ceilings are 3.6 metres high. It felt a bit Parisian, and I was born in France. The garden sold it for the kids — they’ve always lived in a flat, and it was magical for them to see a big house like that.
We ended up buying it for £5.1 million. We sold our flat for £2.825 million in September 2019 and moved into a rental property in Belsize Park to be in a stronger position to buy. Since we were going to renovate, we also needed a place to live. We exchanged contracts around December, and, unusually, agreed to exchange funds for the seller’s onward purchase. Her husband had died, and it was a probate sale.
We only kept the outside walls of the house, and completely gutted the inside. It has new floors, a new roof, and we’ve repainted the façade. It had a coach house next to it, which we levelled completely to create lateral space. Instead of having a slim, tall Victorian house, ours is now effectively double-fronted. I did the floor plans myself, and then employed builders and a structural engineer.
The renovation cost £1.25 million, and we moved in after 15 months, in December 2021. In 2020, when we got the mortgage, the rates were extremely low — just over one per cent. We got a five-year mortgage on 50 per cent of it, which costs less than renting a flat in the area. My husband works in finance, so it’s manageable for us. We’ll have to remortgage next year and will most likely use savings to pay part of it.
The first time we bought, we thought it was very stressful. We had no idea what an exchange of contract was, or what the word “conveyancing” meant. It was a steep learning curve. But with my job, and with experience, the stress reduces massively. You can surround yourself with better lawyers, builders and surveyors. But now, we don’t have any need to move from here. It’s a beautiful house.
£705,000, Seven Sisters
François Serman, 37, and his partner Elise Verriest, 43, bought a three-bedroom flat in the Vabel Lawrence development in Seven Sisters in October 2023. François is a first-time buyer, while Elise owns a property in France. The property has a 99-year lease.
Three years ago, I never thought I’d be able to buy a property. I thought I’d be stuck in the rental market. I had been looking into buying since 2019, when we arrived in the UK from France, but not very seriously. I’m a software engineer for big tech, so I felt like I should be able to buy something, but everything in London felt out of reach.
We had been renting in St John’s Wood for four years, and were coming to the end of our lease. Our landlord was increasing the rent by £400 — we were paying £2,300 — and we noticed that a mortgage was actually cheaper than the new rent, so we started looking into it.
We were looking for somewhere with three bedrooms and some outdoor space. Our priority was a new-build development because we’d have insurance if problems emerged. But in St John’s Wood, that would cost £3 million to £4 million, rather than our budget of £800,000. The budget was the toughest thing, because I have stocks and tend not to count them as part of my income. Elise, [being freelance], is not technically working, so I needed to buy something that I could afford, even if she was out of a job for a few months. We didn’t want to go too crazy.
Elise saw an advert on Instagram for Vabel Lawrence in Seven Sisters in October 2023. It was a good coincidence. When we visited the flat the same week, we loved the materials and the layout: it has a very large kitchen with stone worktops, so you can put hot pots straight on top of it. We have a big terrace, with a lot of sun. Our flat, on the fourth floor, is west facing, so we get the sun at the end of the day, which is better for us: we’re not morning people.
We had an offer accepted less than a week after seeing the advert. We put down a 20 per cent deposit, because I realised that I could get a better deal with a larger deposit. Luckily, the interest rates for the mortgage dropped during the buying process: I got a two-year fixed-term rate of 4.6 per cent. I took the shortest term because I believe that the rates are going to improve. I also opted for a long mortgage without fees for early repayments (up to 10 per cent), because I wanted to get the lowest monthly repayments. My rule of thumb was that if I repaid quicker, the rate wouldn’t be as important.
The only negative part was some delays with the sale. We were supposed to move in at Christmas, but it happened at the end of March this year. We managed to extend our rental until mid-February, but we had a month roaming around without a home, with our furniture in storage. Now, we are very happy with the property. We like the area, and we believe it is going to get better over the years. We plan to stay here for the foreseeable future.
£238,000, Penge
Philip Walsh, a civil servant, is in the process of buying a two-bedroom maisonette in Penge through Auction House London. This is his first property, which he is planning to renovate and live in with his partner and cat. It was sold with a 120-year lease.
I wanted to get on the property ladder before I was 45. I was really leaving it to the last minute — I turned 45 this year. I’ve lived in London for 25 years, and have been renting a flat in a tower block in Penge for the last 15. I pay £1,050 per month, but the rent keeps going up.
This year, we had an increase of 14 per cent, which galvanised me to get moving. I worried that I’d end up in the unenviable trap where I could no longer afford to buy because all my money is going to rent, and property priceskeep rising.
I’d always fancied buying a nice, cheap property at auction and had received email alerts from Auction House London for about a year. A two-bedroom maisonette came up on the High Street and I thought: that’s the property for me. The first draw was the price: it was £50,000 cheaper than anything else advertised locally.
I viewed the property three times. When I first walked in, it felt like a house, because it was so big. The kitchen was bright, and the sun was beaming in through the skylight towards the stairs. Nothing’s been touched in at least 10 years, so it needs new flooring, carpets, repainting, new worktops in the kitchen, and we’ll have to replace the windows and doors. But I instantly fell in love with the light — and I could actually afford it.
I placed an offer two days before it was due to be auctioned, on June 23. The guide price was £210,000, so I went in at £233,000. They countered at £240,000, and eventually accepted £238,000, which I thought was absolutely fabulous — until I read the special conditions, which added £10,000 to £15,000 to the price.
I bought the house without a mortgage in place and, in what would probably be termed a stupid move, I didn’t do any surveys in advance — it was difficult to get access to the property outside the prescribed viewing windows. Because the flat is above a commercial property — a charity shop, with a café next door — the first lender sent out a surveyor who said, almost instantly, that we wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage. If a mortgage offer didn’t go through and I didn’t complete, not only did I stand to lose all my savings (almost £40,000, in my £25,000 deposit plus the additional costs) but I also risked being pursued through the courts for the special conditions, which I would still be liable for.
Thankfully, I managed to find another lender. Choice was non-existent, but I’m grateful that the corner I was backed into was not more expensive than any other mortgage. I got a two-year deal at 5.67 per cent, which works out as about £300 per month more than my current rent. But next year, I was expecting my rent to equal what I would now be paying.
I’ve never had so much stress in my life. I didn’t realise there was as big a risk as there was. [Buying at auction] is not really geared towards people who need mortgages, I’d say. It’s fraught with pitfalls and takes a lot of nerve. In hindsight, I might not have done it.
I’m due to complete soon, but I’m still nervous that something will go wrong. That’s what keeps me awake at night — I’m not sleeping well at the minute. Until then, I’m holding myself back from planning. I’m not celebrating until I’ve got the keys, and the money’s out of my account.
