Can’t believe how much rent costs

[cmusun]

When I moved to London in the mid/late 90s I paid £600 a month for a two bed garden flat in Zone 2. I earnt £1500 a month as a consultant and paid £300 for my room.

DD is now moving to London for a much sought after grad job in consulting. Her take home will be about £2,300 a month. Rents for a room in Clapham areas are easily £1000 a month for a room!

How on earth does anyone save for a deposit?

Move out further? Or live with more people to cut the cost. Yes it’s very depressing

£1k is a lot for a room but she’ll have £1300 left for food and saving. Are bills included in the rent? If so then she’ll be able to save a good chunk every month.

Why Clapham? There are cheaper places.
But yes, it's impossible and unfair.

Clapham is one of the most sought after areas for 20 somethings who aren't from London to life in. That pushes up the rent considerably. She should be able to get a room in a shared flat for £500 - £600 a month if she looks further afield.

Shared flat or staying at home is the only way to save anything.

Sure there are plenty of areas other than Clapham… that was just an example. Her friend is paying £900 in Greenwich!

£500 seems far too low for what we’ve seen on spareroom.

If she is partly WFH then she can move further out. It is £400pm for a room a few train stops from a main London station like Waterloo or Kings Cross.

Are they nice/decent areas? 😊

Yes! My DD is currently looking around Shepard's bush with her bf and it's around £1K each!

Yes you can pay less by living further out. Most areas will be fairly safe. But she might be missing out on a bit of the “young and single in London” experience if she has a 60-90 minute commute home every night, and isn’t living near her friends and peers.

Balham/Tooting is a good compromise if Clapham is too expensive. Only a few stops further down the Northern Line, lots of young university grads.

But the numbers are grim aren’t they OP. Compared to your day her post-tax salary is only 50% higher, for what sounds like a very similar job, but rent has gone up 200%.

I think you're dreaming! Even a room in a shared house somewhere horrid and far out like Edmonton, Dagenham or Croydon is more like £750+.

£1000 per month for Clapham does not surprise me one bit.

Yes, nice areas. Safer than London too. These are places just outside of London, in Surrey or Kent etc it is train then tube to get in to work.

Shared flat..But I hear you. It's awful..Most I know are staying at home or their parents are topping them up.

She's already sharing according to the op.

It’s hard especially now, I remember when I was at University in Birmingham my school friend rented a flat in Clapham and what glorious times they were. Hers was just off the High street.

London is expensive. That’s why so many commuters wrk in London but love in areas of Essex etc. she could rent in a nice HMO with private en-suite in somewhere like Chelmsford and commute from there for about £600

Ja, we got this too. DD is student, her monthly rent (2 bed flat, zone 3/4 North London) is now about £1200. Bargain, in fact !!

Yes, you are right. Don't know how I missed that. My DS paying around similar for one room. He is moving back in with us next year.

I lived in London for six years and moved away very recently. For a time I lived in a nice zone 2/3 house and my rent was only £550 a month!!
The catch was the slugs living in the corner of my room and the damp that made my pillows mouldy and the house itself sag, plus a creepy landlord. Nonetheless I stayed for two years so I could save money and because the area was relatively safe and nice.
In my experience, you might be able to get cheaper in London as PP has said but look very very carefully at the state of the room and the area too - of course you'll get crime everywhere, but some areas are definitely worse. There's no sense in getting a 'bargain' but then hating your life there because of the state of room and or location.
Best of luck to your daughter, it's a great city and perhaps she'll experience it for a year or two then move to focus on saving x

Ridiculous to complain about the cost of renting in Clapham. It is the fancy place in London for the maaaaate yahs to live after uni so of course it’s the most expensive.

Try Peckham, Borough, even Bethnal Green. Further east. Still “nice”, still full of 20 something professionals etc.

It’s so unfair. Rent has doubled in the last 10-15 years. It’s unsustainable.

Its also unrealistic to expect a 20 something to move out to Surrey or Kent and commute in to London; firstly the cost of a 60-90 minute overground train every day would be punishing but also, that’s no life for a single youngster who is looking to make friends and build a life in the city they’re working in.

Also if you’re working late (as she inevitably will be if going into consulting) then the overground trains start to become infrequent.

I have no idea how young people make it work in London now; and remote working is pretty miserable if you’re just stuck in a room in a house share. Where’s the social life and camaraderie of the office ?

There are cheaper places.

My DS is in a shared house in Bethnal Green.
Cycle/tube to work and very central. A bit cheaper.

Bethnal Green is actually really nice - there are lots of new grads living there and he runs regularly in Victoria park,

We were out there the other night. Walked into what looked like a slightly dodgy pub from the outside which was like the Tardis. Fancy furniture, artisan ales, wood fired pizza, stuffed to the gunnels with 20 something grads who queued in a line to be served at the bar 😂😂😂

Clapham was too expensive for me as a young professional in the early mid-90s. We went to Balham instead, and then Earlsfield. So I'm not surprised at those prices now!

You normally get a little more for your money in South East. Try Surrey Quays, Brockley and Forest Hill.