Studio asking prices down a lot - WC1 UPDATED 23rd NOV

neverdespairgirl

dopester wrote: »

Forgive me my ignorance here.. I've never lived in an apartment as such.

I can't get my head around service charges of £2,000 - although I believe there are much costlier service charges than that in Manchester. I'm happy with a house and paying my own gas/hot water costs - and taking my chances will getting any repairs done cheaply on my own terms - with no need for a porter.

I've looked at most of them on Rightmove and they are all using the same EA? Perhaps they are all owned by a company and let out? (I'm tired so maybe I'm wrong)

I park my car under apartments in town. Even in the basement you can smell them all cooking breakfast in the morning.

I hope you will be able to get a house tbh, although that is tougher in WC1.

I honestly don't mind living in a flat. I don't find noise etc a problem - with these large mansion blocks built as flats, they were generally built very well.

£2k a year is a lot, I agree. Especially for a studio you couldn't swing a kitten in.

It does include hot water, heating, porter etc, as you mention.

The service charge in our block is about £2k a year (we don't pay it, renting, obviously). That doesn't include any sinking fund, but does include £200 per flat for regular maintenance. It doesn't include hot water, or heating, and there is no porter. There is a lift, and that takes up quite a lot of the money, I think.

Anything extra in terms of work on the block is an extra charge for the leaseholders.

hethmar

When I went to work for my first employer, I used to have a day release to the little college at Russell Square to learn short hand. That tube station was so old fashioned, with the cranky old lift which I was always nervous of using.

mcfadwmc

excuse my ignorance at not being in london

but......

you're talking about two hundred thousand pounds, that's 2 followed by 5 zero's.

for an absolutely tiny box.

personally i'd be gutted if i were working in the good professions listed above and only be able to afford to live in a shoe box where the kitchen,living room and bedroom were all in the same space.... and be paying that price for it

i suppose it's different as it's in london though.

but where do all the people live who have normal jobs though, the people who work in coffee shops, pubs, supermarkets? bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc etc

PasturesNew

mcfadwmc wrote: »

but where do all the people live who have normal jobs though, the people who work in coffee shops, pubs, supermarkets? bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc etc

It's not that price everywhere in London.
London's huge and has lots of prices.

Lots of workers in London will travel in by train each day, from 50 miles away even.

Within a 20 mile radius there are loads of cheaper areas/places.

Of the people I know that work in London:
- 1 lives with her parents (Herts)
- 1 lives rent free with his gf in WC2 (property owned by her parents)
- 1 lives cheaply with his brother in an ex-council flat his mother bought years ago(awaiting compulsory purchase/demolition) block (Colindale)

People within a 0-40 mile radius will naturally look towards London for their employment and will then compare the cost of travel -v- what they would be paid in their own town.

3-bed detached, Leyton: http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/state-pension/age-calculator.asp £135k
Whoever lives in this house will have a job.

meanmachine_2

mcfadwmc wrote: »

i suppose it's different as it's in london though.

but where do all the people live who have normal jobs though, the people who work in coffee shops, pubs, supermarkets? bus drivers, taxi drivers, etc etc

Well, there's London and then there's the City of London.

WC1 is the City of London. I'd personally never live there. FAR too central, noisy, dirty etc. Like living over the shop.

neverdespairgirl

mcfadwmc wrote: »

personally i'd be gutted if i were working in the good professions listed above and only be able to afford to live in a shoe box where the kitchen,living room and bedroom were all in the same space.... and be paying that price for it

i suppose it's different as it's in london though.

this is only WC1 - bang in the middle. it's boundaries (roughly) are Covent Garden in teh east, High Holborn in the south, Clerkenwell in the west, and King's Cross / Euston in the north.

neverdespairgirl

meanmachine wrote: »

Well, there's London and then there's the City of London.

WC1 is the City of London. I'd personally never live there. FAR too central, noisy, dirty etc. Like living over the shop.

WC1 isn't the City. It's between the cities of London and Westminster, but isn't part of the square mile.

It's very central, I'll grant you, but my part of it isn't at all noisy or dirty. There are lots of green spaces (eg Coram's Fields, Russel Square) and it's pretty quiet off the main roads. And very quiet at weekends - a lot of the pubs are shut on Saturday nights!

And I don't think it's dirty. We have obsessive rubbish collection and cleaning of the street.

PasturesNew

I've never understood why companies rush to be in London. They have to pay huge sums for the building, huge sums for salaries - and all their staff have a heck of a job to get to/from work each day (trains/tubes, which strike).

I worked for a company a few years back that had a training suite IN London, but their invoicing, sales/marketing, IT were all done way down South West. With Marketing Assistants on minimum wage.

From their cheaper base they had a whole marketing department writing/designing and printing six training brochures four times per year. All in house.

It was annoying to be sent to London though for a meeting. It would mean I had to get up at 4am, arrive on the first train into London at 10am, then have to leave the office promptly at 4pm to catch the last train out of London and finally arrive home just short of 11pm.

Also, if they had the London receptionist off for a day, or even a week, they'd find some minimum wage person from the cheap office to travel to/from London daily to cover for them! No pay for all that travel time. I felt that was taking the mick.

The company had originally operated by hiring training suites in posh hotels, before they bought their building. In that they'd get free hotel rooms, which could be used by the boss if he stayed there. Occasionally the lower minions of staff were sent there and would stay at those hotels simply because the hotel room was free and available (so many nights/month in their contract to hire the suites). I was in London at a meeting and I was furious (bit my lip) when some toffee-nosed trainer said to me "I think it's nice when these young girls come here, they've never stayed in a hotel with a flunky before, so it's nice that they get to experience that". It was the way he said it, very patronising. I was further annoyed because I've never stayed in even a 3* hotel and didn't even know really what these flunkies do - and whenever I stayed it was after the hotel deal had finished and I was miles away in a travelodge

I think the money that is available to some in London really makes them snobbish about money and what it can buy like that.

They should remember the phrase: "There but for the grace of God go I"

zcacmxi

I have not been following the market for Studios & Flats in Bloomsbury. However, I'd expect demand & therefore prices for this type of property to continue to be in the doldrums for some time yet. Some side effects of current economic climate in London:

1) Bonuses in City Banks replaced with "you're lucky you've still got a job".
2) Less deals in City, less requirment for expensive law firms to do legals.
3) Less demand from banks on all supporting roles - Building Management/Telephony/etc etc.

So, with Banks and all the business depending on them suffering, Bankers/Lawyers/I.T./Analysts/ and everybody else will no longer be buying these for:

1) Buy to let.
2) Child at a London University.
3) Walk to work.
4) Wife shopping trip.
5) Mistress.

WC1 is not the City of London. But the current down down in the City will easily hit WC1 which is a few tube stops away, and all the way out to the Surrey commuter belt!

Just my opinion...

PasturesNew

zcacmxi wrote: »

5) Mistress.

You'd be a bit miffed if your lover only bought you a studio.
You'd start to wonder just how many women he was keeping, if he had a 'sex in a broom cupboard' fetish, or was just a tight wad or loser.



I thought the sort of man that went about buying property for a mistress had a little more about them!