‘Can I get on the London property ladder with a two-bedroom apartment on a £50,000 salary?’

Danae Quek, 29, from London, has £35,000 in cash but that hard-earned money will lose value this year if she doesn’t invest it soon.

The trouble is, she is nervous about exposing her savings to the vagaries of the stock market.

“It feels wrong leaving it lying in cash. I invested £ 5,000 in an Isa recently, but it has lost value because markets fell. Now I’m scared, and I’m very risk averse,” she says.

Quek hopes to buy her first home in the next five years, but fears she will soon be priced out of London. With no help from her parents, she plans to go it alone on a property worth £400,000 to £450,000.

“I would love an apartment – not a huge picket-fenced house, just a twobedroom flat – without taking on lots of debt that will cripple me for decades,” she says.

“I know it will have to be on the outskirts of London, in zone four or five [ based on Transport for London zones one to nine], to be affordable.”

She earns £50,000 a year and can save £800 a month comfortably – or £1,000 by living frugally. Her rent is £770 a month.

She wants to know what to do with her cash savings while she continues to build her nest egg, and whether her ambition of buying a home solo is realistic.