Average Rent Now £1000pcm & Rising

Ebany

I pay over £1000 per month at the moment for a 3-bed flat 5 mins walk from the centre of cambridge. We don't earn huge amounts (hubby is a student and I just have an admin job) but to us living in pleasant surroundings and being able to walk to town is important (we don't have a car, which saves a lot of money).

It was annoying when we were flat hunting seeing the sorts of things we could get is we moved 20 mins drive out of town, but then we would have to pay for a car, and we would have to be far more organised (as my husband doesn't drive, so he would have to get a list with me whenever he needed to go in). Sharing isn't an option for us as we tried it and both hated it (we need our own space) so we make the rest of our budget fit.

However, once he is done at uni (jobs allowing), we plan to move somewhere a lot cheaper!

obsessed_saver

barnaby-bear wrote: »

I think it's the going into the town for *work* commuting problem.

LLs generally don't take on the renting out rooms separately issue jsut rent it out on a joint and severable basis and let the tenants worry about voids...

Ahhh. That problem. That's a whole different problem. Congestion in the rush hour is pretty bad. Cambridge is thinking of bringing in congestion charging, but not putting in any real alternatives before hand. It's just another tax. *sigh*

You'd be surprised. LLs do rent out rooms separately. I've seen lots of places that each room is rented out with a separate contract. The housemates even have some control on who they let in to stay. It's like an "interview" when you go view the room. Then, you tell them whether you're interested, and then they'll tell you (at a later time) whether you've been accepted! It's quite a complex system.

Kez100

Alleycat wrote: »

We're now paying £1225 per month in West London for a two bed 1st floor flat (we do have our own garden though!). OH net wage is just over £1600 per month. We would still unlikely qualify for LHA so I work full time and bring in a little bit more than OH wage so we can afford it just. Have to pay out for childcare though which takes a fair bit of cash each month. We just about break even with £100-200 spare each month for emergencies (no money in our budget for holidays).

As others have said a very fragile situation but at least you could move, if you wished, without negative equity in the '000's. Maybe if rents fall you'll be able to take advantage of that fact, or do you love your place?

TJ27

In my part of town there are a few family houses which rent for around £1,000 to £1,500 per month. It's a very good area though and people are willing to pay, mainly because the schools are excellent. Typically they are four bed semi type houses for, say, a family of five.

The houses I look at for work purposes are often low standard HMOs, sometimes in fairly grotty parts of town. They also might house five people, at rents of about £60 per week each. Oh wait, that's about £1,250 per month!!!!

So the rental income for the good house in the good area is the same as for the grotty house in the grotty area. In the first house there are two wage earners. In the second, there are none. Both properties house five people. Both landlord take rent of over a grand a month. We have several thousand of the second type of property in my part of the world, and it's a medium sized city far cheaper than London.

PasturesNew

obsessed_saver wrote: »

Yes, when people get married and settled down, they tend to move out to the villages. But then they've entered a different phase of their lives and probably don't need to go into town for evenings out that much anymore (I think).

I was born/brought up in the area. In the 70/80s the only people who lived IN Cambridge were the very wealthy or those on council estates. Everybody else lived in the villages outside.

When I was 19 a friend of mine had a flat in King Street, above a shop. One of those really old shops on the right after you come off the roundabout from the Midsummer Common end. I'd never known anybody rent a flat before, the odd damp bedsit, yes, but she had a flat that she shared. It was a 1-bed flat. Her and her flatmate shared a bedroom. And when I stayed over there were 3 of us in the room.

People have different expectations now. Cambridge has always been expensive. That is why I never rented when I lived there. When I was about 28 I got a mobile home. Also, because you're living in the villages you needed to run a car to get about and get jobs. So all my earnings were sucked up in running a car and being out of town. My social life until I was about 30+ was driving to town to sit in the car and chat to other people doing the same. I didn't have the spare money to do activities as well. I WAS out when I was in my car. Home was the box room (6'x7') at my parents' house, so staying in wasn't an option. Had to get out.

PasturesNew

obsessed_saver wrote: »

Yeah, I don't know what alternatives there are. Changing jobs? Usually you can negotiate a significant pay increase when you switch jobs.

Not in all cases. Jobs are advertised at rates and the employer wants to pay the least they can.

I've rarely increased a salary when changing a job. You get to interview and they tell you how much they will pay and often I've found they'll just say "well, it's not as much as you get at the moment, but that's what we're paying if you want it"

It might be more so for actual specific skills, but if you don't have this you're stuck.

D_e_n_i_s_e

typical thisismoney / daily mail anxiety driven storylines

the average rent per month in birmingham is £500, in Cumbria its £400, and in leeds £450/month

so for the uk average to be £1000/month, London rental income must be something like over £2000/month (£24,000.00 a year)

and that is complete and utter rubbish

isnt there a body that regulates what the media can publish and where it gets it facts from?

because the dailymail/thisismoney headlines day in day out makes out life isnt worth living ,as we wont be able to affrod anything and its all doom and gloom.

RHemmings

poppy10 wrote: »

Do you know anyone (outside London) who is paying £1000 per month in rent???

These figures are tosh.

£1000 per month here would be an extremely flash house just across the road from the best school in the city.

I agree that these figures are tosh. We keep on hearing about rents going up, but I never see any evidence of it.

RHemmings

D_e_n_i_s_e wrote: »

typical thisismoney / daily mail anxiety driven storylines

the average rent per month in birmingham is £500, in Cumbria its £400, and in leeds £450/month

so for the uk average to be £1000/month, London rental income must be something like over £2000/month (£24,000.00 a year)

and that is complete and utter rubbish

isnt there a body that regulates what the media can publish and where it gets it facts from?

because the dailymail/thisismoney headlines day in day out makes out life isnt worth living ,as we wont be able to affrod anything and its all doom and gloom.

Newspapers are allowed to have opinions, but are supposed to be accountable for anything they publish as "fact". If you feel that the article is inaccurate then you might want to complain to the press complaints commission.

http://www.pcc.org.uk/index2.html

I am not an expert in this, but I've heard that sometimes newspapers cover themselves by not reporting that "the average rent is now £1000 per month" but "according to organisation X the average rent is now £1000" or "organisation X has said that the average rent is now £1000".

Complaining to the PCC is something that everyone seems to think is a good idea, but few people actually do. If you decide to make a complaint, I'd like to hear the response.

pinkshoes

carolan78 wrote: »

I have been watching rental prices on right move and they are rising. Not sure what we will do come December and the tennancy runs out.

A good landlord likes and appreciates a good tenant, and should realise that a good tenant is worth much more than a hefty hike in rent. Speak to your landlord in advance and try and re-negotiate something, pointing out you've caused no problems, and always pay your rent on time.

Not sure what the average rent in Oxford is, but £1000/month sounds quite low. £3000/month will get you a 10 bed house (read "bed" as "box"), which is obviously aimed at students. £900/month will get you a nice 2 bed flat in a reasonably nice area, but 2 bed flats in the city centre will go for around £1700 a month, maybe more.

PasturesNew wrote: »

Most single people take home £1000/month or less.
Like all these speculative rent amounts, there aren't enough people with enough income to pay that.
My rent's £350 (self-contained bedsit/studio as they call them)

No offence PasturesNew, but there's very few people who can live in a bedsit without going insane! I tried it once, and what you save in rent, you lose several times over by going out all the time to save your sanity of those 4 wall which always seem to be closing in... but then again, perhaps you're a social butterfly who is always out and about, thus wisely choosing to save on rent if you're never home!