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.

I met my now DH who lived in ruralshire, ended up staying with him a few nights and then ended up staying with him longer than planned so I inadvertently left London.

You make it sound like an easy mistake to make [grin[

Some of it does seem like 'emperor's new clothes', that's for sure. My only conclusion is that perhaps zone 1 is 'relatively' good value.

I can't get my head round the fact that people are prepared to pay such high prices to live in places I wouldn't even want to visit for a few hours.

I also don't understand why people pay such large amounts for anything outside zone 2, given that the commuting will probably be worse than moving further out with a decent overland service, where there would be more space and a better quality of life. Having read a number of similar threads on MN, it seems that many aspire to something they can't actually afford; they want to be a part of the cool metropolis, educated and edgy, cultured and embracing of diversity. They despise the thought of suburbia; so they buy into the dream and end up in Peckham or Finchley (in other words, suburbia!).

There are also some who appear to feel entitled to live here because their parents did etc. Weren't the NUM fighting for the same thing under Arthur Scargill?

I'm still wanting to know what an 'interesting family' is.

Did the Brighton poster ever explain?!

My BIL has seen it from the 'other side' if you like. He had been born and bred in London then moved elsewhere when he divorced as there is no way that he could purchase where he was.

That was 15 years ago and he still comments now when he sees the prices of places outside the M25, with 'do you know how much this would cost in London?'

I can remember laughing at him at the time when he told me how much the modest little place I was living in would cosyt. I thought he was joking.... he wasn't

also begining to wonder where OP has gone

I'm still wanting to know what an 'interesting family' is.

The mind boggles

Fideliney- last six generations being homeowners - you must be gentry!

There are also some who appear to feel entitled to live here because their parents did etc.

Oh Dolce you are a card. I don't want anyone to issue me with a 5 bedroom stucco terrace. It just would have been nice to have the option of a home town with friends and relatives in it. You know. Like other people have. Roots and stuff.

My rich London friends are cross that their cleaner lives in possibly a nicer house than they do - its a council owned property and she has lived there all her life.

They say the council should sell off all these properties as they are probably worth a million plus on open market (nice Georgian terrace types).

But they don't say where they think their cleaner and all her friends and family should move to.

Are the uber rich going to invest in some kind of special bus service to bring in all their service workers from Romford and beyond?

Talk it's a bit of a myth that the working and clerical classes of yore never bought houses I think. I wish they'd held on to some of it though

Fideliney, since when has the location of your relatives had any bearing on where you are most likely to be able to build your own life and support yourself?

As in previous generations in my family, I have gone to where the work is.

I have come across a lot of people who have refused jobs, or turned down promotions, because of wanting to live near friends. it makes no sense to me, you move with your work, and you make new friends where ever you settle.

Did they lose their money in the Great Crash of 1929? I'm joking, but home ownership in 1900 was pretty low

Luggage - some people can't move with their work, because they don't have any or it isn't well paid enough, or they are old, ill, disabled, or their children are settled in schools etc, etc, etc.

I am not saying that everyone should be given the keys to a flat in Notting Hill, not at all.

What I am saying is that it is absurd and dangerous that even well off middle class people cannot afford to live in the capital city of their country.

London will turn into a central enclave of oligarchs and celebrities, ringed by depressing and dreary outer suburbs where all their servants live.

Is this what we want? I can't think of any other European capital city which is as skewed as London.

Spero that's exactly what happens in the US - (saw a documentary...) the 'servant class' of LA get bussed in to look after other people's children while their own fend for themselves at home.

Fortunately there are still a lot of council houses/flats in inner London and these should be protected from sale. There should be a minimum quota of 50/50 social and private housing in all new developments. These rich people need someone to iron their shirts for them, far better if they live in the next door flat than out in the sticks.

The points people always seem to miss n these threads are:

1. 10 million people live in London mainly because that is where the work is. Not because they want to be 'cool' and 'edgy'. Yes, I could buy a mansion in Nottinghamshire for the price of my house in London, but I would be unlikely to find a job in my field, and DH's business wouldn't survive outside of the capital.

And on that note:

2. Moving out to some idyllic, cheap commuter town....where is that, exactly? Anywhere with good links to London and that is nicer/provides better housing/good schools etc than a Zone 3/4 London suburb isn't cheap! Commuting by train isnt cheap, either.

It pisses me off that so many people act like living in the capital city of our country (or not) should come down to some sort of lifestyle choice. Just as some people cant afford to live in London - some cant afford NOT to.

The housing situation here is shit, yes. Too expensive to buy for many, not enough decent social housing. Its a social and political issue. Its not about lifestyle choice for many.

Sperro, some people cannot move with their work, it depends on their circumstances. The people I am referring to can and should, but refuse., citing friends and relatives in the area. i don't think you are entitled to turn down work because you don't fancy a new area.

Children in school, is of course different. actually the people I'm thinking of specifically have no children, or still have them at the preschool stage.

Talk very true there seems to have been quite a family obsession with bricks and mortar long before it was usual, across several branches of the family. I was surprised but it was also tied up with the line of work the were all in. Equally we had our share of paupers

It just there has always been a motto in my family, you go where the work is, and I just find it unreasonable when people refuse.

Well yes indeed - it's hard to find work up north, especially I think in rural areas.

I think the point is that London was always a huge melting pot of nationalities and incomes. I loved going to petticoat lane to get knock off Levi's abd have hot salt beef sandwiches - when I go back it just seems so plastic

London needs decent social housing for ordinary people, it was never a city exclusively for the rich unlike places like..say..Dubai. It was always a grand old city which took all comers.

Luggage of course people move for work etc but nationally I think it is usual for extended families to have a home town, a base, a centre of gravity. That is what London families (extended, non-wealthy) are now losing.

and I just find it unreasonable when people refuse.

Luggage if you are trying to inflict that interpretation on anything I have said you are rather more than unreasonable.

Pennastocky, the point is that if people didn't clamour to work in London out of desperation your husband WOULD be able to run his business and you WOULD be able to find work in your field.

Sorry but it is a lifestyle choice. Millions of people don't live in London and are quite healthy and happy and financially secure.

"10 million people live in London mainly because that is where the work is. Not because they want to be 'cool' and 'edgy'. Yes, I could buy a mansion in Nottinghamshire for the price of my house in London, but I would be unlikely to find a job in my field, and DH's business wouldn't survive outside of the capital."

Sorry I don't think this is true. There are lot of shitty parts of London that are now expensive.

You can go live in Luton, which you could claim is 'cool' and 'edgy' if you want , but is in fact a shithole, and it would cost you 1/3 as much as a Zone 2 edgy shithole.

Yes there is still a cost for commuting and for living close enough to London to commute, but there has been a MASSIVE swing towards living in London over the safe commuter towns which are now, relative to London, substantially cheaper than 15 years ago.

It seems we do have a problem quite particular to the UK. See this JRF report.

buff.ly/1lszlc1

Sorry, that's a report from the high pay centre.

I think London's insanely rampant house price inflation is another symptom of this.