Poor people being priced out

[veggifriedbreakfast]

I live in East London and need to move, I currently rent a 2 bedroom flat. But, looking around now, for a 2 bedroom the minimal is £1400 a month up to £2000 for a 2 bed!!!

It seems to me that what is happening is that actually poor people are being priced out of London. I lived in Stratford and had to move out of there due to the market going up and now where I am again it's happening. How can people on lesser incomes afford this? I am now looking to having to uproot ds again and move even further out because of this. Aibu in thinking that this is a part of forcing the poorer people out of London?

[Birdsgottafly]

That's been said from the start, of Austerity, it's a form of cleansing.

All of the Cuts/policies that have led to rent rises have just been a punishment on the poor.

[LoisWilkersonsLastNerve]

This has been the case for years now op. In most cities. It's a shame really. Key workers often need to commute for hours. I know a firm that has to bus it's cleaners in from miles away, this is in Edinburgh.

[veggifriedbreakfast]

It's absolutely awful! I'm feeling so angry right now. Social cleansing

[Xenia]

Sam in the 1980s - we had then and now to live right out here in zone 5 (and even here is not that cheap) because it was too expensive further in - even as far "in" as Ealing. Actually before that it was even worse as the Rent Acts meant people stopped letting because rents were so small it was not worth it and people and their heirs could stay for life so most people had to live over crowded with parents. We never seem to find a way to house people near jobs other than my mining relatives who rented houses for miners in the NE I suppose and htose of my relatives who lived in because they were servants. We also got a school flat to rent (although with a mattress on the floor etc when I was pregnant in the 80s before we bought our house) because no teachers could afford to move from the North to London so the school had to provide housing. The local nurses home was full to bursting too for the same reason.

What about this one - 2 bed Queen's park just reduced to £1517 a month I just found? that's closer in www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-74078945.html In fact it's a better standard than any property I've ever lived in in my life and I'm a home owner!

[veggifriedbreakfast]

@xenia Thank you, I'm going to contact them now about that property, it's so frustrating as I feel we're constantly having to move. We're actually planning on moving to Derby but have to wait a while longer. That flat is also much much bigger than any I've seen on rightmove so far! They're so tiny as well as having the huge price!

[Sparklesocks]

Really feel for you OP, it's getting worse - eventually only the very rich will live in London, and everyone working there will be commuting 1-2 hours!

I think over the next 10 years people will move out of london to other UK cities where their money will go a bit further (even if not much more).

[NameChanger22]

I used to live in London, now I live in Leicester. Nothing would make me want to go back there.

[eniledam]

This makes me sick to read. I live in a big city up North and I pay £600 a month for a 2 bed flat, right across from a huge park in a lovely converted Victorian building.

There is NO WAY I could afford to live in London, and I work FT.

[veggifriedbreakfast]

Both dp and I work full time and we can't afford it!! It's so unfair!

[Echobelly]

Yes, I don't know how anyone expects London to work if people doing ordinary jobs can't live it in.

One problem is swathes of amateur landlords who just assume you put your prices up every year, especially if they have sizeable mortgages on places, which you shouldn't be doing unless you've done a load of work to the home recently and the tenant is getting some improvement in return.

I can hardly imagine how people manage - my first job brought home about £800 a month net; there are still plenty of people working jobs that pay no better than that and I can hardly see how they can find anywhere to live considering it's now £1400+ to rent even in outer zones where it'll cost you £200 to travel into central London as well.

[YoucancallmeVal]

Not just the poor. I'm a teacher and a single parent and have been teaching in London for 20 years. The rent on my 2 bed is over 60% of my take home. I could leave London but it's become my home now and who will teach the children?!

[Racecardriver]

Well lots of people want to live in London. If you want to live there you have to pay for the privilege. Basic economics. Either get a better paying job or move somewhere you can afford. You don't have some innate right to live in a desirable location.

[Singlenotsingle]

There is life outside London, and in most cases it's cheaper, and quality of life is better. I lived there for a couple of years back in the day, but would never go back!

[TheQueef]

It's social engineering.

Come north it's still a bit civilised up ere.

[Racecardriver]

Also, the idea that thousands on LLs are conspiring to create social cleansing is absurd. They are just asking a market rate for their property, what do you exoect them to do? That is how they earn a living-should they compromise their earnings so that poor people can stay in London?

[KirstenRaymonde]

Yep it’s been happening years. My parents moved from Ealing to the Surrey edge of zone 6 in the 80s to afford a house, their 3 bed cost £65,000. House is now worth £320,000 and I can’t afford to buy here, but my whole family and friend base are here so I don’t want to leave. It’s all well and good saying move up north where it’s cheap, but I don’t know anyone there and I value my community ties.

[NT53NJT]

London is like living in a whole other country .

I can never understand as to why and it drives me mad. Come up north you can get a £1million house in London for about 25% of the price up here

[BarbarianMum]

It's been going on in London for at least 20 years now.



In other parts of the country private LLs manage to make a living without charging £1,500 for a garage converted into a rabbit hutch. There is no reason except greed that London landlords keep putting prices up and up.

[Mrsharrison]

Well lots of people want to live in London. If you want to live there you have to pay for the privilege. Basic economics. Either get a better paying job or move somewhere you can afford. You don't have some innate right to live in a desirable location.

Binmen, transport workers, medical staff, restaurant and hotel workers, retail. If this lot moved to another area, london would collapse.

More affordable housing is needed for lower paid workers - it's really that simple.

[Wavescrashingonthebeach]

Prices down south in general are just bonkers. Went out with a lad years ago & he had a relative who had a 1 bed flat in Brighton which was 800pcm!! Same flat would be no more than 400-500 here!
We walked past an estate agents in a seaside town local to me & he was utterly gobsmacked at the house prices.
I truly feel for the people down south who are being priced out of their own hometowns & away from their family. The govt should really do something about it.
Millionaires gobbling up all the property, half the time they dont even live there year round, and they siphon off their money to tax havens, contributing fuck all to the local community. It disgusts me.
And then people come along & blame it all on immigrants cause of stupid inflammatory articles in the Fail
Sorry went on a tangent then 😂
Ive noticed a massive influx of southerners moving up to my city in the last few years.. i can 100% see why they have as its the centre of the universe but prices are going to start going up now i suspect...

[Discotits]

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-72798644.html

£1250 PCM

?

[bringincrazyback]

It's totally a case of social cleansing, and it's outrageous.

[BevBrook]

Either get a better paying job or move somewhere you can afford. You don't have some innate right to live in a desirable location.

Except presumably that desirable location wants teachers, nurses, bus-drivers, youth workers, nursery workers, retail staff etc? Why should they have to commute miles into said desirable location?