London house prices still crazy!

chewmylegoff

ruggedtoast wrote: »

rant..
(Edit: After 5 years I have managed to escape to Zone 6. Almost a zone a year. I have almost escaped and when I do I will never be back. I cannot envisage any circumstances where I could be convinced to buy a house here).

if you hate london so much, why not move somewhere else? it's not as if it's particularly hard to "escape" - and you appear to have the motivation. if i hated london as much as you do, i certainly wouldn't be hanging around!

ruggedtoast

I've lived in a number of areas of London, including Greenwich town centre where I could look out onto the high street and see the drunks knocking seven bells out of eachother at closing time (including gang fights, one that that also involved two men stamping on a womans head once that the police still couldnt be bothered to come out for).

Aside from that Greenwich and Blackheath are small oases in the general slime that surrounds them of Deptford, Charlton, and Lewisham, which is where you have to go if you want to find any shops.

Ive lived further out in SE London, The East End, up in Islington. The area I live in now in NW near Harrow is affluent and pleasent but its still in London and therefore there are stabbings in Harrow etc etc.

I know London quite well, its a dive. Londoners think it isnt because theyre inured to how abysmally bad it is and tend to think a murder that happens more than one tube stop away can be considered "far away".

@chewmylegoff - it is particularly hard to escape London if you want to have a job. This is why people cram themselves onto commuter trains for hours from much nicer places every day. I will soon be resorting to doing this, at least then I wont have to deal with this unsightly grey scab of a city at weekends.

Running_Horse

I came to the same conclusion and left after two years. Find a job and affordable house in any of the home coutnies, somewhere near a railway station that you will use less and less as time goes by.

Austin_Allegro

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I've lived in a number of areas of London, including Greenwich town centre where I could look out onto the high street and see the drunks knocking seven bells out of eachother at closing time (including gang fights, one that that also involved two men stamping on a womans head once that the police still couldnt be bothered to come out for).

Aside from that Greenwich and Blackheath are small oases in the general slime that surrounds them of Deptford, Charlton, and Lewisham, which is where you have to go if you want to find any shops.

Ive lived further out in SE London, The East End, up in Islington. The area I live in now in NW near Harrow is affluent and pleasent but its still in London and therefore there are stabbings in Harrow etc etc.

I know London quite well, its a dive. Londoners think it isnt because theyre inured to how abysmally bad it is and tend to think a murder that happens more than one tube stop away can be considered "far away".

@chewmylegoff - it is particularly hard to escape London if you want to have a job. This is why people cram themselves onto commuter trains for hours from much nicer places every day. I will soon be resorting to doing this, at least then I wont have to deal with this unsightly grey scab of a city at weekends.

I suppose it depends what you want from where you live. I'm here mainly because it's one of the few places in the UK where jobs are in my line of work (publishing) and because I have family/friends here.

But also there are so many cultural and other activities here that would be hard to match elsewhere, eg galleries, plays, museums etc, not to mention things like artistic, political and intellectual groups that just don't exist in the provinces. I do value things like being able to go to panel discussions with political and cultural leaders, ask them questions and meet them for drinks afterwards. I appreciate though this isn't for everyone.

If London was all like that film 'Children of Men' (and I agree, some places ARE like that) it wouldn't be worth staying. But in general I think it is still ok.

daveb975

ruggedtoast wrote: »

@chewmylegoff - it is particularly hard to escape London if you want to have a job. This is why people cram themselves onto commuter trains for hours from much nicer places every day. I will soon be resorting to doing this, at least then I wont have to deal with this unsightly grey scab of a city at weekends.

It is quite easy to escape if you want to. If you live in Harrow now it must take you 20 minutes to commute into central London. You would only need to add 10 minutes to that to live in St Albans or somewhere like that. Don't expect it to be totally different, though, as you will still get the drunken chav fights in the town centre on the weekend as you will in every quite large town centre in the UK.

The only way to truly escape this is to live in a village or rural area within driving distance of somewhere with a commutable station, but then you are likely to be in to a massive commute.

I have never lived in the inner zones of London, but in the suburbs if you choose an area carefully I don't think you are any more likely to experience crime and anti social behaviour than in other urban areas. I have lived in zone 6 for years, and I know plenty of people who live in places like St Albans, Guildford and Tunbridge Wells who have experienced many more of these type of problems than I have.

I would have thought that the situation is worse if you go to Gravesend, Basingstoke or Slough.

chewmylegoff

Could just get a job in a different part of the country - they do exist, so i am told...

ruggedtoast

daveb975 wrote: »

I would have thought that the situation is worse if you go to Gravesend, Basingstoke or Slough.

I said I wanted to leave London, not enter the 7th circle of hell.

St Albans is nice, I have lived in that area before actually. The downside is its as expensive as London with a much more expensive season ticket.

Its swings and roundabouts, the further out you get the nicer it becomes (providing you dont end up somewhere like Croydon), but it takes longer and costs more to get to work.

Running_Horse

Gravesend is not so bad. It's full of Sikhs who had everything stolen from them before being expelled by Idi Amin. They came here with nothing and built a life, and are a big improvement on many of the locals. They are a real credit, and an example of how you can keep your culture and integrate at the same time.