To wonder how ordinary people can afford to live in London?

[Rhine]

By ordinary people I mean those of us who aren't millionaires, oligarchs and trustafarians. Obviously there must be ordinary people living there, but how on earth do they afford it? To buy there is eye watteringly expensive, so I suppose they must all be in rentals but then the rental prices are bad enough.

To get things in perspective you could probably get a five bed detached with land attached for the price of a small one bed flat in central London.

Pardon my igorance on this matter but it's always baffled me. Where do all the taxi drivers, shop workers, hotel staff, police, fire personnel, doctors, nurses etc live? Do they live in social housing, or are they miles out and commute in every morning?

It's a bit hard for a small town girl like me to get my head around.

It's fine to live in a nice but not yet fashionable area (in zone 4 for example) but most jobs are in central London so that's a 90 minute commute

It takes me 90 mins now that I live outside of London in a zone free land. When I lived in zone 4 it took 36 minutes to Charing Cross.

Agree, it tends to be non-Londoners who don't count anything beyond zone 2 as London. I think my dp would call them 'wet behind the ears'.

Yes people have always commuted even 30 years ago when we could only afford to buy in zone 5 and are still here and even when the tube lines came out to those out lying areas in the 1930s and earlier.

I think of undisputed London as the inner boroughs as designated in 1963, which replaced the area formerly known as the county of London:

Camden
Greenwich
Hackney
Hammersmith and Fulham (current home!)
Islington
Kensington and Chelsea
Lambeth
Lewisham
Southwark
Tower Hamlets
Wandsworth
Westminster
City of London

Everything else is in the outer boroughs is Greater/outer London. I can't be asked to bother about postcodes (which change) or the tube (which grows). If you aren't in the outer boroughs, then surely you can't say you live in greater London even. The borders of London do keep expanding and everyone gets all huffy about the new areas, then it all settles down and we grudgingly accept it

I'm sure lots of people will disagree with my yardstick but I'm sticking to it

Apatite, it seem's we're neighbours.

I agree Apatite. My point was more that a lot of these greater London boroughs are still designated as something else, so surely not also London. I do myself out of living in London by this yardstick though - my postcode is a Surrey one ;)

MerryMarigold and why it is E4 when Walthamstow is E17 and Stratford is E15

I believe that London postcodes were done alphabetically, so Chingford comes before Stratford which comes before Walthamstow. Most other cities use distance, so B1 centre of Birmingham.

I may have dreamed this

DP and I pay £800 for a large room with a roof terrace by Parsons Green Fulham. Not too much really while we have to buy just the two of us but downside is we share the house with 3 friends. In context, we are 24 and 27 on 30 and 40k so pretty average dor London

Agree with aparite

Flummoxed, yep you're right

Se1- (main district Se)

Then;

Se2- abbey wood
Se3-blackheath
Se4-Brockley
Se5-camberwell
Se6- catford
Se7- Charlton
Se8- deptford

And so on alphabetically by district...

Chingford and South Woodford have London postcodes but they are not London. They are Essex.

Like them, Ilford is also in the London Borough of Redbridge, but it is Essex with an IG postcode.

I'm sure the same goes for other Greater London boroughs.

I don't think it matters either way, though it mattered deeply to my friend's parents who lived in Chingford and resisted using their postcode and probably still do.

Letters addressed to them in Chingford, Essex easily got to them.

We bought young(well, pre-dc) with help from parents six years ago. Our 2 bed flat on zone 1/2 borders now supossedly worth almost twice what we paid for it. But we haven't managed to sell it yet (time of year? Start of a crash/dip?) So we plan to rent it out so we can buy a house with garden in zone 3. It's not my dream house but its within 300m of a good primary and close to a good secondary too.

Our mortgage until we sell the flat will be eye watering so well be hoping we can sell before market falls, or hold on til it picks up again and hopefully pay off most of mortgage.

I'm envious of school.friends with large houses and gardens (mainly in hone counties) but I love being in a city and my family all live in London (mainly in areas which were rough and now are achingly hip, like Peckham and Camberwell) so we compromise on house size to stay near our community. And count ourselves lucky that we can do that.

Should add we're not moving to Peckham or Camberwell (sob) because we can't afford anything there which I could see us in for more than a few years and which is near a primary school. So somewhere less cool.for us but still a bus ride away from family and friends.

We live in a very nice suburb in North London in a decent sized 3 bed. Zone 5. Both professionals (in not very well paid industries). I work 3 days and DH full-time with a combined salary of about £75K.

However, we were extremely lucky to get a leg up on the property ladder from both sets of parents. In spite of this, we still have a pretty hefty mortgage but we want to stay lviing here. All our family and most friends live nearby.

Everyone we know in London has also had parental support. In our faith, families are very close knit and it is extremely common for families to help out with deposits. Unfortunately, I can't see us ever being able to do the same for DD as mortgage, bills and general living costs eat into most of our salary.

I spent the best part of 20 years living in and around assorted parts of Haringey and I definitely wouldn't wander around Seven Sisters at night, but that also goes for most parts of the borough. On one side you've got the poorest part of the UK (Northumberland Park) and on the other one of the richest (Muswell Hill) but I've had dodgy experiences in both parts.

As for social housing, there isn't any council housing easily available in London unless you are in critical housing need and single young people don't generally meet those criteria. I used to work in housing in Haringey and the waiting list for a single person with some kind of income, even low paid, was about 15 years. So I'm not sure where all the young people in LA housing are coming from unless they've been in critical need, have children, are actually on a part rent/part buy housing scheme or are subletting.

I'm in my 40s, bought a studio new built flat in Haringey back in 97 for £34k, made the mistake of selling three years later for little profit because I was moving out of London and thought I'd easily buy again later. I came back two years later and found my flat was now worth £97k and I'd blown any chance of getting back on the housing market because my earning potential certainly hadn't rocketed up by that much.

Since 2002 I've been renting shared flats or house shares, mostly in zones 3-4-5. Six months ago I moved out of London and I can't believe the difference in my life.

limited, Chingford is neither in Essex nor LB Redbridge. It has been part of London since the 1960s, and is in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The 'Welcome to Essex' signs are quite visible on the roads north and east of Chingford.

However, it is still quite strongly culturally Essex - a lot of local organisations were founded before the local government reorganisation in the 60s, for example. It has held on to its Essex identity much longer than Walthamstow, which officially became part of London at the same time.

Apatite1 your definition of what constitutes London is very odd. What about newham? Haringey? Brent? Those boroughs are hardly 'outer London'.

Also you're wrong about the boundaries of London gradually changing. The boundaries of London have been the sand since 1965 when the 32 London boroughs were created. Because of the boundary changes, some bits of dine London boroughs don't have London postcodes. They are still London. The residents pay going up tax to a London borough and vote for the London mayor.

you've got the poorest part of the UK (Northumberland Park) Utter, utter nonsense. You don't know much about London if you wrote that, sorry. Been to Newham ever?

I'm not trying to sell Tottenham to anyone, I would prefer gentrification passed us by, (it's creeping in slowly) but the comments re how dangerous it is are fiction. It's not 'naice' for sure but it's not a hell hole of deprivation and violence either.

I can't understand how Northumberland park can be described as the poorest part of UK whilst Tower Hamlets still exists. Poplar is far more deprived.

I surprised anywhere in London would be described as the poorest part in the uk. Poplar is very deprived but I was shocked at areas in Kent how deprived they are also in Yorkshire and Glasgow

badtime You're right. Chingford is not in Redbridge, it's in Waltham Forest, it was a slip because I deleted something else.

Though it may be have been in a London borough for ages, it's not what I'd call London and neither would many others where I am from in Essex.

So I'd agree with your second post too.

Outer London boroughs are still London although some people aren't prepared to commute from where I am (zone 5) even if it means they could buy their own place. That is their choice and always has been. It has always been a compromise living in London or indeed Manchester and many other cities - big house with garden a bit further out or flat in walking distance of work etc.

I would say technically London is London boroughs - I live in one (but it is an "outer London" one). Within M25 includes lots of bits which are not even outer London boroughs.If you use the overground it's 15 mins from Harrow to Marylebone by the way so people saying it's going to be a 90 ninute journey if you live in zone 5 are not quite right although if you take the tube today and even 30 years ago it would always take you over 30 minutes and longer if you don't live near the tube.

On how people buy well often before you have babies as then (and 30 years ago) it is easier to borrow if you don't have childcare costs. Secondly slumming it in shared houses whilst saving every penny, second jobs (I marked A level exams and all sorts in my weekends for years) and that kind of thing but certainly is not easy. 2 of my older children have bought in London in their 20s and it's not easy at all particularly if you want to be further in than we are.

www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/first-time-buyers-definition-of-london-increasingly-loose-20150724100413

In would say if you are living in London you have a London postcode e, w, n, se, sw etc postcode

Living in a London borough but not having a London post code is not living in London you are living in a borough of London but in Surrey, Essex and so on

It felt good to write down a London postcode as my address again after a few years of living in a borough of London that was not real London and also when you sell a property the postcode matters