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!)

It depends what you mean by 'outgrown your house'.
Very few people 'need' to move in order to survive - it's a lifestyle choice

If all Londoners were to move up north, that would be a lot of unemployed people up north.

Agree that London has ridiculous housing costs. So using the collective power of MN - what could our government do to bring these back into line with reality?

I like the "move more work out of London" idea. Gov could do that easily. BBC are doing it already.

I don't live or work in London.

There are loads of places in the country that are expensive for people to move around in, and arent affordable for the locals. You just have to live in smaller places and get over it.

Also what do you mean by family home? I bet you mean somewhere pretty big, and not many people can live in places like that

I guess people suggest moving in response to comments because there are a lot of people who do move out and commute.

DDs friend doesn't see her Dad at all in the week as he leaves before 6am and gets home about 9pm as he commutes into London from here (Northants). It's not ideal and means that his wife bears the full brunt of child stuff during the week, but it is a compromise that they chose when they were bursting at the seams in a tiny zone 2 flat with no certainty of a school place locally.

In the same way as other people compromise on nice area / house size.

It was been mentioned briefly on here already but the key to all this is age. I would be interested to know how old all the posters on here are. I am nearing 40. We live in zone 2 in a reasonably nice (though not super posh area) in a 3 bedroom home that we own. We have been here two years, having moved from an even more central London location where we were for 7 years. Prior to that, we lived out in Essex for 6 years which was our first home. So we first got on the housing ladder 15 years ago. I was a newly qualified teacher at the time and my husband was a graduate in a fairly low wage. So we maxed out our income on the mortgage for our first house which cost use just £80000. Astonishing to think of now.

Anyway, as a result of our age, the time we got on the housing ladder, and a couple of other factors including family help at various points, we now have a comparatively small mortgage of only about £500 a month. We actually need a larger place than what we have, but we can't afford to move as I am just not willing to move further out of London. So like many people, you make compromises. I know we are lucky to have got on the housing ladder when we did. I can't imagine having to do it now. It would be an impossibility.

But I never want to live anywhere else in spite of the cost. London has been my home for more than 30 years and I love it. Love black cabs, and red buses, the tube, the river, theatres, museums, fantastic restaurants of every kind, walking along the Kings Road or Piccadilly, the solitary guard in the box at the bottom of St James's Street with his Bearskin, the Changing of the Guard, diversity, street markets, memories, fabulous parks, Chinatown, Soho, the sheer diversity and buzz of it, Leadenhall Market, the London Eye, London Zoo and Regents' Park. I love it, it's my home, the expense, the crowding, the dirt, the glimpse of danger, they are all worth every penny.

Agrees with wiifitmama - we are 50(ish). My first flat, zone 2, was 30k.

We all have our crosses to bear op. I would love to move to rural scotland to be close to MY support network of parents, extended family and friends but there are no jobs there suitable for either dh or me.

We used to live in the south east near dh's family but again there were no suitable jobs.

We now live in a 250k 4 bedroom house within 30 mins of London.

Being forced away from your family because of economic/employment issues isn't a 'London problem'.

It's just that some londoners aren't very aware that others people have these issues too.

OP I hear you. We live in north London too. It's so nice here, great for the children and me tbh.

We rent. It is 1200 a month for 2 bed, and that's quite cheap. People always tell us to buy. Renting is dead money. Even DH, he somehow blames me for not asking it happen.

Makes me mad. Our income is 35000. That's a 100k mortgage, even if my credit rating was good enough, which it isnt, assuming we could save a 20000 deposit. I have about 20p left over every year, so fat chance.

What would 100k buy us in our area? Answer: nothing. I just checked right move. Not even so much as a parking space. I could buy, assuming I could get past the credit check, a grimy in need of major work prefab in Milton Keynes and spend £4000 a year and 3 hours a day on trains.

Head hurts now

*making it happen, I ask all the time!

People sometimes get effectively forced into London too. This is why we need to tackle it.

Molly yes there are a lot of places where locals are priced out, but London and the south east are unusual in that there aren't usually affordable options nearby. So for example if your family live in posh Cheshire, you could go for South Manchester where you can get a 3 bed house for less than 100k in some areas. Or if you can't afford Prestwich, Bolton is cheap and not too far. Most cities outside the south east still have relatively affordable areas. London doesn't, and increasingly neither does the rest of the south east. The only other places I can think of that are like London in this regard are ones where there are a lot of holiday homes, like Cornwall.

If I could go back 12 years I would have marched self to bank, got mortgage and be in a lovely little house somewhere nice by now. Sob

I am 47 and couldn't afford to buy in London when I lived there in the 80's.

And agree that high house prices and rents affect other areas as well - and many Londoners don't seem to realise this. DP's family live mainly in a rural area with low wages. But lots of outsiders have moved in and pushed house prices and rents up. Some of the family have had to move away as they can't find anywhere they can afford to rent or buy.

Your housing costs more in London than somewhere like The North.
Your earning potential is much higher in London than somewhere like the North.

I fail to see why anyone is shocked.

I think people can be very snobby in London. As someone said further up the thread - people want the outstanding schools yadda yadda and then complain its too expensive to live. It is perfectly possible to live in zone 3/4 for £700 per month (yes, to rent a house!) or to buy (a house!) for £175,000 - Plumstead, Woolwich, Welling, solid victorian properties, green space - good transport links to c london/canary wharf in 25 mins. Look on Rightmove SE18.
I'm sure there are other areas too like this around the fringes of london.

I live in sw and our fat was over 100k we have 4 of us in here (well will have in 6 weeks). I only get paid 6.08 an hour as that is what most jobs pay here despite having a 2:1 degree.

I am lucky my 2 friends paid 106k for 1 bed flats and have their dps and kids in there with them and all jobs in area are near minimum wage or minimum wage.

Also very few jobs in the area that meet the national average in wages (25k yeah right that would make you a millionaire here dont know anyone not in public sector on a wage that high).

Oliverreed is right. Which area are you looking at? For sure some parts of north London will be out of reach...islington, Camden, highgate, hampstead etc etc. But they are premium areas. Have you considered Enfield? Edmonton? Wood green? Leyton, walthamstow. Not beautiful, but totally commutable, and affordable. As for needing a 100k deposit...you don't. Unless you are buying at 700k property. Houses in Enfield are around 300k. Cast your net wider perhaps?

And despite all that I have no intention of leaving dh is from the north but we would both have all of us stuffed in the wardrobe than leave. However anyone that lives in a family home eg 3 bedroom and in a real house is affluent in my eyes.

I will also addflangelina despite spending over 100k on our flat we live in one of the top 5% most deprived estates in the country!!

I live 25 of your crow miles from the Big London. I have a 4 bed Victorian town house, and thanks to the insane price I got for my London flat a teeny mortgage. My husband commutes into London Bridge, but gets the super duper fast train home from Stratford in 15 minutes.

My point is this. It is perfectly feasible to move to a larger house outside London and still get there in an efficient, speedy manner. The train fares net against the high housing costs. Perhaps though some people in London cannot see the wood for the trees no?

Enjoy.
Agree. Transport links in from the burbs are very good. Looking out beyond Stratford is a good call. Also, London overground has connected lots of bits of se London to much better transport connections.

It's patronising to suggest that people just don't get it. I grew up in the SE and lived there until we moved about three years ago. We made a calculated decision to move precisely because we know how much it costs, and we didn't think it was worth it. Yes, DH's earning power is significantly less than it would be in the capital, and yes, it was bloody difficult moving away from friends, family & support network to a part of the country that neither of us had ever even visited! But we have a nice house which costs us less than a tenth of our post-tax income, no commuting costs, fantastic state schools and a whole new group of friends. And we now have my parents just up the road too as they decided to ditch the SE and follow us across the country for a better standard of living!

Best thing we ever did!

So I do get what the costs are like in London, and I also get how difficult it is to move. I totally understand why some people choose not to move (and I get that for a small minority, there simply isn't a choice - e.g. those on very low incomes and/or those with caring responsibilities etc) but I think people need to be honest with themselves about whether there are genuinely no alternatives.