How is London affordable now?

Soldato
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In a cowfield, London, UK
You joking? It's a **** hole. This happened at the bottom of my road, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaJqXtziMDg could see them from my window running around with machetes. It is a cesspit, over priced, overpopulated. Yes there are much worse places in the world, but i'll never understand why people give London so much, praise. I've been here for 28 years now and it is just getting worse and more expensive.

Just out of curiosity where are you in London? Says Kent in your profile, you're not one of those Kent/London border dwellers that likes to call themselves a Londoner are you?
Omg, another Wealdstone lad - never thought I'd see the day :o I was born and raised here and have seen the place run to the ground. My wife and I haven't a chance of buying a house round here so we'll need to possibly move out of London.
 
Soldato
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here
Reading this thread is a bit of an eye opener!

I've always liked visiting London and have a few friends there - but spending half of your wages on rent is something I couldn't do.

Can you progress your career up North?
I live in a relatively nice town with excellent road links (basically on the M58 and M6) and rent is £575 a month for a detached bungalow with a huge garden (and garage, driveway, conservatory etc).

Spending £1k a month or more on rent sounds so depressing for a 1 bed flat, here that'd get you a 5 bed detached!

I believe I know where you mean, as I used to live there as well. I paid £700 a month for a large 2 bed flat with 4m high ceilings and windows along the whole wall on one side. Train and road links to everywhere. It almost, almost, makes more financial sense to live there again and commute to London twice a week than living in London.
 
Soldato
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The problem with London isn't London....it's that there aren't enough other major centres in the UK so everything gravitates there, creating these tentacles of commuter routes driving up prices as people get priced further and further out. Not to mention the city itself pushing out low earners with gentrification.

Most other major countries have their economy much more spread out.
 
Soldato
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Most other major countries have their economy much more spread out.
Other countries also have far, far better train services and it's a lot cheaper too.

Everybody complains about the trains in this country, but can you imagine how much house prices and rents would decrease in London if the trains were faster and cheaper. There'd be no need to live on the tube network if you could get from commuter towns in half the time, without spending £5k/year to do so. I really do think the train companies have a lot of blame to be shouldered for the housing crisis.
 
Soldato
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Not here
The problem with London isn't London....it's that there aren't enough other major centres in the UK so everything gravitates there, creating these tentacles of commuter routes driving up prices as people get priced further and further out. Not to mention the city itself pushing out low earners with gentrification.

Most other major countries have their economy much more spread out.

That's the UK for you. If you want a high paid job "go to London", if you want this "go to London", if you want that "go to London". Doesn't help when all the major spending is spent on London, everything else out the M25 can burn and is a waste land. The UK government actually don't care for anything outside London, thats why we have such a big divide between the North and South.

Other countries such as Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain even the USA and Canada. All their spending and high paid jobs are not in their capital cities.
 
Soldato
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That's the UK for you. If you want a high paid job "go to London", if you want this "go to London", if you want that "go to London". Doesn't help when all the major spending is spent on London, everything else out the M25 can burn and is a waste land.

Other countries such as Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain even the USA and Canada. All their spending and high paid jobs are not in their capital cities.

Just speaking for Germany....it's not even about the capital. Cologne, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin. None of them is the economic centre of the country, they may have specialities like finance in Frankfurt etc but they are relatively small and compact cities that don't sprawl forever. You can live in a nice suburb or countryside and still have a 30 minute cheap commute.

Not to mention the company towns like Leverkusen, Wolfsburg etc where major corporations create their own communities.

But then I guess the UK doesn't have much in the way of home grown major corporations any more...
 
Soldato
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Just speaking for Germany....it's not even about the capital. Cologne, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin. None of them is the economic centre of the country, they may have specialities like finance in Frankfurt etc but they are relatively small and compact cities that don't sprawl forever. You can live in a nice suburb or countryside and still have a 30 minute cheap commute.

Not to mention the company towns like Leverkusen, Wolfsburg etc where major corporations create their own communities.

But then I guess the UK doesn't have much in the way of home grown major corporations any more...

Germany is one of the countries I will be looking at moving to in about 18 to 24 months time.

Here in the Midlands, nothing much is going on technology wise. There are plenty of technology projects coming up/going in Birmingham but many are funded by the EU...............so they could be at a loose end.
 
Soldato
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I visited our office in Frankfurt and my colleague there commuted from Cologne. I can't remember what he paid but it was a relatively small amount for a season ticket that included all trains across the country, for his family as well. I was gobsmacked. And the train only takes 1hr to do over 100 miles. Compare that to our trains that take about 1hr to do 50 miles into London :o (e.g. into Paddington)
 
Soldato
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The trains are quick and cheap, but not as reliable as the German stereotype would have you believe ;)

I live on a nice quiet tree-lined street a 5 minute walk from the office and 20 minutes from the river and altstadt. I've done living in London and commuting into it from Hampshire. No amount of money or amazing job would persuade me to go back to that rat-race.
 
Soldato
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These days I drink cheap. I buy a £7 bottle of vodka before I head out. I'm smashed for the whole night and don't buy any more drinks.

what I don't get is how London Transport can keep hiking prices well above inflation and peoples wage increases. Soon we wont be able to even afford to use public transport.

Same with amenities. They all hike prices but where is our wage growth.

The government should make sure that any prices hikes are in step with the average wage growth.
 
Soldato
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Not here
These days I drink cheap. I buy a £7 bottle of vodka before I head out. I'm smashed for the whole night and don't buy any more drinks.

what I don't get is how London Transport can keep hiking prices well above inflation and peoples wage increases. Soon we wont be able to even afford to use public transport.

Same with amenities. They all hike prices but where is our wage growth.

The government should make sure that any prices hikes are in step with the average wage growth.

Try living here in Birmingham! It costs more here than in London, at least the Mayor of London placed a price freeze on public transport. Up here it goes up every year by a few pounds and no one is there to stop the travel companies from doing it.

On top of that, we have a crap public transport system anyway.
 
Soldato
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For London City Airport you should look along the DLR line stations from Canning Town to Beckton. Not the nicest of areas but not the worst, lots of different price points between stops.

If you get a place by Canning Town, the station is on both the DLR and Jubilee lines, so really good access to central London/Bank/Camden/Canary Wharf/Stratford Westfield etc), London City airport is the other way about 15 mins by DLR.

The station 2 stops up from Canning Town is soon to be on the Crossrail, I think it's Prince Regent.

Just watch out for the cray cray McDonalds staff.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.da...ows-man-beaten-outside-London-McDonald-s.html
 
Caporegime
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Just speaking for Germany....it's not even about the capital. Cologne, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Berlin. None of them is the economic centre of the country, they may have specialities like finance in Frankfurt etc but they are relatively small and compact cities that don't sprawl forever. You can live in a nice suburb or countryside and still have a 30 minute cheap commute.

Not to mention the company towns like Leverkusen, Wolfsburg etc where major corporations create their own communities.

But then I guess the UK doesn't have much in the way of home grown major corporations any more...

Germany (and a lot of the "new world" for that matter) is a bit of an oddball though. It a federal state and up until relatively recently it was multiple seperate entities. The UK, and specifically England, has never really been that in any remotely modern era.
 
Soldato
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London
I'm lost as to how People live. I'm a doctor 4 years into the pay scale and take home 2.5k per month. If I did not have other funds I would be really struggling to get by. The system is broken and these property prices have killed everyone's quality of life.
 
Soldato
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21,453
I just won't go there.

I've been offered jobs there, I've been offered the option of jobs where I can commute down and stay at the companies expense there, I've been offered roles that they have said they are quite happy for me to drive down and only spend a couple of hours there.
They have all paid a ton more than I make now, and I've refused every one of them.

Nope nope nope.
 
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