Anyone from London but can’t afford it anymore?

[pinkpurpleiris]

My heart breaks every day because of this.

I’m from London and spent the first 30 years of my life there. All my family and friends live there and I would love to live there too, but I’ve accepted that I just can’t afford it.

We wanted to get on the property ladder and have bought a nice little house in Northern England (moved here for DH’s work) but the most we could have afforded in London was a small flat and we want to try for a family soon so we decided to take the plunge and move.

I know London isn’t perfect and living there can be hard, but I miss the buzz so much. I miss being able to see family and friends without jumping on a 4 hour long train and then having to spend weekends staying at other’s houses.

Does anyone else feel this? It feels so sad to not be able to live in my home city.

That's so sad- it's such an expensive place and you make so many sacrifices living here.

I'm the same, London born and bred and in my early 30s. I settled for the flat as i couldn't face moving out. Luckily we have high salaries so could stretch to a 2 bed in zone 3, we have a baby too. It's not ideal but for us it is worth the sacrifice and DPs job would be much lower paid out of London, plus we get childcare from our parents here. It was a tough choice though.

Thank you for sharing your experience! You’re right, there definitely is no perfect solution. I have the nice family house and garden, but no friends or family close by and I’m wondering if we made the wrong choice.

What’s do you envisage your next step being, or are you just planning to wait and see what happens? I’m quite tempted to move back.

I doubt I'd ever be happy outside of London, having lived outside temporarily for uni and a few jobs so I felt I needed to prioritise living here over a garden for my DS or an extra bedroom in the short term.

However we are very lucky that DH has high earning potential so we will likely be able to buy a larger flat or massionette with a garden in the future.

I'm not sure what we'd do if we wernt that position, perhaps at a push would consider moving to another major city or even abroad but would be so sad to leave London.

In my opinion life's too short not to live where you are happy and around family and friends and I would move back but everyone's in different positions.