London madness

Conrad

MGCP wrote: »

One thing I think people don't always consider is that your personal wealth compared to the people around you can have quite a significant impact on your experience/enjoyment

People tend to look to others to determine whether or not they are successful. Many suffer from feeling comparatively less wealthy than their neighbour. I do. I feel I've worked hard and taken a lot of risks and am still a long way from being financially independent so when you find out someone 'made' £700k on their London Bridge flat that Daddy helped them buy it does sort of irk.


I would think this is a deeply evolved characteristic bound up with hierarchy and status. Many species of Mammal from Lions to Deer (think Stag ruts) have to fight to maintain their prey giving territory and thus whether or not they get to mate with all the females in the group.


Territory sort of aligns with wealth status. The ability to obtain and catch prey = the ability to obtain wealth.


I think many folk dislike hearing of a person enjoying a 50% gain on their 5 London properties because it's not as if they really worked for the gain. We prefer to think it was just circumstantial luck and thus unwarranted.
Inheritance often irritates people although they will feign how pleased they are for their lucky friend through gritted teeth. Again the sense they do not deserve such easy riches.


My SIL is the most chicken liken non risk taking undynamic cowardly middle of the road person you could meet. Has a basic fairly low paid job. None of the money risk stress some of us have had to endure to try and better our position. She recently out of the blue got a massive inheritance from a mad aunt that had no children.


This money is already changing her and she has taken on an air of superiority and status despite not having lifted a finger to make this good fortune. Now that really is a p1sserr, but that says more about my own insecurity than anything else.

MGCP

Conrad wrote: »

I think many folk dislike hearing of a person enjoying a 50% gain on their 5 London properties because it's not as if they really worked for the gain. We prefer to think it was just circumstantial luck and thus unwarranted.
Inheritance often irritates people although they will feign how pleased they are for their lucky friend through gritted teeth. Again the sense they do not deserve such easy riches.

There is a lot of truth in what you say, and it is definitely easy to fall into the trap of thinking like this, that feeling of why do they deserve that to happen to them and not me.

Of course people only tend to think like this when it is something enviable that has happened! Much easier to feel annoyed about the person who gets the massive windfall ("Why do they deserve it, that should've been me") rather than feel thankful that it's not you who just got the news about the brain tumour ("Why do they deserve it, that could've been me").

When we think about the world in terms of what people deserve none of it makes any sense at all. I don't know where I would be in life if I didn't have kind and loving parents who knew the value of a good education, put a roof over my head, food on the table, gave me space to do my homework, etc etc. That was my "undeserved windfall" in life and I'm sure it has had as much if not more of a beneficial effect on my life than some cash dropping into my lap from an inheritance or HPI. I really can't complain about others being lucky when I know I've been incredibly fortunate myself.

Well...actually I can and I do have a whinge sometimes but I'm only human ;-)

BarleyGB

MGCP wrote: »

There is a lot of truth in what you say, and it is definitely easy to fall into the trap of thinking like this, that feeling of why do they deserve that to happen to them and not me.

Of course people only tend to think like this when it is something enviable that has happened! Much easier to feel annoyed about the person who gets the massive windfall ("Why do they deserve it, that should've been me") rather than feel thankful that it's not you who just got the news about the brain tumour ("Why do they deserve it, that could've been me").

When we think about the world in terms of what people deserve none of it makes any sense at all. I don't know where I would be in life if I didn't have kind and loving parents who knew the value of a good education, put a roof over my head, food on the table, gave me space to do my homework, etc etc. That was my "undeserved windfall" in life and I'm sure it has had as much if not more of a beneficial effect on my life than some cash dropping into my lap from an inheritance or HPI. I really can't complain about others being lucky when I know I've been incredibly fortunate myself.

Well...actually I can and I do have a whinge sometimes but I'm only human ;-)

Spot on with that, it's all to easy to forget the intangible good fortune many of us have, the kind of wealth you can't put in the bank

Graham_Devon

MGCP wrote: »

For that reason I've never really had too much sympathy for people who get snobbish or insulting about parts of London. If you are open minded, tolerant and you love the particular type of lifestyle that city living brings then you can have a great time all over London. Of course having more money is generally a pretty good thing, but in terms of day to day happiness I don't think living in Leytonstone makes me any less happy than when I lived in Primrose Hill etc.

Just wanted to say, some really good posts.

Thought provoking enough for me to actually have a look at Primrose Hill and the cost of houses there.

I am a little dismayed. For a shade under a million you get this....

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45929366.html

Which kind of puts a perspective on the OPs point, in my opinion.

Is it insanity? I don't know. But it certainly looks like that from well outside the London area.

padington

MGCP wrote: »

One thing I think people don't always consider is that your personal wealth compared to the people around you can have quite a significant impact on your experience/enjoyment of where you live in London.

Living in a really smart area where you are conscious that everyone around you seems to be much wealthier can have quite a corrosive effect on your self esteem. It can be hard not to compare when you see streets lined with Bentleys and Aston Martins and everyone is spending money eating in crucifyingly expensive local restaurants. It can end up giving you the twisted sense that that is the norm, and that somehow you are failing. I could get some sense of that living in places like St John's Wood, but I probably escaped the worst of it as I was just starting out in my career and so at that point having any money at all made a change from being a student!

Conversely, if you live in an area where the people around you earn less on average it feels very different. Instead of being surrounded by people in designer clothes dropping a hundred quid a head in the local bistrot you find yourself in Tescos feeling lucky that unlike the person next to you you're not having to count your change when you put things in your basket.

For your own mental health the second experience is probably better for you to be honest. Unless you have the income to match I'd be wary of chasing that Holland Park address just so you can say that you bought in one of the "nice parts" of London as the reality of living there may not be as great as it looks and could leave you feeling isolated and dissatisfied with life.

Great post.

PaulW1965

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Is it insanity? I don't know. But it certainly looks like that from well outside the London area.

Do you mean Zurich, New York, Hong Kong when you say well outsideLondon???

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

PaulW1965 wrote: »

Do you mean Zurich, New York, Hong Kong when you say well outside London???

You could add Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, etc.

It's not remotely surprising that prices are expensive in the global business hubs.

Jason74

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Just wanted to say, some really good posts.

Thought provoking enough for me to actually have a look at Primrose Hill and the cost of houses there.

I am a little dismayed. For a shade under a million you get this....

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-45929366.html

Which kind of puts a perspective on the OPs point, in my opinion.

Is it insanity? I don't know. But it certainly looks like that from well outside the London area.

To be fair, I kind of get why that is the price it is. It's actually a pretty big property, with a garden, in one of the nicest parts of central London. Yes it's a tad ugly, but I can almost see the appeal of that, even at that kind of money. Far harder to fathom imho is stuff like :

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-46552235.html

£850k . For a 2 bed flat in Balham. Now that is proof that the market in London has gone mad. Even with all of the obvious upward pressures on London prices, I don't how anyone can think that buying that property at that price makes sense.

chewmylegoff

I was looking round there at the back end of 2008. That flat would have fetched about £350k then. I don't believe they'll get £850k for it mind...

DervProf

TrixA wrote: »

I don't want to moan and I know that people in our situation often move outside London to escape the madness, but when you're a professional couple on a joint income of £100k+ unable to afford homes that are currently owned by single mums and taxi drivers, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that something is really broken in the economy.

:beer: for some though !