How do people with normal jobs manage to live in London?

[doodab]

Oh I don't know 8 trains an hour to central London in under half an hour.
I could sell up and buy a small house in Chelsea, but it wouldn't be detached and have a nice big garden with two apple trees.
And you'd have to cope with the masses who descend on King's Road every weekend.
If i'm sat in garden at the weekend I could be in the countryside for all I hear.
So I think I've got the best of both worlds.

From Wimbledon we have a train every three or four minutes and it takes just under 20 minutes to get into Waterloo. We have the tube as well. It's a practical and pleasant place to live, but it isn't Central London.

Re your other point I'm not sure the overlap is "fairly slim" as you claim. I think many people cashed in and moved out, you're right about that, but there are plenty of people living in London on median wages who like it and find it affordable because their mortgages aren't that great - I know quite a few.

Yes, but they bought in 10 years or more ago and they aren't getting replaced if and when they move out. Younger people who got in a bit later are more or less forced to move out when it comes time to move somewhere larger.

I would also contend that, as I originally said, they aren't living in the nice parts of central London.

[Paddy]

A huge number of so called low wage workers living in London are on housing benefit. As from April-July this year, the housing benefit will be cut and many will not be able to afford to live in London. There will then be a surplus of London renal properties on the market.

[Ignis Fatuus]

How will that hold up in the future? The majority of jobs in London are low earning. From hotel and bar staff through to nurses and police people are not earning a wage that will fund buying property in London and rents are so high that they can not afford that either. The current generation may already have property but there is no guarantee that their children will fill the low level jobs of the future.
If the low paid can not afford to live in London then they will have to live outside and commute, but salaries do not pay enough for that either.
As someone said, this is a ticking bomb. At some stage in the future there will be no low level workers able or willing to live in or commute to London. What then.

Public sector workers will get Key Worker Accommodation. Hotel and bar work will go to people from poorer parts of the world, who are willing to live miserable lives on almost nothing (come to think of it, it already has).

[sasguru]

From Wimbledon we have a train every three or four minutes and it takes just under 20 minutes to get into Waterloo. We have the tube as well. It's a practical and pleasant place to live, but it isn't Central London.


.

Sounds nice. You must be throwing away a fortune in rent to some lucky landlord.

[doodab]

Sounds nice. You must be throwing away a fortune in rent to some lucky landlord.

Something like that. If only I'd had the good sense to self certify a mortgage on 5x earnings when I arrived in the smoke I'd be as rich as you now.

[Pondlife]

At some stage in the future there will be no low level workers able or willing to live in or commute to London. What then.

I've often wondered how this persists in Manhattan. Some of the world's most expensive real estate within half a mile of tenements.

[pjclarke]

Why would anyone want live in a city? It sends you psychotic.

Schizophrenia.com - Schizophrenia Cause, Urban vs. City

Explains so much ......

[Ignis Fatuus]

Sounds nice. You must be throwing away a fortune in rent to some lucky landlord.

Oh please, can we do away with this naive view that rent is "money down the drain" but mortgage repayments are an investment?

View 1: both are money that you pay in order to get something that you want. Is it really what you want, and is the price OK for it?

View 2: rent is money down the drain. Mortgage interest is also money down the drain.
Pay 600 interest and 400 capital, sometime later you will own a house; or pay 600 rent and save 400, sometime later you will have a lot of money saved.
Which one is a better deal is a worthwhile question. What is not useful is to pretend that one of the options is not worth anything.

[DodgyAgent]

From Wimbledon we have a train every three or four minutes and it takes just under 20 minutes to get into Waterloo. We have the tube as well. It's a practical and pleasant place to live, but it isn't Central London.



Yes, but they bought in 10 years or more ago and they aren't getting replaced if and when they move out. Younger people who got in a bit later are more or less forced to move out when it comes time to move somewhere larger.

I would also contend that, as I originally said, they aren't living in the nice parts of central London.

Wandsworth is a good place to stop for a p*ss between Wimbledon and Central London

[Arturo Bassick]

Pay 600 interest and 400 capital, sometime later you will own a house; or pay 600 rent and save 400, sometime later you will have a lot of money saved.
Which one is a better deal is a worthwhile question.

Your example assumes that you can rent a house that would have a 1K mortgage for 600.
What about the option where the mortgage is 1K and the rent on the same property is 1K.
The other way of looking is that over 25 years you will have paid a certain amount out. For the rented outlay you will own nothing, for the same outlay you could now own an asset worth (hopefully) more than you paid for it, but even if it is less you still have the asset.