question to UK foreigners

heres my tourist thread kjust in case My link

some good advices there

i've walked so much that i falled asleep on the ground one of two hours after the party started, see what london does

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:03 PM, Obel said:

Mate, I've got a lovely room in a house share for £380 pcm. Shit's crazy, if you look in the right places you can get good prices.

Where you paying that? We currently rent out the single for 350pcm, but we're putting it up to 400 next month (that's my flat share, I don't own the house but act as agent).

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:25 PM, KY said:

The rent is a bit surprising to me—£600-800 for a room in London?

Highly variable, but for a 'nice' room in a 'nice' area, that's not far off. You're looking at about a minimum of £1,000 for a half way decent one bed. A side effect of immigration, amongst other things. One of the ironies of living in the UK, and obviously this is speaking in very broad generalisations, is that the conservative older generation have benefited massively from immigration through higher house prices and having their pension pyramid propped up, whereas the younger more liberal generation have been completely shafted by ridiculous house prices, rent and lower wages. UK Government policy is essentially dictated by keeping our housing bubble inflated at all costs (yes it still hasn't burst all through the recession).

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:28 PM, kakapo said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:03 PM, Obel said:

Mate, I've got a lovely room in a house share for £380 pcm. Shit's crazy, if you look in the right places you can get good prices.

 

Where you paying that? We currently rent out the single for 350pcm, but we're putting it up to 400 next month (that's my flat share, I don't own the house but act as agent).

 

Westcliff, just outside Southend central. It's a nice enough area (for Southend anyway), I'm literally a three minute walk from the station, it's one of the most reliable train lines in Europe that quickly gets into London and the house is lovely. Lucked out really!

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:47 PM, Obel said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:28 PM, kakapo said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:03 PM, Obel said:

Mate, I've got a lovely room in a house share for £380 pcm. Shit's crazy, if you look in the right places you can get good prices.

 

Where you paying that? We currently rent out the single for 350pcm, but we're putting it up to 400 next month (that's my flat share, I don't own the house but act as agent).

 

 

Westcliff, just outside Southend central. It's a nice enough area (for Southend anyway), I'm literally a three minute walk from the station, it's one of the most reliable train lines in Europe that quickly gets into London and the house is

lovely. Lucked out really!

westcliffe isn't london though :shrugs: I'm well aware you can get better deals outside london! if you want to live within the london postcodes in a reasonable area and have a half decent room you should budget £600 minimum.

I think you can pay £400-500 for a room in the some areas, I've seen them in places like Dalston, Elephant & Castle, New Cross etc, they aren't amazing locations but central enough and you can buy beer and chicken round the clock and have a fight whenever you feel like it.

  On 4/19/2011 at 11:02 AM, BCM said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:47 PM, Obel said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:28 PM, kakapo said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:03 PM, Obel said:

Mate, I've got a lovely room in a house share for £380 pcm. Shit's crazy, if you look in the right places you can get good prices.

 

Where you paying that? We currently rent out the single for 350pcm, but we're putting it up to 400 next month (that's my flat share, I don't own the house but act as agent).

 

 

Westcliff, just outside Southend central. It's a nice enough area (for Southend anyway), I'm literally a three minute walk from the station, it's one of the most reliable train lines in Europe that quickly gets into London and the house is

lovely. Lucked out really!

 

westcliffe isn't london though :shrugs: I'm well aware you can get better deals outside london! if you want to live within the london postcodes in a reasonable area and have a half decent room you should budget £600 minimum.

My point is why live in London when you can live in a nicer area for cheaper.

  On 4/19/2011 at 1:16 PM, Obel said:

  On 4/19/2011 at 11:02 AM, BCM said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:47 PM, Obel said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 10:28 PM, kakapo said:

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:03 PM, Obel said:

Mate, I've got a lovely room in a house share for £380 pcm. Shit's crazy, if you look in the right places you can get good prices.

 

Where you paying that? We currently rent out the single for 350pcm, but we're putting it up to 400 next month (that's my flat share, I don't own the house but act as agent).

 

 

Westcliff, just outside Southend central. It's a nice enough area (for Southend anyway), I'm literally a three minute walk from the station, it's one of the most reliable train lines in Europe that quickly gets into London and the house is

lovely. Lucked out really!

 

westcliffe isn't london though :shrugs: I'm well aware you can get better deals outside london! if you want to live within the london postcodes in a reasonable area and have a half decent room you should budget £600 minimum.

 

My point is why live in London when you can live in a nicer area for cheaper.

All depends on your lifestyle I suppose...

A lot of it is to do with transportation. I'm ten minutes walk away from national rail, jubilee line, central line and DLR which gives you loads of options for getting around the city. I like knowing I can drag myself to work in 45 minutes if I wake up with a terrible hangover, and that I'm never normally more than 2 busses away from my front door at any time of the night. And I suppose I simply like the pace of city life - having grown up in a fairly small town I enjoy in the bustle and busyness of living in an urban environment.

  On 4/19/2011 at 1:39 PM, Iain C said:

 

All depends on your lifestyle I suppose...

 

A lot of it is to do with transportation. I'm ten minutes walk away from national rail, jubilee line, central line and DLR which gives you loads of options for getting around the city. I like knowing I can drag myself to work in 45 minutes if I wake up with a terrible hangover, and that I'm never normally more than 2 busses away from my front door at any time of the night. And I suppose I simply like the pace of city life - having grown up in a fairly small town I enjoy in the bustle and busyness of living in an urban environment.

You can still get good connections into the city from just outside. I'm 40 miles out of London but it takes me about an hour to get into work from where I am, where I previously lived I was 16 miles out and it took the same amount of time.

I'm the same in terms of growing up in a small town, just wouldn't want to live in the city. Mostly because of how expensive it is and how miserable everyone is.

  On 4/18/2011 at 9:36 PM, karmakramer said:

someone take me under your UK wing so i can see the aphex twins and start a new exploration of Europe and its people/places

:shuriken:

the cost of travelling into London daily plus rent (even if it's cheaper) would make living too far out of London uneconomical. absolute furthest out that is practical for me is zone 5. how much is a monthly season ticket from westcliffe?

  On 4/19/2011 at 2:36 PM, BCM said:

the cost of travelling into London daily plus rent (even if it's cheaper) would make living too far out of London uneconomical. absolute furthest out that is practical for me is zone 5. how much is a monthly season ticket from westcliffe?

Yeah, I see your point. It's £273

how can anyone afford london? you must have good paying jobs

It's all about the Boris bikes. Save yourself tons on inner city travel. Save yourself some time too.

  On 4/19/2011 at 2:54 PM, marf said:

how can anyone afford london? you must have good paying jobs

No, we just stick everything on credit cards so when a financial 'crisis' comes along we can be berated and patronised by politicians for our profligacy and blackmailed into handing over even more money to the pricks.

I live credit card-free... but I do tend to skim the bottom of my overdraft quite a lot. If I lost my job I'd be utterly screwed as I haven't much in the way of savings. I'm working on that, though.

Yeah, I've just set up a savings account. Set up a Gold ISA with Barclays (my current account is with HSBC), they really wanted (as in seriously asking me 10 or 11 times) to move my current account to them, but I wanted the bank seperation so I'll be less likely to dip into my savings. It's worked like a charm so far, whack 200 in there every month, plus whatever is left from the previous month, which so far is zero but I've had a few expensive months.

No credit card either, going to get one though but I'll cut it up so I don't use it and it improves my credit rating.

i've got no credit card, zero savings and I max out my overdraft every month lol. I earn about £32k which is clearly not enough....I think things start to get much easier in terms of living in london once you get past the £50k mark.

  On 4/19/2011 at 3:54 PM, BCM said:

i've got no credit card, zero savings and I max out my overdraft every month lol. I earn about £32k which is clearly not enough....I think things start to get much easier in terms of living in london once you get past the £50k mark.

Fucking hell man, I earn £22K!

i spend far too much on weed, booze, synthesizers and lunch.

I meant credit card more in a metonymic than literal sense.

yeah, i am generally in debt :(

this is why i want to go nowhere near london, im happy paying 300 quid a month rent for a nice flat in a nice area of a more (supposedly) rubbish city.

  On 4/19/2011 at 3:47 PM, Obel said:

 

 

No credit card either, going to get one though but I'll cut it up so I don't use it and it improves my credit rating.

You have to use your credit card to improve your credit rating....

  On 4/20/2011 at 1:49 AM, messiaen said:

this is why i want to go nowhere near london, im happy paying 300 quid a month rent for a nice flat in a nice area of a more (supposedly) rubbish city.

You're in Glasgow, right? I don't think it's a rubbish city. It might even be my second choice if I had to flee London. Unlike 99% of this godforsaken little country, it's actually got some kind of culture.

And you can get buckie there.

thats why i say supposedly, im having a wail of a time.