London's world status and house price boom is now hurting the middle class | Net Of The Woods

2013-08-06 14:00:00

mulima88
Joined: 2013-07-27 21:49:29
Posts: 22

That's why I moved out of London.

On a moderate salary of £50k, I'd be able to pay for a 3-bed in a non-slum area ..... never.

You could live somewhere like Leicester or the Stevenage area and commute to the city fairly well. I have a friend who bought a 2 bed with garden and garage for less than £180k and commutes to Moorgate to work. Depends what you want.

I worked in central london and life is too short to throw away 2.5 hours of it each day commuting to work from a place like Stevenage.

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2013-08-06 17:21:00

bammBAMM
Joined: 2013-08-02 16:41:46
Posts: 49

That's why I moved out of London.

On a moderate salary of £50k, I'd be able to pay for a 3-bed in a non-slum area ..... never.

Yeah but new York... no one owns their own property. Londons demand is reaching those levels.

On the continent renting is more regular than buying I believe, and the laws are shaped to help renters more than they are in England. Given the way things are going here, it's perhaps about time for someone to look at stirring things that way here, and maybe regulating the leasing agents a bit more, as they are invariably thorough and utter robbing bastards.

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2013-08-06 18:04:00

bramble
Joined: 2013-07-28 21:02:50
Posts: 29

I... imagine it's time for me to get used to the fact that I'll never have a property.

Oh well - I kind of like renting. chiefly the part where I call the landlord whenever something breaks and he fixes it from his own pocket. I really love that bit.

When the bubble bursts land will be cheap. Remains to be seen how far it inflates before it bursts though: if it's too far it will bring the banks down, again, and the govt almost certainly will not this time be able to bail them out, so we'll be a kind of worse Greece. So you might not like to live in London then.

I genuinely don't imagine it will burst. With inflation and interest rates apt to be low in the long term, purchases only if truth be told need to think of the expense of servicing the mortgage rather than the headline cost of the house. The expense of servicing mortgages is quite low and expected to remain so for a long time.

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2013-08-06 18:33:00

caravannide
Joined: 2013-07-28 19:15:07
Posts: 31

I... imagine it's time for me to get used to the fact that I'll never have a property.

Oh well - I kind of like renting. chiefly the part where I call the landlord whenever something breaks and he fixes it from his own pocket. I really love that bit.

When the bubble bursts land will be cheap. Remains to be seen how far it inflates before it bursts though: if it's too far it will bring the banks down, again, and the govt almost certainly will not this time be able to bail them out, so we'll be a kind of worse Greece. So you might not like to live in London then.

The bubble will never burst, the government will make certain of that

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2013-08-06 20:16:00

robinTee
Joined: 2013-07-28 00:51:00
Posts: 25

I... imagine it's time for me to get used to the fact that I'll never have a property.

Oh well - I kind of like renting. chiefly the part where I call the landlord whenever something breaks and he fixes it from his own pocket. I really love that bit.

When the bubble bursts land will be cheap. Remains to be seen how far it inflates before it bursts though: if it's too far it will bring the banks down, again, and the govt almost certainly will not this time be able to bail them out, so we'll be a kind of worse Greece. So you might not like to live in London then.

You're forgetting overseas buyers though unfortunately...they'll keep London propped up except we go into some sort of worldwide depression, which is looking increasingly unlikely.

Exactly. There is no bubble in London for the reason that it is propped up by more or less unlimited foreign hard cash and boost in population. (an extra 1 million people by 2020 and they are not building even a tiny portion of the new dwellings required).

That's a terrifying statistic! A net increase of 1 million??? If you're no on the ladder now you're screwed.

Yes I think it was an boost of 1m from 2010-2020. And to back this up the populace did increase by 1m from 2000-2010.

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2013-08-06 22:08:00

caravannide
Joined: 2013-07-28 19:15:07
Posts: 31

I enjoy how it compares Brixton and Belgravia.

Have you seen the houses in brixton?

Yeah I didn't really understand that comparison, millionaires living in Belgravia next door to billionaires building enormous underground basements is a absolutely different predicament to gentrification.

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2013-08-07 01:59:00

sBBank
Joined: 2013-08-02 10:50:46
Posts: 16

Now? These trends have been going on for decades.

Kinda. Prices trebled under Labour but the guardian didn't grumble so greatly back then as boom and bust was no more.

I was too young to actually notice at the time, but goddamn. They tripled? Ugh.

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2013-08-07 04:19:00

caravannide
Joined: 2013-07-28 19:15:07
Posts: 31

That's why I moved out of London.

On a moderate salary of £50k, I'd be able to pay for a 3-bed in a non-slum area ..... never.

You could live somewhere like Leicester or the Stevenage area and commute to the city fairly well. I have a friend who bought a 2 bed with garden and garage for less than £180k and commutes to Moorgate to work. Depends what you want.

The commute would be torture though, Leicester to St. Pancras is about 1 hour 15 minutes and then put in 15-20 minutes to get to Moorgate.

Then factor in the train costs, from what I can tell a monthly period pass is £794.90 (£183~ a week) PLUS a zone 1 travelcard (or PAYG)

Obviously it's a personal evaluation and if it makes him happy then so be it, but from my perspective I think the whole tribulation would be too pricey in time and money to even be worth it.

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2013-08-07 04:42:00

thatTheyLook456
Joined: 2013-07-30 01:31:22
Posts: 23

That's why I moved out of London.

On a moderate salary of £50k, I'd be able to pay for a 3-bed in a non-slum area ..... never.

You could live somewhere like Leicester or the Stevenage area and commute to the city fairly well. I have a friend who bought a 2 bed with garden and garage for less than £180k and commutes to Moorgate to work. Depends what you want.

The commute would be torture though, Leicester to St. Pancras is about 1 hour 15 minutes and then put in 15-20 minutes to get to Moorgate.

Then factor in the train costs, from what I can tell a monthly period pass is £794.90 (£183~ a week) PLUS a zone 1 travelcard (or PAYG)

Obviously it's a personal evaluation and if it makes him happy then so be it, but from my perspective I think the whole tribulation would be too pricey in time and money to even be worth it.

Depends. He takes a nonstop train to Moorgate and has a 5 min walk to work from there. Rail card is £300/mth (I think), with a loan from the company for an annual ticket. His commute is a lot more pleasurable than mine and loads of others who take the tube from one side of London to the other, with changes, and then get home to a shitty house-share somewhere.

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2013-08-07 07:47:00

caravannide
Joined: 2013-07-28 19:15:07
Posts: 31

I read a good opinion piece in the ES the other night, can't think of the writers name, although he anticipated the proposal of a a small levy on hotel stays (a tax that can be used on keeping streets clean, maintaining public cultural sites and attractions and optimistically free up cash for stuff like house building and other stuff

Sounds like it's too good to be real I know, but at least it's something.

The snag is the treasury doesn't view London to be any distinct to the rest of the UK so wouldn't let that money stay in the capital. Perhaps it's time that London becomes like New York?

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