To think DD isn’t earning enough to live alone in London?

[Sunnydaysp]

DD is 27 and earns £65k a year. She currently has a long commute in to London for work each day but following her recent divorce and sale of their home, she wants to move to London for a fresh start. She has no DC, so is looking at one bed flats which appear to be around £1,500-£2,000 a month in rent, not to mention all of the bills on top too. I appreciate that DD earns a very good wage for her age, however, I’m concerned that she will be stretching herself too far by attempting to live alone and paying an extortionate amount in rent rather than house sharing, which seems to be the norm for most young professionals. She seems to think she can easily afford it, but DD has never lived alone and doesn’t really seem to appreciate the cost of living, as ex husband always managed the household outgoings etc. AIBU in thinking that DD will be stretched in attempting to live alone on her salary in London with the rental amounts described?

At 27 she must be sick to the back teeth of other people trying to control her choices. She has never lived alone so I assume from home to uni sharing to marriage. Ex husband in charge of household finances and now she has shoot of him mummy wants to dictate what is best for her.

Leave her be. She is a fully functioning adult of 27 who must have a responsible job if she earns £65k so is more than capable of making her own life choices.

I live in zone 3 and have 2 DC and between me and DH we take home £4K a month. I can only dream of a 65k salary and DH is on less than me. We have a mortgage so that's £1300 pm and we get by. She's got no kids and a great salary and will save on commuting costs. I would definitely want to live by myself in London in her situation. I live in East London. Wanstead/Leytonstone both great areas and zone 3/4 and I commute to the city every day. My commute is so much better than my colleagues who live out Essex/Kent way. I love it here.

At that age I'd never pay that much in rent. It's totally wasted money.
When I was in my 20's I lived in horrendous dives until I had enough money to buy my own home.

Well, a couple of years ago, when we first bought our house, DS was earning about £10k more. He was supporting me and two children and doing a £4.5k commute into London. We weren’t exactly well-off in terms of disposable income, but we weren’t broke either. I think she could have a very nice in that, without dependents.

But the daughter won't have enough to buy in an area with that lifestyle, I don't see the big deal about renting & enjoying yourself for a few yrs when young.

the crime rates around there are awful. Is Glasshouse Gardens Street dangerous?

In 2019, 1291 crimes were reported near Glasshouse Gardens . Only 2% of streets in the UK are more dangerous. This street can be considered very dangerous. The most common type of crime was theft from the person. Crime rate was measured within a 0.5 mile radius of E20 1HW.

Crime statistics are based on data provided by Home Office through data.police.uk under the Open Government Licence.

streetscan.co.uk/postcode/e20-1hw

This is hilarious- DH and I earned that as a combined salary in London and rented a 1 bed. She'll be fine, and she's an adult capable of making her own choices.

I own a one bed flat in East London, in a new build block with a gym and concierge. I rent it out for £1300 a month (the gym is extra though, admittedly). It is right next to the tube and 20 mins to the City or Canary Wharf.

The council tax is £100 a month, nowhere near the £250 that someone quoted. Bills pretty cheap as it is energy-efficient.

She will have tons to spare if she’s bringing home £4k a month. After a divorce I would most definitely not want to be moving into a flatshare when I could afford a bit of solitude, independence and privacy, and a short commute for both work and going out is bliss. Her travel bills will be much less than before.

If she is only 27 she probably hasn’t hit the ceiling of her earnings yet either, unless Covid really messes things up.

Good luck to her!

I see that one of the flats she is looking at (Glasshouse Gardens St) is in the Olympic Park at Stratford right by Westfield. Personally, I would not like to live there - large bleak windswept spaces and not an area through which I'd like to walk home from the station after dark - it is a bit dodgy. There are lots of nicer places in East London to my mind, a tiny bit further out maybe - Leyton/Leytonstone/Walthamstow (very trendy these days) or even further in - Bow/Bethnal Green and surrounds as more people living there and probably more friendly though these are less affordable probably. She should have a good explore of all these areas herself to see where she feels she would like to live.

At 27 your daughter is an adult and quite capable of making these sorts of decisions on her own. If she makes a mistake then she has the opportunity to learn from it, this is how she will grow and adapt. I remember my first move to a far away city and a house share. The FIRST night that I was there the boyfriend of one of the other lodgers used one of my pans and left burnt on food on it for me to sort out the next morning. Sharing with others is no picnic and maybe she is clear in her mind on what she is prepared to compromise on. Personally I would be applauding that.

Maybe she is sick of the long commute? Maybe after getting shot of her ex she wants some space of her own for a while, rather than sharing a fridge and a sofa with random strangers?? She is talking about renting, not signing her future salary away permanently! She can always rethink after 6 months.

At 27 she is a grown woman with a good salary, seems like a perfectly sensible time to enjoy life in the city and get used to managing your own money.

where is her work based? she needs to start from where the best transport link are to her place of work. Stay away from ex council rentals
in large estates.

27 is absolutely not "very young" to be living alone!! She doesn't need to live in a houseshare on £65k, they're for students; she'll be fine.

Good grief. I was divorced in my late 20s and managed to buy a flat and live in it alone. I had almost no money spare each month but I managed OK. I'd have been horrified if my mother had wanted to tell me what I could afford to do and what I couldn't

Your daughter is almost 30 years old!! and she earns a very good salary. Let he make her own financial decisions

God let her enjoy herself. She has come out of a miserable marriage and she wants to have fun. She’s a big girl. If she finds she can’t afford it she gives notice on the flat and moves on, big deal.

She'll save loads on her monthly season ticket. Council tax is pretty low in London boroughs compared to the rest of the country.
And there is loads to do for free.
£65k is comfortable to live in London paying 1500 for a one bed flat and still be able to save. Unless she has whopping existing debts.

I was living in London five years ago as a teacher on 30k. My rent was £600 per month. She can definitely find cheaper and that sounds like a perfectly fine salary for London, plenty of people on a lot less.

I also agree that it's a strangely British attitude that your housing has to be tied to a (highly leveraged and poorly hedged) investment. Renting isn't wasting money any more than a mortgage is wasting money (since you're giving it away to the bank each month in interest). You can't guarantee the house will increase in value - especially without being prepared to hold it for at least five years, you have no liquidity on your investment, you have the responsibility of upkeek and managing problems all of which might not appeal to someone who is more interested in enjoying herself while she's young.

If she wants to she can always invest in a tracker fund that's tied to the housing market (if you're so convinced the housing market is a good investment) or she can invest in some other deposit guaranteed product that's likely to have a better return anyway (especially when you take into account stamp duty, solicitor's fees etc).

Did she not gain some assets from the sale of the marital home ie enough for a deposit on a house/flat to buy?

On that salary she should be buying, it has never been a better time, extremely low 5 yr fixes..
At 27 she may well meet someone in the next few years and want to start a family, she really should be thinking about her longer term financial security....
But she really should be making these decisions alone as she has been an adult for 9 years!

primrose Hill, fabulous place live, Regents park on your doorstep, Camden down the road, half an hour walk to Oxford Circus.www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-91550588.html

As PPs have pointed out, there are times when renting is indeed the right thing to do. At 28, high earned with no D.C., renting provides a good and flexible lifestyle.

Enjoy.

Is this just a way to humble brag? £65k is a massive summary, more than the combined income of many families.

And it's pretty standard for a flat in London to be £1-2k. Decent house shares start at £800-900pcm.

@lalafafa those stats are ridiculous. yes London has crime. Where I lived in London for 20 years, according to that website, it's one of the most dangerous places in Britain! 0.5% of streets are more dangerous apparently!

The crime I personally experienced in 20 years? None. Except for a man who used to shake the parking meter everyday in the hope of getting a 20p out of it.