How much rent to pay?

rusty-london

I'm in London and am currently paying about 25% living in a shared flat.
I'm looking at moving into a one bedroom flat with my girlfriend and the rent then will be about 30%. Obviously the big difference will be the cost of the bills when we move out.

jaype

In London zone 4 and paying 1100pcm for a 3 bed house, about 30 per cent of take-home. Beware the council tax!

chriz1000

I’m in Bristol and paying 15.2% of my wage on a 2 bedroom end terraced.
In the process of buying a 3 bed detached at the moment though and the mortgage will take it up to 29.6%

neverdespairgirl

Melissa177 wrote: »

That said, a small one bed flat in London rents for about 900/month, minimum. An average salary is 32K - around 1800 a month.

I think that's an exaggeration. I did a quick rightmove search, and found 38 1 bed flats for rent for £700 or less per month within 1 mile of WC1 - not the cheapest parts of London, either!

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I think that's an exaggeration. I did a quick rightmove search, and found 38 1 bed flats for rent for £700 or less per month within 1 mile of WC1 - not the cheapest parts of London, either!

I'd agree with this too. A posh friend of mine, whose gf is uber-posh, recently signed up for a gorgeous 1 bed bungalow-style on a small private new build estate (probably max 12 properties built) at just £560.month. He's a snob so it won't have been anywhere that wasn't fine.

debrag

I live in London and pay around 30% in a house share. I don't think I'll be able to get my own place for years.

sm9ai

I pay just under 20% of my take home pay.

Which is nice as I don't tend to notice rent nowadays!

I used to pay around 40% which in my opinion was far too much.

Melissa177

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I think that's an exaggeration. I did a quick rightmove search, and found 38 1 bed flats for rent for £700 or less per month within 1 mile of WC1 - not the cheapest parts of London, either!

Wow - are you sure these are one beds? Not studios?

I went on Findaproperty, looked within 1 mile of WC1, and the cheapest one is 240pw - 1080 per month.

http://www.findaproperty.com/searchresults.aspx?loc=WC1&minprice=500&maxprice=1200&weekly=0&bedrooms=1&furn=0&res=0&salerent=1&edid=0&f.x=89&f.y=15

airhostess

Mine is 28.5 % of my take home pay and it is manageable. I am not in London, but I can imagine people renting in London would pay around 40%, so roughly 10% more than everyone else it seems (even though salaries in London are higher than elsewhere.)

ghekkomanic

My girlfriend and I share with another couple in zone 3. My share is £350 including all bills, which works out at just under 20% of my take home pay. My GF's share is less.

We were recently paying more to live in zone 2, but were sharing with three others in a four bedroom houseshare. Highlights included a delightfully barmy landlady who lived next door and treated us like her children whenever she came round, and a skeletal old woman who used to go through our rubbish bags and occasionally relieve herself outside our kitchen window.

We could afford to rent a place just ourselves, but I resent paying more on rent. I think anything up to 40% is probably about right for London. It helps to be living with a partner though ...