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I don't think it's a tiny elite whose parents help them buy
I think we come from different backgrounds. To me, ANYONE who can afford to buy a place in London, with or without help, is in an elite of one kind or another. And if their parents are able to just drop £20k on them for the lols, they're even more elite. I don't come from a middle class background where savings are the norm - most of the people I grew up with still live in their council houses.
ReekBlefs-
In response to your "Whose parents? ffs" I was saying "See all those people buying houses in London? Not all of them, but lots of them" because I thought you might actually think that it's uncommon, I see now that it was rhetorical...
But I think we have different understandings of "elite" - to me middle class, by definition, isn't elite, even if it's still out of reach of lots of people. I don't think your or my backgrounds are relevant, but I don't actually know whether elite is a relative term or not. London is expensive whether renting or buying, so I guess we're all part of the global elite. First world problems etc.
Do you know anyone at all whose parents own their house? Do you consider someone remortgaging to get the cash "for the lols"? What about getting a lump sum out of their pension? At what point do savings become elite, 5k? 10k? Saving ~1k a year for a large part of your working life, doesn't seem far-fetched. Sure if you don't have that option it's a luxury, on the other hand... I think if you're in this thread at all, ie. considering buying a home, you've got to accept you're already in a group of people who have relative wealth.
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Lucky for the people you grew up with they managed to get a council house, most of us don't have that option.
hoefla
mustardbeak
Quite a lot of people? I don't think it's that uncommon for people in their sixties and seventies, or older grandparents, to have quite a lot in savings. Or if they've paid off their mortgages they might remortgage to get the cash.
For people trying to buy it makes a massive and seemingly arbitrary difference, but I don't think it's a tiny elite whose parents help them buy. Thinking that there's also a difference within the group of older people who have savings, between those that consider their offsprings desire to buy a home to be a valid rainy day, or not. Some might, quite reasonably, want to hold onto it for illness and old age.