To question whether northerners are actually poorer than southerners ?

[Naegriafowlia]

As we know a lot of northerners seem to think all southerners are living like the Russian Romanov family pre murder and funds from the south should be directed up north because they are apparently so much poorer than us.

But is this even true? If you can buy a family home up there for 100k or less and the same size home costs 300-400k on average in the south. You already have a lot more disposable income. I know they say they get paid less, but Tesco (for example) pays the same every where and has branches everywhere. I know they also say there’s no good jobs there but where there’s people there’s schools and hospitals so you want us to believe there’s no teachers and doctors?

I know someone will say “move there then” personally I won’t be moving anywhere anytime soon as I started my family young (first born a few months after GCSEs) and my kids are all really settled in school and with friends.
Based on what I’ve heard from northerners they are more welcoming to people from countries on the other side of the planet than they are their fellow countrymen from 100 miles to the south.

This comment from you:

“So you're saying most families wouldn't want to live in such a house, so it's not a very useful argument?”

In response to me saying any house listed for 100k in London is up for auction. You didn’t seem to understand they can’t actually live there for that price because it’s not the actual price.

You then say say cheap houses in the north have two bedrooms and are in deprived corners as if that’s comparable to a house up for auction that you can’t actually buy for the listed price anyway

Who, OP? Who are "they" who think this? Where on earth are you getting your information from? My experience of northerners is that many of them think they wouldn't want to move down south because it's so expensive. Where on earth are you getting all this nonsense about welcoming people from countries on the other side of the planet and viewing southerners as posh? You sound like you've been reading tabloid type news articles and taking these as gospel truth tbh.

No, I’ve not said anything about city bankers.

Those house prices pretty much mirror the house prices in my village near an average market town in Yorkshire. I don't know anyone with the attitudes you seem to think Northerners have.

Well, the three to four bed proviso was added after the original post I think but you can buy a 3 bed doer-upper for £150 000 acc to Rightmove. But yes agreed, one of the more affluent areas.

None of which are particularly well paid. It’s interesting you think northerners are prejudiced and unwelcoming of southerners, you seem to have quite strong beliefs yourself which I don’t seem a lot of evidence for!

Have you ever come up North, OP?

I stand corrected. Apologies.

You can buy a house for 50k in some places of the north east

you would be mad to do so

you can buy 3 bed houses in the south for under 150k too

on average prices are higher in the south

because on average people pay the extra

which they can’t do on average further north because on average the money isn’t there

I wouldn’t pay much attention to anyone who says ‘all’ of a certain group are ‘xyz’. It’s as stupid as the idiots who say all Muslims are terrorists. Most normal, sensible people know any given group will have a wide spectrum of attributes or situations within it.

So ignore or avoid people who you have heard say it and move on with your day.

Lol. Straw manning and caviling all in one! Impressive.

I imagine that depends on whether you class a teacher or a nurse as a 'good job.' I myself left teaching as I was fed up of waiting for people to retire before a promotion opportunity came up. I haven't been able to match it since salary wise and it annoys me greatly that all the 'good jobs' suited to my skill set are in London. I could hardly uproot two school age children especially since their father and I are now divorced and he would remain in the North. I could have had a different life completely if my parents had remained in the home counties (which is where I was born.)

Really?

OP has already established "family home" is 3 beds.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/91074813

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/91586940

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/175006403

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/92584878

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/89933763

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/165219230

There's a good lot more as well.

But these are not the most highly paid jobs such as you get in The City.

Straw manning when it’s a quote from you. You don’t seem capable of reading back the conversation between you and me. I’m not going to bother engaging with you further tbh like a brick wall

A doctor is highly paid, a teacher is decently paid as is a nurse.
These are hardly rubbish jobs and proof that only the south has good jobs.

99% of southerners are not city bankers or magic circle lawyers

How is it ‘bonkers’ to point out houses are cheaper up north while (eg) civil service or public servant salaries stay the same?

I agree, OP. I think some Northerners dine out on their ‘oh I’m poor and salt of the earth, me, two fingers up to the South’ image though so no telling them…

Cornwall is one of the most deprived places in the UK. The South West is full of impoverished towns with no transport connections and few prospects. And the south east is just hideously expensive so unless you’re a millionaire it’s going to be tough. Up north though - loads of cities close together, cheaper housing, better infrastructure. 🤷‍♀️

It does amuse me how some people from the south talk about the north, like it’s some semi-mythical parallel universe.

It was the same when Andy Burnham became prime minister - you’d think he was a Martian or some unknowable being from an alternate reality the way some people were going on.

"Still, pick almost any measure and you will, by and large,* *find the North doing worse. Earnings are a prime example. The average annual gross salary last year was £32,000 in the South, excluding London (which distorts the data). In the North, it was £30,414. Once London is included, the average Southern salary rises to almost £35,000.
You might think that this gap would be evened out by housing and commuting costs. In fact, Southerners have up to £8,000 extra in disposable income after tax, Telegraph analysis of Office for National Statistics data shows."
This is from a Telegraph article, August 2026.

I wouldn't like the weather it snows from November until May

I think it’s the other way round. Like Southerners are all millionaires with no authenticity or humour. And ‘so unfriendly’ apparently.

Depending on what you mean by family size home(?), no you can’t buy one in lots of parts of the North for £100k. In my area you might get a tiny, rundown terrace for around that but it’s not the kind of house you could raise a family in really and you’d need to have quite a bit saved up to do it up at that price!

The North is so vast, it’s not quite as simple as ‘the North is really cheap’

Are you actually ok op? You’re very defensive and aggressive

Agree completely.

I was born in an unfashionable former-industrial Northern town. You’d struggle to get anything much for £100k, let alone a “family home” of the type the OP means.

You could get a run-down two bed Victorian terrace that needs a lot of work, in a poor area, or a studio flat. That’s about it.