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'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

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Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#51

Post by jon-wood »

rjaco31 wrote: post #19
SandB0x wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living in London is insane and it is a really interesting thought experiment. A lot of my friends are moving out of the city and I can't see myself staying here more than another year or two. But for some context, West Hampstead is a fairly nice suburb on three different train and tube lines. The rent for a one-bed flat is high as they are bid up by couples who are both earning. You are at a big disadvant…

How can rail transport be that expensive? (I'm genuinely asking)

You'd be even more incredulous if you had to ride on a London bound commuter train every morning. If you're lucky you'll get to stand in a space large enough that you don't have to stick your head in someone's armpit. If you're incredibly lucky, or get on at one of the first stops on the line, you might even get a seat.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#52

Post by mseebach »

zo1 wrote: post #38
crdoconnor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That you see yourself as being one of the "original" residents doesn't give you some inherent right to below-market-prices in property. It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. I'll come back to London when they start taxing the wealthy again. Until then I'll wa…

" (which they often leave empty) " [Citation Required] Genuinely curious.

There certainly exists properties (even, anecdotally, entire streets) in London that serve as wealth-deposit-assets for rich foreigners of questionable repute. Many of these are left empty as the owners aren't in the "landlord business" and merely want to hold a liquid asset (an occupied house isn't as liquid as an unoccupied one).

There is also a story about the saudi royal family buying up a strip of houses on Bishop's Avenue (the most expensive street in London, despite being somewhat suburban) sometime in the 80s or 90s as a bolt hole, but IIRC recently disposed of.

It's clear that this produces some pressure on the housing supply in London, but nowhere near enough to account for the sheer numerical pressure (some ~800k housing units required by 2021 and the rate of new builds is way, way off that target).

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#53

Post by willyt »

3princip wrote: post #33
chrisseaton wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"even with the handsome salaries senior devs earn" People working at Google etc think they're paid handsomely, but in reality in London they are paid a fraction compared to what you can get in the financial sector. This article and the comments here talk about software developers and graphic designers, and the reality is there's a whole community above you earning much more. That's who's able to buy the houses.

That's what I suspect, but it's crazy. The average salary in London is £27k, a senior dev will earn 3x that (I'm guessing). And that's still barely enough to live comfortably. I guess that's the point of the campaign in the linked article, but I can't see how that will change, unless the financial bubble bursts.

I think £27k is the UK average or the southeast average? I thought the london average was closer to £60k? I can't find a source for that though.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#54

Post by doc_holliday »

Well, all bubbles burst and things always change. Give it another financial crisis, housing crash or big change in UK housing policy (unlikely to happen before a crash) and London might calm down again.

During the 80s, people couldn't leave the place quick enough.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#55

Post by dropit_sphere »

mseebach wrote: post #39
CalRobert wrote: post #8

It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. The community may require housing, but the homeowner has an interest in seeing housing prices go up forever. It's similar to this ridiculous notion that expensive housing is a good thing. We give absurd tax breaks to homeowners (why can't I deduct the lost interest on my rent?), and people lament falling…

> It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. > landed incumbents voting to screw over the young That pesky "democracy" and "giving everybody a voice" getting in the way of what I want right now . (oh, and a small nitpick: Homeowners don't have conflict of interest, they simply have a different interest which may conflict with yours)

Count enough heads and the Right Thing will be found? Democracy is the null hypothesis, not Truth.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#56

Post by crdoconnor »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #40
jstanley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. It's not about putting anyone's rights "above" anyone else's -- whoever is willing to pay the most gets the property, that's all there is to it.

So you are putting the rights of people with more money above those with less money. It's not a natural law that this is the case, it's still a political decision.

It's many political decisions, including, but not limited to:

* Perpetual QE

* Ultra low taxes on property (council tax)

* Rules that allow foreigners to buy property and not be taxed at all if they declare themselves non-resident.

* Rules that allow tax evaders in foreign countries to stash their wealth here unimpeded.

* Lower taxes on capital (dividends, capital gains) than labour (salaries).

* A reluctance to build social housing in London.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#57

Post by srgvd »

Single earner with 2 kids living in London on top-1 percentile income here. 60% of that monthly income is going towards rent, taxes and utilities for a terrace in Zone 4, plus nursery charges for our toddler. My wife can't find a job here, as she's an ex-journalist, and not a native speaker. No tax allowances (due to £100k+/y income) and no recurse to public funds (I'm on Visa, and not an EU citizen) doesn't help either. Apparently, I supposed to be rich enough for London to be taxable on 50% of my income (effective tax rate: 41%).

Thought of buying a 2bd flat recently, but it'll take us two years of struggling for every extra penny to just get a mortgage for a very moderate £250k place.

Income means nothing in this city. Either you got your housing issue settled 15 years ago using 'right to buy' or some other form of government housing subsidies, or you somehow generate wealth on a side (obviously, not through the salary, as even £200k/y doesn't seems to be close enough), or you are going to rent until you loose your source of income (i.e. due to old age) - and then you'd probably die on a street.

An economy of landlords drawing the money from their own kids. In a few decades all that accumulated wealth will be probably burned away on anti-cancer treatments, and then heavily taxed and rented younger generation will just quit on trying to build a welfare state, throwing their lives away only to provide a comfort living for older people. Hope our grand-kids will be at least able to start from blank.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#58

Post by joosters »

The billboard's impact is weakened by the fact that almost half of the messages are about people 'planning' to relocate outside of London.

So the situation is bad yet they still haven't left? That kind of implies that there are still advantages to living there and they haven't outweighed the disadvantages. Why didn't the billboard creators just stick to people who have moved away? Their actions would speak louder than the words of those who may just like to moan!

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#59

Post by peteretep »

crdoconnor wrote: post #27
peteretep wrote: post #20

I also left London recently, although I moved due to the weather. For every 29-year-old graphic designer who moves to Cambridge to buy a family home, there's a 22-year-old who's just started their career who's willing to live in a bedsit in Wood Green (as, coincidentally, I did at 17, trying to break in to the big city). You're meant to get older, and move out of the city. Circle of (urban) life. Give it 50 years, an…

>That you see yourself as being one of the "original" residents doesn't give you some inherent right to below-market-prices in property. It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property (which they often leave empty) above those of the working and middle classes of London. I'll come back to London when they start taxing the wealthy again. Until then I'll wa…

    > It speaks volumes that you implicitly put the rights of
    > Russian oligarchs and Arab oil barons to buy property
    > (which they often leave empty) above those of the
    > working and middle classes of London.
Sure. But if we'd been having this conversation 20 years ago, it'd have been the rights of the Yuppies above the East End families, and then 200 years ago, it would have been those wealthy landed gentry pushing out the good hard working Hugenots, and so on and so forth and you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago.

I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? Because right now, blaming a handful of immigrants who are buying multimillion pound properties that almost no-one else can afford smacks of racism.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#60

Post by camillomiller »

tensorproduct wrote: post #49

I have sort of a different experience. I just moved to London, from Dublin, a few months ago. I make a good, but not outrageous, salary: pretty close to a reported average for software developers in London. I live in a somewhat rundown area, just outside zone 1. The rent is expensive, but not unmanageable. I have flatmates; the area feels safe; its close enough to bus and tube lines that getting around is simple. I l…

How old are you? You mention that you have flatmates, but not everybody wants to live in a shared apartment far into their thirties, especially if you would like to find a place for you and your partner. The problem is that housing in London looks like a commodity that big sharks trade like many other long-term investment commodities. Problem is, that's the places where people would actually like to live that you're trading like it was crude oil barrels. How is that even barely sustainable for a city in the long term? Not limiting that by rules of law is a big mistake, but no politicians would be ever called into account for that.
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