Skip to content

My $2.4m London Apartment Tour

2022-05-04 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 31:19 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Money and investing (also: Relationships and personal life, Tools, apps and tech) · mode: Reflection and life update · tags: His own numbers, Family, His medical past

Ali tours the central London flat he rents with his housemate for £4,100 a month, a place that would cost £1.8 million to buy, then runs the numbers on buying versus renting and concludes that the location is worth paying for but the building's niceness is not, and that he rents for freedom and optionality rather than for money.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Kitchen: Harry Potter Le Creuset cookware and mugs, coffee, drinks and cupboards

  • ★ Ali mostly drinks instant Nescafé Azera rather than Chemex coffee; his friend James Hoffmann, with whom he discussed it on his podcast, is to help him upgrade his coffee setup. — 00:02:33
  • ★ Ali recommends Bearbells banana-flavoured protein shakes, his favourite, to anyone in the market for protein. — 00:03:46
  • ★★ Ali finds that the more Harry Potter feel he gives his kitchen, from Le Creuset Harry Potter cookware to the apron, the more likely he is to actually cook. — 00:04:52 · Harry Potter (book series)

00:05:44 — Entrance hall: cloakroom, shoes, washing machine and dryer

00:06:39 — Living room: balcony, podcast setup, bookshelf, guitar, board games, PlayStation, Herman Miller Cosm, keyboard

  • ★★ Ali starts his morning on his balcony because, as Andrew Huberman says, getting light into your eyes first thing helps set your circadian rhythm for wakefulness and rest. — 00:06:39
  • ★★ Ali and his brother record their podcast Not Overthinking in his London living room, with his iPhone set up on a tripod. — 00:07:07 · Not Overthinking, Taimur Abdaal, London
  • ★★ Ali keeps the whole Not Overthinking recording setup in one living-room drawer, which he calls the way to minimise friction with a podcast. — 00:07:07 · Not Overthinking
  • ★★ Ali's team is working on a course on how to run a podcast in less than two hours a week, with a waiting list open. — 00:07:07
  • ★★ One nice thing about keeping his studio separate from his flat, Ali says, is no camera gear at home; everywhere he lived before, he filmed in his living room or bedroom. — 00:08:10
  • ★★ Ali has not bought Horizon Forbidden West or Elden Ring, knowing that once he starts playing them he will waste loads of time on video games. — 00:09:03
  • ★★ After work, which he hardly calls work since it is making silly internet videos, Ali practises on his Yamaha P125 keyboard: Tangled, Disney, musical theatre, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. — 00:10:50

00:11:14 — En-suite bathroom: scrubs as pyjamas, shampoo, CeraVe, Invisalign, fragrances

  • ★ Ali has worn the same pair of scrub bottoms as pyjamas since 2015, when he took them from the hospital of his placement as a fourth-year medical student. — 00:11:14
  • ★★ Ali uses CeraVe Hydrating Cleanser in the shower, saying cleansing twice a day is useful. — 00:12:01
  • ★★ Anglia Orthodontics set Ali up with Invisalign a couple of years ago, and he has nearly finished the treatment. — 00:13:08

00:13:45 — Wardrobe and storage: clothes, a fan's cricket top, Away suitcases

  • ★★ A fan who came to Dubai for the NAS Summit, which Ali attended a few weeks earlier, gave him a custom Pakistan cricket top with his name on it. — 00:13:45 · Pakistan

00:15:07 — Bedroom: desk setup, phone charging away from the bed, Kindle, Oura Ring, Dyson fan

  • ★★ Herman Miller gave Ali its Aeron chair, as it did its Cosm chair, for free after a shoot; Ali says he is now a Herman Miller ambassador. — 00:15:48
  • ★★ Ali keeps his old laptop on a stand in his bedroom as a journaling and writing device, for when the living room is busy, in the morning, or when he cannot sleep at night. — 00:16:18
  • ★★★ Ali charges his phone wirelessly away from his bed, so at his 7 a.m. alarm he must get up to switch it off, then opens the curtains and showers; this has helped enormously. — 00:17:04
  • ★★ Working on his book, Ali finds writing with Sharpies on an A3 pad a great way to make progress sketching out the big ideas. — 00:17:33
  • ★★ Each morning Ali uses Altruist Dermatologist SPF 50 face fluid as moisturiser and sun cream in one, and he uses the Dermatica retinoid. — 00:17:33
  • ★★ Ali charges his Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition wirelessly by day and reads on it before bed, which is how he gets at least 20 to 30 minutes of reading in each day. — 00:18:39 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali is trying the Oura Ring version three to monitor his sleep stats, though his finger has got a bit fat for it and he thinks he has the wrong size. — 00:18:39
  • ★★ Ali has had his Dyson fan since 2018; it seemed expensive for a fan, but as he gets very hot at night it has been super nice, and it looks better than most fans. — 00:19:19
  • ★★★ Ali says his rented central London flat would have cost £1.8 million, or $2.4 million, to buy. — 00:19:19 · London

00:19:42 — Why he rents, what it costs, and location versus amenities

  • ★★★ Ali wanted a nice place in central London but does not yet have the cash to get a mortgage on one, so he decided to rent. — 00:20:08 · London
  • ★★ Fancy two-bedroom flats in London are hard to come by, Ali says, because foreign investors usually buy them up while they are still in development. — 00:20:08 · London
  • ★★★ Ali decided to rent for a year or two as an experiment, to see what living in central London is like while he is young and free of dependents. — 00:20:37 · London
  • ★★★ Ali and his housemate pay £4,100 a month in total for their fully furnished London flat, about £50,000 a year, plus £459 a month in bills. — 00:20:37 · London
  • ★★ Ali and his brother bought their Cambridge flat together, where Ali lived for three years; renting an equivalent two-bedroom flat there would have cost about £1,400 a month. — 00:20:37 · Cambridge, Taimur Abdaal
  • ★★★ Ali semi-regrets renting his London flat: going from £1,400 to £4,100 a month for a two-bedroom flat tripled his rent, and he has decided the experiment is probably not worth it. — 00:21:26 · London
  • ★★ Ali thinks paying for location is worth it: his flat is in the middle of central London with great transport links, and friends from elsewhere tend to come to him. — 00:21:55 · London
  • ★★ For location alone, Ali says, about £2,000 a month would probably rent a relatively okay two-bedroom flat in central London; his extra £2,000 pays for the building's niceness and amenities. (hedged) — 00:22:24 · London
  • ★★ Ali uses his building's gym fairly regularly but could easily have joined a gym near his studio instead, and the novelty of the building's spa wears off. — 00:22:53
  • ★★★ Ali valued his building's amenities less than he expected, and doubts the flat's niceness is worth it for him, since he leaves early for the studio and returns around 9 or 10 p.m. (hedged) — 00:23:23
  • ★★ When choosing a future home, Ali probably would not rate amenities and a fancy flat highly, unless the place could also serve as a YouTube studio. (hedged) — 00:23:57

00:24:27 — Buying versus renting in central London, the numbers, and roots versus wings

  • ★★ When thinking of buying, Ali says, consider the buy-versus-rent ratio: in central London, Manhattan and other big popular cities, buying costs proportionally far more than renting. — 00:24:27 · London
  • ★★★ Buying Ali's flat with a 10% deposit of £180,000 means a mortgage of about £1.6 million, which needs an annual income of £400,000. — 00:24:56
  • ★★ Ali does not have a £400,000 income because he takes little money out of his business and reinvests a lot in it to help it grow. — 00:24:56
  • ★★ Since most people spend around half their salary on rent, Ali says, an income of about £100,000 can rent a flat as nice as his, though buying it would need four times that. (hedged) — 00:25:25
  • ★★ At 1.7%, the rate on his Cambridge flat, a £1.6 million mortgage would cost Ali about £6,500 a month, roughly 50% more than his rent. — 00:25:54 · Cambridge
  • ★★ UK owners also pay ground rent and maintenance, about £5,000 a year for his building by Ali's estimate, so owning his flat would cost around £7,000 a month against £4,000 in rent. (hedged) — 00:26:23
  • ★★★ Mortgage interest, ground rent and maintenance are money down the drain, Ali says, interest being the rent you pay the bank: about £2,800 a month if he bought his flat. — 00:27:22
  • ★★ Buying would save Ali about £1,500 a month, £18,000 a year, for a £180,000 deposit: a 10% annual return on the deposit. — 00:27:48
  • ★★ Ali would put £180,000 not spent on a deposit into a low-cost index fund like the S&P 500. — 00:28:17 · S&P 500
  • ★★ The S&P 500 returns about 7% a year on average over the last 30 years, Ali says, though it has done really well in the last five to ten. — 00:28:17 · S&P 500
  • ★★★ Ali works out the true cost of renting rather than buying his flat as the 3% gap on £180,000, about £5,400 a year, so buying would still be financially better. — 00:28:46

  • ★★★ Ali sees buying versus renting as setting down roots versus having wings: on a one-year or few-months contract, a renter can leave whenever they want. — 00:29:29

    “a difference between setting down roots and having wings”

  • ★★★ Ali rents in central London although buying would have been slightly better financially, because the decision was about freedom and autonomy: renting lets him change his mind at no real cost. — 00:29:29 · London

00:29:58 — Is it worth it? Disposable income; sign-off

  • ★★★ Objectively Ali's flat is probably not worth it for him: he would pay £2,000, maybe even £3,000 a month to live in central London, but not £4,000 or £4,100. (hedged) — 00:29:58 · London
  • ★★★ Whether something is worth it depends on your disposable income, Ali says: with a large banking salary and no interest in investing or saving, a flat like his would probably be worth it to him. — 00:30:27

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Asked how much he spends and what personal salary he takes, Ali replies that he will put something together. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: London

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's mother · Andrew Huberman · Ed Sheeran · James Hoffmann · Lucia (friend, mentioned from 2018) · Peter Singer · Rupy Aujla · Sheen · Taimur Abdaal · Taylor Swift

Projects: Deep Dive · Not Overthinking

Works: Catan · Harry Potter (book series) · Tangled · The Life You Can Save

Organizations: Anglia Orthodontics · Away · CeraVe · Gymshark · Herman Miller · IKEA · Le Creuset · Nike · Tesla · The Walt Disney Company

Concepts: index fund

Places: Cambridge · Dubai · New York · Pakistan

Products: AirPods · Amazon Echo · Apple Watch · Away Carry-On · Chemex · Dyson fan · Elden Ring · Horizon Forbidden West · Horizon Zero Dawn · Huel · Invisalign · Kindle · Oura Ring · PlayStation 5 · S&P 500 · Yamaha P125

Replies to

← Previous: How to Invest as a Teenager · Next → What Am I Doing With My Life?