to think a lot of people just don't get the cost of housing?

[stressedofnorthlondon]

DH and I are looking for a house and it's got me thinking. I live in a cheap part of the city, but that's cheap relative to other parts of London and the south east. We've looked a quite a few places now, but with each one I see I just can't quite believe how much a fairly small family house is going to cost us. But, we have completely grown out of our current home so we need to move.

We need to stay in London for lots of reasons. Our jobs are here. I could probably get work elsewhere (or maybe not in the current climate?) but DH couldn't. His profession is London-based. So if we moved away he'd have to commute back in anyway. Our support network is here. Our familes are not but they live in equally expensive areas that are not to far away, close enough to help. All our friends and all that we know, that keeps us sane, are here.

So often on here you see people say "downsize" "move somewhere cheaper" etc etc. The whole HB furore going on at the moment is due to the expectation that people should be moving to cheaper accomodation / cheaper areas. But there is nowhere within commuting distance of London that is cheap! I think it's because people who live in other parts of the country just don't understand that here there isn't really such a thing as "affordable" housing. There isn't anywhere to downsize to, as even small properties, to rent and to buy, are really really expensive. Yes lots of people get paid much higher salaries to work in the capital, but we also have lots of people on minimum wage, lots of people in the service industries, people who clean etc. To rent a family house here is well over £1000 pcm.

So AIBU to think that a lot of people who live elsewhere in the country just don;t understand that housing here is expensive, whatever size of property, or what area you live in.

(and I know that DH and I could stay in our small flat, but we are lucky that we can afford to move, I just can't believe how much it'll cost us!)

Why is the onus placed on the individual rather than the government addressing the structural problem and not leaving something as important as housing solely up the market. As if the market is god!

Because no one in Govmnt has the problem?

Because more voters will scream if house prices fall than will benefit?

Because the market is rigged to favour the wealthy?

......there is just no incentive.

OP Merci just wait for prices of houses and rents to shoot up once "oop North" is commutable to London!
It's commutable now!

But what do you want anyone to do?
We moved out of London, left all our friends etc but it's not like we moved to Mars. We are 60miles away. I commute and my travel costs equate to nearly 1/3 of my net salary. It's shit but I'm not expecting anyone to knock on the door and hand me a different scenario. Move and get bigger and travel. Or stay and have less space and shorter/cheaper travel. Lots of people make these choices every day. All over the world.

Well I'm afraid Lancs to London is not a daily commute I'd like to do, whatever size of house I would be able to afford...

(I'd be quite happy for London to be invaded by Whippets and somewhere I could get decent fish and chips though!)

Oh dear

Ok OP - Poor you, with your expensive housing costs and bleak future in the housing Market.
Is that the right response?

marriedinwhite Your house has four stories and it's 'not grand'.

I think you and me have very different ideas of what is and isn't grand.

Also, I think it's you that's said before that cleaning your house takes ages because it's so big.

I could be wrong, of course.

Well put tufty

Tufty All I want is for people to really consider what they are saying before they shout "move somewhere cheaper" to people. Often people who come on here looking for budget advice (or dare to say that over £30000 is not a massive salary) are not complaining about the cost of their housing, it is what it is.

I've seen house prices rocket over the last ten years around here, and it does annoy me, but I accept that my house will be smaller than my friends home in, say, Sheffield. I've made that choice.

But I would like Dave and Gid to really think about their policy and what it'll do to the capitals poorer residents.

Hmm, I live in London on a very low income (LP, on WTC). I rent a flat in London (zone 2) for less than £1000pm and I find it quite manageable. I find that most people who complain they can't afford live in London are horrified at the idea of living in a flat, without a garden or near a school without an Outstanding Ofsted.

Obviously there are compromises which have to be made, but it's more important for me to live centrally so I can get to work and socialise easily, than to have all of those. My area is somewhere that is just dismissed out of hand by many families, even though it's cheap, convenient and has a great community (despite the headline crime figures, which I've never been affected by).

Kitty I was only following on from what Merci said about flat caps whippets and fish and chips, I'm a Lancastrian myself, I don't really get your problem with what I said. Wasn't meant to be serious.

I think YANBU in a way.

I also think there are some people who live in expensive areas (like London, as that's the example we're going with) that look at cheaper rents in other parts of the country, thinking "look at all that extra space we could afford if we lived there" and don't necessarily relate that salaries are probably lower there. Housing costs are relative.

What is unaffordable to us here would be laughably affordable if we had a city income. But we have a town income, so it's not

I am very grateful that so many people are horrifically snobby about Essex.
It means we can afford to live in a 4 bed detached house (on the edge of the town so we see fields from our rear windows) only 30 mins from Liverpool Street and 30 mins from the seaside.

When we needed a family home, we left the town where our families and friends live (and DH was born) to somewhere we could afford.

Ahhh ... you're one of those people who like to whine about 30k salaries?

Right then, you do that.

Thanks Kitty. I do try
But they don't care! Of course they don't care. My parents (in their hey day, bless them!) would have loved to live in Chelsea. They had to settle for Dartford. It's not a new problem.
We moved somewhere cheaper because we wanted more space. Our budget was under £180,000. Our friends in London live in areas they 'chose' because they bought well, when prices were low. We didn't. We couldn't afford to live where we wanted in London. We sucked it up and moved out. I do understand. I know it's not good but really don't expect the government to care. They couldn't care less.

Just re-read (oh it's getting late...) No Kitty i don';t want poor me thankyou. As I said in the OP. I can afford to live here, so I choose to live here, but housing costs still annoy me. Feel sorry for those on minimum wage who are going to get their HB cut so will have to move.

Pip we'll move to Essex eventually too. Very nice place.

I have never whined about £30000 salaries btw.

I agree that 30k doesn't go far but TBH you do choose to live in London.
Funnily enough, if I lived in Alderley Edge, Cheshire (Posh area up North) I would be closer to my job and wouldn't have to commute up to an hour each way.
I can't afford to though so I live out of the area and commute.

Yup, a bewildering amount of people are clueless about the prices in the London area. My sis fell out with a friend in Sheffield after said friend had a go at her for buying a 2-bed flat in London for 200k when she'd got a 4-bed house for 170k in Sheffield. The woman thought the place must have been gold plated, and why didn't they just get somewhere cheaper. No dear, it was just a standard flat in a niceish area, sadly the walls were not papered with £50 notes...
Likewise, the older non-London generation often don't get it either, my mum seems to think its still the 60s in London, seeing as that's when she last lived here. Sigh...

Just read last post OP. You can afford to live there.
No problem then!
Night all.

"Bottom line is that if someone can't afford to live and work in a particular area, they have to start thinking about alternatives or all they're doing is sticking their head in the sand."

Unfortunately this is the case- but nobody stops to think what would happen if everybody followed this advice. London needs the low paid workers in order to function.

I live in London (zone 2) and the only way I can afford to is because we live in a HA flat. I am a teacher, and am noticing that teachers in London are increasingly either very young (shared house) or nearer retirement (bought a house before prices went crazy). Once people have children, they tend to move away.

Huge swathes of London are already occupied by only the very rich and the very poor- now it looks as though the very poor are no longer able to stay, I wonder how London will look in 10 years' time.

I already have an hour and a half commute BTW.

why are you complaining if you can afford to live where you want to ?

bit of a non-thread then ?

perhaps you should start a campaign, for all the people who will be forced to move away from their families and support networks when the welfare cuts kick in ?

Kitty it's far far cheaper in my area than Alderly Edge, that's for certain!

But DH commutes for almost an hour each way, as we would never be able to afford to live where he works.

I also commute for nearly an hour too. Couldn't afford to live where I work either.

Tiddly I remember being shocked and appalled when a friend I'd been sharing with bought a 1 bed flat for £60000 12 years ago. What kind of fool was I?!

AF I wish i could reword my OP to something much simpler, just that moving somewhere cheaper isn't always an option for people. despite what the government and a fair few MN'rs think. I only mentioned my own situation as that's what got me thinking about it.

Bloody AIBU, always makes me feel guilty!

Tethers I'm a teacher and commute to SE London, 2 hours each way. I used to live 8 miles from work, now I live 68 miles. You're right about teachers being either young or near retirement. Quite a few of the people I work with have 'a little house in Peckham' that they bought 50 years ago for pence. Maybe 9 pence tops. The rest are barely out of nappies.