I wouldn't underestimate the effect of equity - property prices in London have effectively doubled over the past decade, so there's a lot of people who bought a

I wouldn't underestimate the effect of equity - property prices in London have effectively doubled over the past decade, so there's a lot of people who bought a decade ago sitting on hundreds of £ks of unearned equity. The borrowing limits in the UK (4.5x salary) have quite a lot of headroom before interest rates make them completely unaffordable (assuming there's not a mass reduction in salary at the same time).