Can the last poor* person to leave London please take their kids with them.

[fakenamefornow]

WTAF is going on with house prices? I want to move to London but it seems impossible.

I think Surrey's going to be next to remove all traces of the poor.

• By poor I mean anyone on average income or below, so actually, just not rich.

[Spero]

Yes, the more desirable a place, the more expensive it is. That's not a problem.

But £800k for a two bedroom place in a part of London that is still very much experiencing enormous deprivation and crime no matter how many breaches of Foxtons start opening up or how many colour supplement articles there are about 'Brixton Village' is not merely 'expensive', it's insane. You would need to be in a couple both earning £100k plus per year to afford that.

So you encourage enormous pockets of affluence to live alongside poverty, as that seems to be the only way you could live in Brixton now. That causes obvious tension, more gated communities etc, etc.

I cannot now afford to live in Brixton. I could maybe afford Catford.

What does it say about a city when even the relatively well paid like myself could only afford to live in the outer, outer suburbs? Where are the teachers and nurses going to live?

[Fideliney]

Where are the cleaners, porters, dustmen, care assistants going to live? Not in social housing. The lists are a decade and more long

[nicename]

For my parents generation, a middle class 'professional' (engineer, doctor, lawyer, journalist...) could afford a nice house, holiday, car... a good standard of life actually. Now we seem to struggle far more for similar - not 'extras' - just the same. Its just crazy. Whole areas are becoming very transient - either students, company rents or super-rich holiday homes. Or council run hostels (we have 4 within a 2 streets).

We rarely see the same faces twice on our street and the majority of properties are owned by people based abroad (so they don't really give a toot about building maintainance, street furniture/cleaning, parking etc).

[nicename]

The rediculous house price rises will only create a bubble which will pop and leave people stuck in negative equity hell.

I do smily wryly to myself as I wander along the (now) very expensive parts of Notting Hill. It wasn't that long ago that these houses were bedsits and squats, and at night it was a no-go area. It's not all that much better if you go one street down and yellow police incident boards are still common place. I do wonder if the idlewives sitting on the pavement cafes (when did we become a cafe society?) realise that they are one streey away from some seriously dodgy streets? I suspect in their cosseted world of nannies, hired help, drivers and jetsetting they never get a whiff of any of that unpleasantness.

The highly visible gap between the uber rich and the poor (anyone in between have been pushed out) is quite shocking.

London is very much like a monopoly board with properties in some areas just being bought to be held and sold later. We have a newly developed block near us that is apparently all sold, yet there is rarely anyone living in it. We were told that a lot were sold unseen to foreign buyers.

[MrsKoala]

It's so peculiar when you grow up in London (i'm 37) and there are areas you know are not 'nice' then you see people paying ridiculous amounts for tiny flats and they tell you it's been gentrified. And when you go there it's the same old rough shit hole just with a couple of organic coffee shops. (my colleagues who lived in East London had people shooting up/kipping in their doorway and often have to ask them to move when they get home from work or find needles in the morning).

Another thing i was thinking about with the cost of flats is what your mortgage is often not the only cost. When exH and i bought a flat in South Norwood we could just about cover the mortgage but what we naively hadn't factored was the ground rent and 'management fees'. Like a lot of London flats it was a house converted to 4 flats. The fees were £2400 per year, so an extra £200 per month (which was just about manageable but stretched us). And if you get a shit company like ours, absolutely nothing was done in the whole 5 years. We constantly complained but couldn't afford legal costs to actually do anything about it.

[MrsKoala]

There are still areas that no amount of 'gentrification' or expensive houses and celebrities moving in, that you couldn't pay me to live in. Shepherds Bush being one of them - wtf? It's so horrible! It just boggles my mind.

[Fideliney]

YY Koala (I don't dare list areas - I'll offend literally everyone) my mother was nearly in tears when we moved here, whilst friends declared themselves envious. So bizarre.

Similarly acquaintances buying flats on mega council estates. I just cannot compute that being something a couple with a six figure income would do rather than move further out.

[Woozlebear]

London is so expensive partly because so many people want to move here - you, op being a perfect example.

It may be frustrating for you, but it's more so for people who were born here. There's always attention paid to local people priced out of rural areas but no one pays much attention to people born in London who can't afford it because of the levels of domestic, let alone international migration.

It's easy for people to say move down the trainline to the Home Counties, but when you're family - ageing dependent parents, or your sole source of childcare, for example- are in London, it's not so easy.

It's so sad that London is just a place for the international rich and youngsters who can temporarily stomach the conditions. Everyone thinks its so cool - and that's part of the problem - but living your whole life here, let alone several generations putting down roots is becoming impossible. It's not a real place anymore, just a global playground.

[MrsKoala]

DH is not from London and has no concept of what areas are 'nice' or 'rough'. It's really interesting to go to a place and him to say 'god what a crap hole' and me to inform him how much a flat would set someone back to live in said crap hole. Once we went to Battersea and he said 'christ this place is awful - what are flats here? about £30k?' He couldn't understand my laughter and actually got a little offended when i told him we would NEVER in our entire lifetimes be able to afford a flat there.

The only places he has said 'This is nice, why don't we buy somewhere here' are Chiswick, Barnes and Richmond

[nicename]

You're right.

DH lived there since he was tiny and ds was born here. I've been here most of my life too now. We haven't really anywhere else to go (plus when I see/hear the racist crap that dbil and his family gets where they live, I'd rather not set foot out of zone 1 thank you very much).

[nicename]

There are some areas that we looked at over 20 years ago that the agents assured us were 'up and coming'. Apart from the fact that prices have rocketed and they now have a starbucks next to the manky-fried-chicken and burger-halal-king, it hasn't 'upped' yet.

[BravePotato]

Parts of Shepherd's Bush are nice (towards Hammersmith on the Shepherd's Bush Road, some nice houses in nice side streets), there used to be a fab fun Polish Restaurant and a great African market (but I moved out 10 yrs ago, has it gone downhill since then?). Some nice shops and pubs too.

I also used to live in Mile End and other "non-nice areas" and to be honest I think people get too hung up about wanting to live in a naive area.

My friends who bought a Victorian 3 bed in Plaistow for 260k are quite happy to move there.

It is just the reality of urban living

[LittleBearPad]

London is going to become a city of extremes; the very rich and the poor with few middle income earners and a lot of empty property owned by people living overseas as a good investment. I moved here 10 years ago to a shared flat in Camden. I couldn't do the same now. However we will leave soon and flee the hordes of range rovers which now seem to be breeding near us.

[MrsKoala]

I don't think people have realised that saying somewhere is nice, and telling people it's been gentrified, doesn't actually make it true. But everyone has to believe it otherwise they'd realise they have just mortgaged themselves up to the eyeballs to live in the arsehole of London (which is saying something!).

[MrsKoala]

But Brave despite the nice restaurants and gorgeous houses you still have to live there. The green is still tramp central, there are cans, litter and vomit. You can score at any time. People approach you to 'lend' them money. I mean it's fine but i wouldn't kid myself to say living there would be 'nice' or desirable. It's ok for the rich and famous, they don't have to get the tube or walk their dc to school thru the green. I just feel like i need a bath after going. It's just grimey. My friends love it tho. (they live off the Askew road). For the same money you could live further out and have what i would consider a nicer environment.

[unrealhousewife]

'Twas ever thus. I would have loved to leave London years ago but I knew that if I didnt I would never get back in.

I think the rest has all been said. I hope people do go and make the best of other regions and build up all the many other great cities around the UK then maybe I can find work there and move.

[Luggagecarousel]

We live in London, 3 bedrooms, £65 000 20 years ago, now worth £120 000. Not an easy amount to pay off, but not a sky rocket amount either.

It depends what you are looking for, and where, and what you are prepared to compromise on.

[Fideliney]

And still the OP hasn't returned.

Lot of it about

[unrealhousewife]

There are loads of things that can be done to change it but while we have a Mayor who is trying to place London at the top of the international pecking order there will be more attempts to rid London of mediocre incomes.

Boris has actually stuck his neck out on several occasions to prevent the Dubaisation of London but slack controls from central government mean the divide gets even greater. London needs a lot more social intervention than it gets to retain decent accommodation for ordinary people.

[AmbervonTussle]

OP gone did you say Fidelney?

They are busy practicing their "sad eyes" expression for the Daily Fail photographer

[unrealhousewife]

If this is a scam I'm going to be really peed off.

[Fideliney]

Well this one isn't a newbie unlike many I could moan about but where is she? Started the thread and burgered orf

[PinkSquash]

I accidentally moved out of London 10 years ago and I'm shocked at what has happened. Where my DM lives has seen some upwards pricing but it seems otherwise unscathed, the 'posh' side has seen huge inflation but the 'poorer' areas are just getting poorer.

The price of some of the Home Counties towns shock me too, some are grimy and awful but they're asking £350k for a shoe box.

[Fideliney]

No posting history before 2nd June

Accidentally moved out of London Pink?