Is London living cost affordable?

Wheezy_2

ultrawomble wrote: »

Yep. No regrets. Did my time in the filth and pollution. Never again.

Fair enough. We did the opposite a few years ago. Moved from South Manchester (the Heatons actually) to the Middlesex/Surrey borders (yes I know...not exactly central London ) and don't regret it for a moment.

I just miss the long walks in the Peak District National Park..but you can't have it all eh...

Really2

I nearly moved down south at 24, I worked out even though my wage would be a lot more, I would be infact worse off.

User1000

I just moved down from Liverpool 5 weeks ago to try and gain work and am really struggling so far to be honest. Great city, but the jobs market is still fairly crap and the price of transport makes it impossible to look for work too far away unless earning excellent money (which is rare, wages are disproportionate to the cost of living).

I knew all this before i moved here mind, i wanted to give it a go and to try and finally get some suitable work. The opportunity came up to move in with a mate (my credit history is flawed making renting a place anywhere myself impossible) so i had to take it and try it.

drc

movilogo wrote: »

May be instead of abroad, you might find it is better to move slightly above South East.

There are still decent jobs around and cost of living is far less compared to that of London.

Yes, I know but I'd really like to move to Germany at some point and I'd rather move there because I like Germany (and have family there) rather than move to the South East (where I don't have family) because I'm being pushed out of London if you get my drift. Hubby's not so keen on moving there though, so we might end up in the South East after all.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Horses for courses, innit. Living in the suburbs/provincial towns and having to own a car (I hated driving) is my idea of hell.

Fiddlestick

princeofpounds wrote: »

- Finally, add to that the entitlement to space (especially for children) and we are talking large houses. 4/5 beds is not uncommon. So not only are they entitled to a)nice area, b)decent house, it can also be a big house. And because big houses tend to be in nicer sub-areas and generally better all round, they get an extra uplift from this too on the other factors.

So this is how you end up with the unemployed person living in the 5 bed georgian terrace in Chelsea.

It's what's known as a "perverse incentive".

The real solution is for people to:

a) Stop having children they cannot afford
b) Stop expecting the state to pay to raise their children

Of course, no government is going to have the balls to say "We will not pay for you to raise any more than two children" without some sort of state scheme to limit population control, as otherwise we will have children that are born into poverty.

So what's it to be, you can have large families draining the coffers of the state or you can have fairness to everyone else but a certain number of people living in state-enforced poverty.

I don't pretend to know the solution, but it's a mess.

princeofpounds

I don't pretend to know the solution, but it's a mess

Well of course there is no 'fair' solution when there is unlimited demand and limited resources

draining the coffers of the state

I know it's a standard phrase, but I've never liked this term as the tax doesn't come from nowhere, it comes from the pockets of workers, consumers and productive industry. I've always thought 'the state' depersonalises what at the end of the day is someone putting their hand in your pay packet every month.

Fiddlestick

princeofpounds wrote: »

I've always thought 'the state' depersonalises what at the end of the day is someone putting their hand in your pay packet every month.

Absolutely.

I have nothing against the concept of solidarity and supporting those who are less fortunate, but there has to be limits.

PasturesNew

My friend currently rents a 2-bed flat that has a London LHA rate of £500/week. Utter madness. He doesn't pay that though as it's one of his gf's family's spare flats... jammy bugg4h. However, back in the "real world", his full-time nett salary, aged nearly 30, is probably just about equal to that. Madness.

His rent would be capped at £290/week come the Brave New World., making his yearly LHA £15,000 instead of the current £26,000.

If he lived in "the real world", he'd not be renting there at all. He had been previously looking at some lovely 2-bed new build bungalow type places at about £500/month, until he was offered to move into this family place.

MGCP

It is certainly frustrating. We rent in Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest parts of London, and as a professional couple we are both on above average wages. We are thinking of moving soon to a larger place in our area and the top rent we would feel comfortable paying is £350 a week (on the basis that we may soon have to make do on one salary for a while). That will just about get us a two bedroom flat, with a balcony if we are lucky.

I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for people on housing benefit getting priced out of areas when it is simply a fact of life for those of us who aren't on six figure salaries. A small terraced two up two down with a back yard would cost me over £400,000, and on one of the nicer streets well over half a million. Much as I love it here I have to accept that on one salary we are well and truly too poor to buy a house in our "deprived" area!