It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

bupster

I used to live in Cambridge, and two-bedroomed flats were starting at £1200 a month when I left. I now have a good-sized two-bedroomed house with a small gravelled garden in Lincoln for £750 - that wouldn't have got me more than a grotty studio in the !!!!!! end of nowhere in Cambridge. Wherever the hell you are that has two-bedroomed houses for £850 with huge gardens and just 45 minutes from London, it must be the last untouched miracle town in that catchment area. Tell everyone! 

London_1

I live in the Medway and rents locally are around £1200 plus per month My DD is an estate agent and lettings manager and she has a waiting list for people who wish to rent .She cannot get enough houses to fulfil the demand. Th average house price for a three bed with garden and parkingis around £265k to buy and a two bed is around £250K. The trainfare from my local station to London to commute is around £6k a year.There used to be a commuter coach service to the City but that folded owing to the virus. We are around 35/40 miles from London
JackieO

Spendless

London_1 said:

tooldle said:

  The routine of being at my desk for 7am ish will be hard to break. Although i love my job I often find myself asking why i'm bothering. I've seen restructure after restructure, and the old rejected ideas now coming back full circle as new ideas. I'm feeling tired and jaded and ready to go.

Re the reductions , perhaps the big supermarkets are finding that folk just aren't buying the trolleyfuls they used to. I know last week when talking to the till assistant she said she had noticed that folk were being far more frugal in their shopping, and not impuse buying quite as much as they used to.
I know I stick fairly close to buying on need and not want, but then I've always been a fairly frugal shopper if possible. I'm similar to YorksLass , perhaps its a generational thing. 

JackieO xx

That's the conclusion I've come to. They're taking less through the tills so aren't prepared to give/throw away the unsold stock anymore, larger reductions means more people will buy them and then they're getting some money for them.

Look North if it comes to house renting. £850 will get you a 3 bed semi or detached here in a decent location. 100 minutes from Londons KX on a mian route. Very few places within walking distance of the train station though so that commute needs adding in too. We do have a local station that takes us there within 6 mins but you have to get your timings right. DD commutes to her job to a tourist area to work in an industry she enjoys and is paid at a rate more inline with the area where she works, rather than the local min wage jobs she had last year. That's the issue with 'cheaper' areas they often go hand in hand with less opportunities or poorer wages. 

Florenceem

Cheesephetamine said:

Brambling said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Average monthly rent is over £1k, how do people on the national minimum wage manage?!

In many cases they don't! Average rent prices here for three bedroom house is £1550 making it impossible to save to buy and social housing as scarce as hen's teeth.  TBH I've heard trying to buy here is almost impossible too with EA only arranging open houses and some asking for sealed bids within two hours of viewing and then giving you one chance to increase your bid even if you are the highest bidder

I've worked from home since March 2020 additional household bills aren't covered by what I'm saving on petrol it's just as well I have a supply of thick woolies!  Unfortunately as a single person household some bills are always going to be the same as multiple households.

I live in a decent sized two bedroom semidetached house In the south/east, 45 mins away from the city by train, with a HUGE garden and pay £850 for rent. Where are those prices at??? London??? 

In my town in Thanet - there is a 2 bedroom terrace house to rent at £1,100 month.

euronorris

Rent prices have gotten silly. Similar 2 bedroom properties to the one we rent, are currently advertised at £1k pm here! £300 pm more than we are paying (we've been in here 7 years now and landlord has never increased the price yet).

That's for a 2 bedroom house. We are actually in a 2 bedroom coach house, with a garden. There is another coach house being advertised on our estate, without the garden, and only one garage (we have 2), for £200pm more than we are paying! 

Brambling

euronorris said:

Rent prices have gotten silly. Similar 2 bedroom properties to the one we rent, are currently advertised at £1k pm here! £300 pm more than we are paying (we've been in here 7 years now and landlord has never increased the price yet).

That's for a 2 bedroom house. We are actually in a 2 bedroom coach house, with a garden. There is another coach house being advertised on our estate, without the garden, and only one garage (we have 2), for £200pm more than we are paying! 

Which goes back to my original statement, how do people save for a deposit when they are paying that much rent? I brought my first flat in 1990 and remembered that the prices seemed really high then it was £62,500 but 2 bedroom houses for the same price were so small     we had 5% deposit which brought the mortgage rate down to 1% below bank rate, i also remembered the panic when the mortgage rates went up 3 times in one day and negative equity.

My nephew and his partner choses to live in a village 11 miles outside of town as the rent is 200/300 less than here, one of reasons is it is at least 10 miles from any train stations and limited buses

C_J

My younger daughter (and her husband, and new baby) have just moved into their first (purchased) house in Oxford, after having rented a tiny three bedroomed Edwardian terraced house with handkerchief-sized garden and no off street parking for £1,800 pcm. I know location plays a huge part in determining the prices and some areas are more desirable than others, but they were looking for a three bed semi with potential to extend and some garden, and there was nothing under half a million. It’s crazy.

TheAble

Unfortunately, for landlords there haven't been many good news stories over the past few years. Taxes have increased considerably, more eco regulations and difficulties getting their houses back from non-paying tenants. Many have thrown in the towel and sold up and you can't really blame them. Fewer rental houses available and increased rents is the consequence. 

euronorris

Brambling said:

euronorris said:

Rent prices have gotten silly. Similar 2 bedroom properties to the one we rent, are currently advertised at £1k pm here! £300 pm more than we are paying (we've been in here 7 years now and landlord has never increased the price yet).

That's for a 2 bedroom house. We are actually in a 2 bedroom coach house, with a garden. There is another coach house being advertised on our estate, without the garden, and only one garage (we have 2), for £200pm more than we are paying! 

Which goes back to my original statement, how do people save for a deposit when they are paying that much rent? I brought my first flat in 1990 and remembered that the prices seemed really high then it was £62,500 but 2 bedroom houses for the same price were so small     we had 5% deposit which brought the mortgage rate down to 1% below bank rate, i also remembered the panic when the mortgage rates went up 3 times in one day and negative equity.

My nephew and his partner choses to live in a village 11 miles outside of town as the rent is 200/300 less than here, one of reasons is it is at least 10 miles from any train stations and limited buses

In short, we don't. I mean, we try, but savings often get eroded by the unexpected such as car breaking down, expensive repairs. And then car becoming such a money sink that its time to replace it with a newer one. Etc.

And whilst I've worked hard to progress my career and improve our income, that is now being eaten up by such high increases in so much. C'est la vie. We are healthy and happy, we have a roof over our head and food in our bellies.

I did notice that the price of petrol is creeping up again. Local morries has gone up by 3p per litre in the last week after being at the same price for a few weeks.

ladyholly

To change the discussion a little I really do think that government should do more to support public transport. It would nelp with the pollution problems, climate change etc. In my area some years ago the bus company had an experiment whereby fares to our nearest big city about 25 miles away were slashed to be very cheap (I cant remeber the exact amount) and guess what the buses were full.

We live in a west country seaside towm  with fairly low pay rates ( most jobs are retail, care or catering) and having just looked 2 bedroom flats and houses seem to range between £800 to over £1000 pcm. How people are expected to afford that on minimum wage I have no idea.