Poor people being priced out

[veggifriedbreakfast]

I live in East London and need to move, I currently rent a 2 bedroom flat. But, looking around now, for a 2 bedroom the minimal is £1400 a month up to £2000 for a 2 bed!!!

It seems to me that what is happening is that actually poor people are being priced out of London. I lived in Stratford and had to move out of there due to the market going up and now where I am again it's happening. How can people on lesser incomes afford this? I am now looking to having to uproot ds again and move even further out because of this. Aibu in thinking that this is a part of forcing the poorer people out of London?

This makes me sick to read. I live in a big city up North and I pay £600 a month for a 2 bed flat, right across from a huge park in a lovely converted Victorian building.

That would get you a 4 bed with a garden here. I can't comprehend how ordinary people can afford a decent quality of life in London. Public sector salaries are higher but not substantially so.

we rented a 1 bedroom ground floor flat in walthamstow for 4 years, during which time the rent increased from £900 to £1350. extremely luckily my parents then helped us buy a much nicer flat in zone 4 and our monthly mortgage cost is now half what our rent was. i look back & wonder how we used to afford it!

What are council tax bills like in the south?

What are council tax bills like in the south

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11962411/The-highest-and-lowest-council-tax-bills.html

Couple of years old but the lowest council tax bills in England were in 5 of the most affluent London boroughs

Details by borough and band here: https://www.kfh.co.uk/london/council-tax

Can't speak for anything outside London though

Council tax is very variable in London. Some councils spend money hand over fist and others are very careful and it's low. Mine is about 3200 a year - top band although I just got at 25% discount off that as my adult son moved out so it is 25% less than that - but that is for a big house in the top most band which is not what most people live in.

On renting in London one of my off spring is looking at present and they said this morning how noticeable it was this time how all the agents are calling and calling very very keen to find tenants. I suspect there are fewer people because rents are high and rents are dropping a bit.

I am paying nearly double council tax in SE than I paid in London, but I moved from 1 bed flat to 3 bed house so I guess that is to be expected.

I pay £105pcm and that includes single persons discount.

One problem is swathes of amateur landlords who just assume you put your prices up every year, especially if they have sizeable mortgages on places, which you shouldn't be doing unless you've done a load of work to the home recently and the tenant is getting some improvement in return

Or the government change the goal posts and say you cant put mortgage payments against tax.

In trying to stop BTL all that seems to be happening is getting rents to rise.

I have a 4 bed detached in 1/4 acre with 1 bedroom unit in North London and pay less than £600 per month on the mortgage.

There are variable rates in London mainly depending on what your borough is like.

Camden and Westminster have huge amounts of business rates and so their Council Tax rates are far lower.

Brent, Barnet, Harringay don't have anywhere near as many businesess or commercial outlets so their council tax rates are higher than average.

..and East Hampshire (Tories obvilously) is so efficient it is planning to abolish council tax entirely - well done them www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-could-cut-tax-to-zero-says-local-council-chief-0960ccdpp

East Hampshire, ahh with its population of 115,600.

The allegation that other councils are inefficient because they can't compete with areas of low population with low population densities, and on average higher levels of income is again, disingenuous and ideologically based.

until recently I lived in Tory prototype LBH&F (though it went over to Labour last election).
The Cons so proudly boasted about how residents council tax went down every year. Of course many many services were cut. Services that were mostly used by the poorer and more vulnerable in the community. Similar to RBK&C there is a huge disparity between the rich and the poor in the borough and we all know too well how that is working out for LBK&C.

Yes that's a very good point.

Didn't RBKC send the wealthiest households rebates on their council tax?

yes and they paid it just weeks before local elections

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/19/kensington-chelsea-council-has-274m-in-reserves-grenfell-tower-budget-surplus

I would rather services were cut and council tax reduced as would many people and that services be provided more efficiently.

and THAT thinking is how we ended up with the Grenfell disaster!!

"I would rather services were cut and council tax reduced as would many people and that services be provided more efficiently."

Funny that only people who can afford private services think this.

The efficiency argument is proved incorrect when you look at private sector firms that provide public services, they lower cost and service quality to make bigger profits, and then eventually fail.

The private sector is no bastion of efficiency, look at the banking crisis and many other examples.

Efficiency is just something that you hide behind in order to disguise your greed.

Put another way, free markets and low taxation are only argued for by those who benefit from it.

But they don't really want free markets, they want regulation, legislation and government intervention when it suits them, but not when it benefits others. Seeking to maximise the benefits of society for themselves, whilst keeping the majority of the benefits too.

Its an easy argument to dismiss.

However the issue is that Labour has not had power since 2010 so it is going to have to convince people like I am (not its existing Labour supporters) . I like discussing things with people of different political viewpoints. It helps us all understand each other -and what we are up against.

It's not just London. There are plenty of places outside of London where local people get priced out of the area they grew up in. I know, I was one of those people! All those saying move up North, are just shifting the problem. There is always someone somewhere that will get displaced.

I don't think anyone would convince you to vote another way Xenia

BTW The Conservatives may be in power yet they have no mandate, they have only outright won one election since 1992, I wouldn't hold them as examples of electoral success.

Your arguments are turning inside on themselves, Topcat.

Of course the current model of outsourcing is completely corrupt and inefficient, because it's heavily regulated and the incumbent friend of whomever will always have a hand in shaping the regulation, and so there are major barriers to entry - i.e. it's not a free market.

Do you think that free marketeers don't despair over this shite?

Mind you, a fully nationalised NHS is absolutely no better.

"a fully nationalised NHS is absolutely no better."

The NHS is not fully nationalised, and according to the Commnwealth fund it ""The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access and efficiency,"

Free markets don't exist, and they never will do because all markets have some form of intervention, the free marketeers never seem to admit that because it suits them to ignore it.

If the current model of outsourcing is inefficient, how do you explain the other multiple private sector crises over time?

The NHS is not fully nationalised, and according to the Commnwealth fund it ""The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access and efficiency,"

People pick and chose which report to use to back up there stance on the NHS, but in general we are not the highest scoring on quality or efficiency (usually around the top 5) and are consistently near the bottom for outcome which is a pretty big factor.

The NHS is not the envy of the world.