to think you have to be either rich or poor to live in London?

[manicinsomniac]

After another fantastic day in London yesterday I'm in one of regular 'boo hoo hoo, I want to live in London and I'll never be able to' moods.

Please tell me it's possible. Is there anybody in the middle income bracket living there?? (I know logically there must be!) Please tell me how you do it!!

I'm a single parent of 3 children and earn too much to get HB or WTC. There's no way I could pay more than 800 in rent and I'd need a 3 bed house in order not to be squashing my children in for my own selfish reasons (I'd put us all in a 1 bed to be in London if they weren't actual real people!! )

Ugh, it sounds even worse written down - it's not going to happen is it :(

Maybe if I save for a deposit to buy a London house instead of a reasonably priced one then I can eventually become a cool child-free Granny living it up in the capital!

I'm mainly just on a bit of a lighthearted but totally jealous of all you Londoners rant but, on a serious note - is there a danger of our capital city becoming completely out of reach to the majority? Has it happened already?

Most people I know who live there are either very wealthy or single people in houseshares

[FidelineandFumblin]

And on that sad note (sorry), I am off to enjoy the sunshine

[irisgrey]

My kids wouldn't want to live anywhere else (we're in zone 3). We do take advantage of the amazing range and quality of things on offer in London and, for example, they go to classes in a variety of things offered by people at the very top of their profession. I'm not sure it would be easy to access these things at such a high level elsewhere. The two oldest are at a really good, sought after secondary so fortunately no worries for us there either.

When people talk about coming to visit London for a day or two with their children to go to a show, museum etc I always think that must be so exhausting and, most of all, expensive. It is such a bonus to be able to pop in to the centre for an hour or two and then come home to eat.

Yes, we do have a small house but we're lucky in that grandparents live in the middle of nowhere so we can go there for a dose of outdoors.

We're comfortable but not rich and manage to stay here because we bought our house at the end of the nineties, chucked everything at the mortgage and resisted the urge to move anywhere bigger. So yes, we are squashed into our home but I do think it is worth it (and the kids would agree). I appreciate that we would probably feel very differently if our school situation were not as it is.

[caroldecker]

zone 2 3 bed for £200

[NigellasDealer]

horrible place tho carol

[FidelineandFumblin]

YY Nigella. Be awful to live somewhere like that with DC.

[SqueezedMiddle]

Wodberry Down is a large housing estate, but the area isnt horrible. It has been redeveloped recently, too. That flat will be snapped up and make someone rich, mark my words. Thats how people who bought years back made money - we bought in 'horrible' areas like Hackney. If people think they are going to bowl into London on an average salary and buy in Primrose. Hill....

[irisgrey]

the Guardian did a huge feature on Woodberry Down last week looking about how the orginal community are being pushed out

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/18/-sp-truth-about-gentrification-how-woodberry-down-became-woodberry-park

[writtenguarantee]

first of all, wow. My DP and I live together with two kids and we find them a handful. I want to know YOUR secret!

You could try to buy/let an ex council place. I think the discount on buying one is bigger, but even for rent you get a pretty good discount. For the same price, you get a better location and more floor space.

I see someone has already posted that. Well, you need 200K in cash for that, and a lot of people don't have that. however, I sort of agree that people are going to make money from gentrification.

[ThingsThatShine]

I think I would find it difficult to have a good quality of life in London in the long term with a family. I worked in the City in a relatively well paying field but flatshared with friends as couldn't afford to live alone. I paid £750 PCM just for my room. 3 beds for £800 is pretty much unheard of in any areas I know and even in the very outskirts I doubt you can get anything that cheap. As for buying, London property prices are way out of my reach and I don't know how first time buyers do it without huge hand outs from family.

In the last year or so I have started to see a lot of friends and family moving out of London due to the cost of living, especially the ones who are looking to start a family.

I am now in Bristol and loving it. Amazing city with plenty going on and I live right in the centre with a 5 minute walk to work, close to harbourside bars, shops, parks... And I can visit friends and family in London any time, less than 2 hours on the train.

London is a great city but I would rather be somewhere else which is a lively and cultural place in its own right e.g. Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds... Rather than in so far out in the London suburbs that it is barely London anymore. Obviously that is job dependent though and luckily I can work outside London.

[BoffinMum]

We very reluctantly moved to Cambridge about 15 years ago after not being able to find a family house in London anywhere we wanted to live, because they simply weren't building anything we wanted to buy in anything like a reasonable price range, and I didn't want to live in a poky Victorian terrace without parking.

We've had a better quality of life up here, and have a house with about twice the footprint of what we could afford in Zone 2/SW11, where we used to live, with an amazing view out the back of the house. All the schools around here are fine, and I don't spend my life in a car ferrying kids about from playdates to activities, as they can usually cycle themselves to wherever they need to go. I cannot believe how much time I used to spend driving. We also noticed the kids around here are more respectful of adults and more easy going than their London counterparts, and that was an unexpected bonus.

Initially I bemoaned the lack of cafe culture but over the last 10 years things have improved a lot and we are now pretty spoiled in terms of restaurants, cafes, bars and shops, since the Grand Arcade opened in particular.

A bit of me misses not being able to bike to work or get a theatre ticket in the West End at the last minute without much prior planning, but other than that, I think we did OK getting out when we did. It really was getting stressful living there and nobody was really thinking through what families wanted out of the place in terms of day to day standards of living. It was also a city of envy with everyone constantly comparing themselves to others and finding themselves wanting, which is much rarer up here as there are different values a lot of the time. I would advise people not to fret about the London problem, and to look around for somewhere that meets their needs more closely. Don't be blinded by London's self-publicity.

[fancyanotherfez]

Its not just the housing c osts that are the problem in London imo. Its the ridiculous school place competition and the day to day grind that gets me down. The theatre and museums are lovely. We probably go twice a year I could take a train down from somewhere nice twice a year. I'd leave tomorrow but am trapped by the fear of not getting a job. Neither myself or dh are work til you drop types so will never earn enough to enjoy London.

[NearTheWindymill]

If we had had to rely on state secondary schools in London we would have left. Where we live they are utterly dire.

[Lemiserableoldgimmer]

Housing is obscenely expensive but apart from that you can live quite cheaply in London, that is if you live in an ethnically diverse area - ethnic food shops and markets are CHEAP.

3 bedroom house or flat - £1400 a month for something quite grotty is probably the minimum, even in outer London.

[FraidyCat]

Having looked at the that Edgeware road flat listing, I'm certain it's an error, should be £800 a week, not a month.

[manicinsomniac]

GotMyGoat Wow That puts it in perspective. Sorry for sounding so whiny and ungrateful. Are you choosing to make that sacrifice to stay in London or are you trapped? Because, if you want to/are able to leave London, you can get 2 bed houses for that near me and I'm less than an hour from London by train.

Lemiserable - yes, agree, it's the housing that's the problem.

I'm feeling much more cheerful now. Been to a neighbour's BBQ in a nice big garden this afternoon and now sitting out in ours with the children. I am very very lucky to live where I do and to have a decent income as a single parent. End of whining. London is a pipe dream for me but that's ok. We can visit and I'll (hopefully!) be child-free by 48 so I can always do what I want then.

[orangeone]

We live in a cheap(ish) part of south east london (zone 3/4).

We have a massive morguage (although bought a wreak of a house 5 years ago that is still not finished, couldn't buy anything now), both of us work (although I'm not full time as childcare too much). We don't eat / go ou at all now have 2DC, don't have expensive goods, new clothes etc. I cook cheaply as much as possible, we scrap by. We can't afford a any more kids or to replace anything if it breaks. We have a combined income of £50k and we often wonder if we should leave as neither of us are Londoners but we stay as our work is here.... We are pretty similar to most people we know round here.

[Mumzy]

This looks nice and within budget
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-44482969.html

[NigellasDealer]

do you know what that estate would really be like to live in mumzy?

[TucsonGirl]

that flat actually looks quite nice so I imagine the area must be absolutely diabolical for it to be that cheap.

[GotMyGoat]

No worries manicinsomniac - I took no offence -we were very naive once too! Only been in London a year now, originally we found a gorgeous huge cheap bungalow, but it was very very dodgy (if it seems to good to be true...) after a visit from environmental health and getting electric shocks in the house we got out asap, lived in a travelodge for a while and ended up, thankfully, in our current house.

Before I had dd and our house move, me and DH lived in a three story three bed house all to ourselves and only paid about £620 a month - but we are studying in London now so need to stay here for the next two years as my disability means I struggle to commute long distances. It's a choice to stay here for the mean time, as we can't afford anything else nearby. Yes we are cramped, and me and DH might never have sex again (dd is almost three) but we are are in a safe house with a good landlord who keeps things maintained.

We thought that the higher wages London brought would mean that we could afford the higher rents etc. but we quickly realised that cost of living has risen much higher than wages so it's not sustainable. Childminder costs were £300 a week (could have had a nanny for that back home!) etc.

It is possible to live in London - lot's of people do it, but they generally have good jobs, husband and wife earning at least £40,000 each etc. and then you can get by.

[TitusFlavius]

I bloody love living in London, but if I had to buy my own flat at current prices, I couldn't afford it - it's tripled in price in the last decade, waaay out of my price range.

This sounds great for me - yay, equity! - but it's pretty meaningless as I'd have to pay even more to move anywhere else in London. It would only benefit me if I was moving out of London, which for job reasons I couldn't do.

I'd love to have a garden, as both me and DS would love to have a dog, but it's never going to happen.

[TheSarcasticFringehead]

Worra I come from Redbridge (Loxford) and I think it's London. London Essexy, but on the tube line, a borough and good links to Central London.

[GotMyGoat]

Oh and another thought - we thought by living in London we would go to museums and do fun stuff all the time but actually you don't have time to, life happens - weekdays are for nursery runs and working and weekends are for doing the laundry and shopping and catching up on paperwork etc.

DH and I also thought we'd go see lots of theatre and music, forgetting that we had moved away from most of our willing babysitters, and London babysitters, as with everything, are not cheap.

[Openup41]

One bedroom flats in most parts of South East London start at £800-850.

I agree that London mostly consists of the wealthy,those who bought in the 90's or are living in social housing.

We moved out and would like to move back. Prices are increasing by the day

[nulgirl]

No - it's another ad which has wrongly stated the weekly price as pcm. It's quite a nice area (with shitty transport links) thus costing over £2k per month. House prices are crazy.