Jeez, my mortgage is £1,700 a month. Makes me laugh when northerners get jealous of pricing down here. That said, I doubt salaries are vastly different.
😱 Very few people i know up here have that sort of mortgage, mainly because mortgage companies will only lend 4 or 5x salary so you must be able to show very healthy income. I’d hate that level of debt but you’ll be laughing once it’s paid off.
But you still have to pay to live somewhere, so if you can get a mortgage it's worth it. You reduce mortgage payments overtime and if you overpay you reduce the payment time as well.
Our mortgage is £1600 a month, which is roughly what we would pay rent, so by having a plan we were able to save the deposit, stamp duty etc and when we remortgage after two years we'll be paying less per month.
It's a bit of a minefield at first especially being self employed but it makes you organised and think about things differently.
no wonder you have to charge such high prices if you live down south.thats absolutely crazy money just to pay the rent/mortgage...... 
thats £19,200 A YEAR compared to my £3,600 A YEAR.....a difference of £15,600!!that difference pays for both my van and car leases for the year,my whole years food shopping,gas and electric bills,water rates,council tax,tv licence etc and a years diesel to heat my webasto boiler! 
The thing is though Daz, out of that £19,200.00 that he pays every year, I’d estimate that roughly £16,000.00 is paying off equity, therefore it is exactly the same as putting that money into the bank. The remaining £3,200.00 will be interest on the mortgage, which is a similar amount to what you pay every month in rent.
Therefore you both pay the same in interest/rent/money that you won’t ever get back. The difference is though that in 20 odd years he’ll own his £500k + house outright, and can live there for free for the rest of his days, or sell it and retire abroad, whereas you’ll be paying rent on your flat for the rest of your life.
I know which I’d rather be doing.