23, back from travelling, and can't afford a house in London

Herzlos

I can give you pages of properties near me that are worth more but are worse. The reason they are worth more is the proximity to the city centre, and the commute time to get to work.

I can also show you pages of properties near me that are worth more because they are nicer, but they are 2 difference concepts.

You're stuck in this bizarre mindset where expensive = better, but without any kind of intelligence or critical thinking behind it.

I chose to live further out in a nice quiet are, with a ~30-40 minute drive to the nearest city, for less than I'd pay for a smaller place in a crappy area but only a ~15-20 minute drive to the city centre.

I can afford the higher prices of the latter, but I just don't value them. I'd rather spend a little bit longer travelling to spend my leisure time in a nicer house.

Cakeguts

Herzlos wrote: »

I can give you pages of properties near me that are worth more but are worse. The reason they are worth more is the proximity to the city centre, and the commute time to get to work.

I can also show you pages of properties near me that are worth more because they are nicer, but they are 2 difference concepts.

You're stuck in this bizarre mindset where expensive = better, but without any kind of intelligence or critical thinking behind it.

I chose to live further out in a nice quiet are, with a ~30-40 minute drive to the nearest city, for less than I'd pay for a smaller place in a crappy area but only a ~15-20 minute drive to the city centre.

I can afford the higher prices of the latter, but I just don't value them. I'd rather spend a little bit longer travelling to spend my leisure time in a nicer house.

I agree with this. People live in Dulwich because it is fashionable and expensive and so it must be better because it costs more. I have never been able to acquire that mindset. Surely you buy somewhere to live because is suits your family, you like the house and you like the area not because it is expensive? There are far nicer houses than grotty terraced houses in Dulwich. There are houses that suit modern living with driveways that cost less than the grotty terraces in Dulwich. Houses with large gardens and more internal space but people pay more to live in Dulwich. They don't look at the house they look at the fact that it is in Dulwich. I don't understand how anyone can be that stupid. There are houses all over London that are the same size and style as the ones in Dulwich and are in nice areas and around 1/2 the price. They are literally paying for the name of the area.

Graham_Devon

westernpromise wrote: »

It's simply that nobody who doesn't live in Newcastle wants to buy a house there, and people who do live in Newcastle haven't got a pit to p155 in, so 8% of the London price is all they can scrape together when they do find themselves in need of a family terrace.

Newcastle Upon-Tyne Average Full Time Wage = £26,956
Cornwall Average Full Time Wage = £22,159
Leeds Average Full Time Wage = £27,112

How do you work out that people in Newcastle don't have a urine container?

economic

One very important factor in an area is the quality of the people. I would imagine in Newcastle you have a lot more chavs so that it is seen as not being desirable to live in.

Similarly in London i used to live in Kilburn and it was a complete dump - a lot had to do with the kind of people there - poor and mainly immigrants.

Prefer middle class areas myself.

westernpromise

Cakeguts wrote: »

I agree with this. People live in Dulwich because it is fashionable and expensive and so it must be better because it costs more. I have never been able to acquire that mindset. Surely you buy somewhere to live because is suits your family, you like the house and you like the area not because it is expensive? There are far nicer houses than grotty terraced houses in Dulwich. There are houses that suit modern living with driveways that cost less than the grotty terraces in Dulwich. Houses with large gardens and more internal space but people pay more to live in Dulwich. They don't look at the house they look at the fact that it is in Dulwich. I don't understand how anyone can be that stupid. There are houses all over London that are the same size and style as the ones in Dulwich and are in nice areas and around 1/2 the price. They are literally paying for the name of the area.

People pay more to live in Dulwich because it is a nice area. Newcastle is not, and so property is near enough free. It's not difficult.

If these northern dumps were as great as the poverty-stricken folks who live there imagine, others would notice and the price would rise.

It does not follow, although I completely get the self-deception involved, that anywhere you can't afford must be horrible.

Malthusian

kabayiri wrote: »

London seems unusual in that even grotty areas command big prices. It doesn't make them desirable places to live though.

Westernpromise's central thesis appears to be that London is so fansmabulous that people will quite happily put up with living in a grotty area, horrendous traffic and public transport, paying £15 to drink Gordons and Cinzano, stepping over the corpses of stabbed teenagers, and all the other disadvantages of living in London, just to live in London. The fact that London is a s---hole proves that London is brilliant because if it wasn't brilliant people wouldn't put up with it being a s---hole. QED.

Cakeguts

economic wrote: »

One very important factor in an area is the quality of the people. I would imagine in Newcastle you have a lot more chavs so that it is seen as not being desirable to live in.

Similarly in London i used to live in Kilburn and it was a complete dump - a lot had to do with the kind of people there - poor and mainly immigrants.

Prefer middle class areas myself.

What makes you think that Newcastle is not a desirable place to live? This is what confuses London based politicians used to the Dulwich way of thinking.

Just because someone can afford to buy a £million house in the north they won't if they can find one for less that they like better. This is about opposite to London where you find the most expensive area and buy a dump there.

westernpromise

Malthusian wrote: »

Westernpromise's central thesis appears to be that London is so fansmabulous that people will quite happily put up with living in a grotty area, horrendous traffic and public transport, paying £15 to drink Gordons and Cinzano, stepping over the corpses of stabbed teenagers, and all the other disadvantages of living in London, just to live in London. The fact that London is a s---hole proves that London is brilliant because if it wasn't brilliant people wouldn't put up with it being a s---hole. QED.

This is known as the Argument From Incredulity:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
- you don't understand something, therefore it can't be right.

You do not understand why a terrace in Dulwich is worth 12 times one on Newcastle, therefore its price is wrong. You can't afford a Bugatti Veyron, therefore it must be a bad car. You can't afford a bespoke suit, therefore they must be a ripoff. Evolution seems impossible, so it can't have happened.

If London were so awful, and Newcastle were so great, it would be the Dulwich terrace that was worth the price of a decent kitchen, and it would be the Newcastle one that was worth £1.35 million.

The prices are conclusive, I'm afraid. London is a better place to live than Newcastle - unless you think the better and more desirable a place is, the cheaper it will become to live there.

westernpromise

kabayiri wrote: »

But it can't act like some sort of black hole, sucking in all the workers from around the UK. We need to find some way of creating regional specialisms.

We used to have regional specialisms, like coal mining, shipbuilding and manufacturing second-hand cars, but the unions wrecked them all.

Why would anyone want to work in a backwater that's been faked into existence by some government scheme?

If there were a good reason to live in Liverpool, Burnley or Sheffield, people would do so.

kabayiri

westernpromise wrote: »

...
If there were a good reason to live in Liverpool, Burnley or Sheffield, people would do so.

If you're a poor person, who is relatively unskilled, would you rather live in London or on the edge of the Peak district?

In London you are surrounded by people who will display wealth all the time, but what use is that to you?

If you can afford your overpriced room, it's going to be the size of a matchbox on steroids.

Without rent assistance, you would be stuffed, on anything but a decent wage.

If I'm in a 6 figure job, I reckon I can carve out a good living in London. But on national average wage? Forget it.

One of our major bluechip companies has the best staff retention ratios in one of their Northern offices. So you get loyalty too.

I personally value air quality, which is why you wouldn't catch me in London. It doesn't mean I'd rule out some of the nice commuter zones though. There's some lovely places down there but they cost big time.