Longer Commute - Lower House Prices

wobblegobble

This might qualify for one of the duh! questions of the year but just scared I might be missing something :rolleyes:

Constantly hearing about people moving out of London etc and commuting in from areas where house prices are cheaper. I can understand the social/quality of life aspects of this but is there any actual financial benefit to this?

I am assuming therefore that for example £300 per month more on a mortgage on a property in a more expensive area is better than spending that £300 on transport costs? In the end all being equal you end up with a more valuable asset (interest on the mortage notwithstanding, you are still paying off some capital out of the £300?)

If this is correct then apart from the non financial factors there is no financial benefit to buying somewhere cheaper and spending the difference on commuting costs?

PasturesNew

It all depends on the individual's location, their work location and their overall living and transport needs.

No one size fits all.

I've no idea about London (I couldn't even find the Queen's house if I had to), but when I was in my 20s I was living in the countryside 3 miles out of a town. It was so expensive to live in the town that people I knew couldn't afford a house, but if they became a couple they could afford a small 2-bed house about 25 miles away in the 4rse end of nowhere. It used to work back then for that area, that distance, those incomes.

456789

For some people they save a LOT - I have heard of people going to London from Leeds/Manchester

joolsybools

I used to commute to London from Chelmsford. 3 hours a day of misery on the commute but I moved to London a year ago. I spend exactly the same on rent and travel as I did before, just in different proportions. In fact, I've recently started to cycle to work (not every day) but I literally go past Queenies house. Very nice it is too!

I know which type of commute I'd rather do! :0)

chewmylegoff

really depends on what your commute is like and how you cope with it.

i spent 18 months doing 1.5 hours in each direction (which regularly went up to 2 hours in the evening due to the unreliability of the train services after 7). i'm never doing that again. now on 45 minutes and that's bad enough, have shifted my hours to 10-6.30 to avoid rush hour.

if sitting (or more likely standing) on a train for hours at a time doesn't bother you, then why not...

tomstickland

High house prices mean more borrowing, higher transport costs do not.

wobblegobble

Thanks for all replies. Not factoring the length of commute etc into this, just want to look at it from a pure financial perspective. Higher house prices, higher borrowing accepted Tom but if you can afford the higher borrowing then surely there is no problem? Better paying off a higher value asset than wasting it on transport costs?

tomstickland

Higher borrowing might make a lot of difference. I live about 20 minutes from work and bought a flat for £85K. Most places in the local town were £150K and above.

clairehi

We live 40 miles out of London and it takes DH an hour to get to London Bridge door to door - 2 min bike ride to station, fast train to kings x and bike across town. Many of his colleagues who do live in London have a similar or longer commute. Season ticket just renewed is £3160. we live in a large 4 bed detached house in a nice area with outstanding schools, there is no way that an extra £250 pcm in mortgage payments would get us something comparable in London.

olly300

wobblegobble wrote: »

If this is correct then apart from the non financial factors there is no financial benefit to buying somewhere cheaper and spending the difference on commuting costs?

One factor you haven't considered is that lots of people change jobs. Even those who work in the public sector can end up having to move primary location.

So people end up buying a house somewhere in Essex or Kent with a job less then 30 minutes away by train in London, and due to redundancy or advancement they end up taking a job further into or the other side of London meaning they now have a long commute.

If you are renting and have no children you can up sticks within a few months but if you have brought a property it's more difficult to move. And if you know you are likely to change job again after 2 years you won't want to.

Also some people I know live outside London because of schools. Kent still has Grammar schools which are easier to get into then the one or two good schools (if you are lucky) in your borough or the neighbouring London borough.

ruggedtoast

Interesting thread. I have long suspected the government like useless extortionately priced trains and a congested road network, precisely because it keeps house prices high in London.

The more non viable commuting is the more money working people are likely to resort to sinking into a bedsit in Forest Gate, that Brown then gets to pretend is regenerating.

It will actually be very interesting to see what happens to our transport network over the coming decade; as it switches from being a method of purgatory to punish people who wont triple mortage to live in zone 3, to a service our industry actually needs to transport employees to their jobs.