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Living in London
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Just wondering if anybody has any idea on what sort of rates flats go for around London and where's relatively cheap to live? Is it possible to live in say... £20, 000? Or do you need to be totally loaded?
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Oh I was good at this when living in london, I was on a bit over K20 and lived alright was able to go out every (most) weekends.
I was living in Ruislip which was relitivly cheep I was working in Harrow which was a short journey.
The basic factors you have to ballence is journey time to work vs cost of accomodation, generally speaking the longer journety the cheeper.
However therera re a few shortcuts to this depending on where you work, eg Ruislip would be a good place if you worked in Baker St, that way metropolitan line straight there, If you were working in Liverpool St then Illford or Stratford, or even further out are cheeper, and has a fast train in so it can take you less time to get in then if you were fairly central.
Not sure where your working or what you want, look in Loot for flat share we were paying 750 a month for a 3 bedroom not bad.
If you have a few friends, getting a whole house/flat is one way to definitely get a better deal as you have more bargaining power (there are a hell of a lot of properties out there to rent, with too few people to fill them).
As a rule, the closer to the centre you live, the more you're likely to pay.
I'm currently in a houseshare (I moved into a room) and it's £1600/month + bills which we split equally 4 ways as £400/room. To rent a 2 bed flat around the Ealing area, you're looking at £1100-1200 a month. A 3 bed flat will be £1200-1400, and 4 beds around the £1600 mark... It ain't cheap, that's for sure - and this will take a large chunk of your monthly wage.
You can certainly live on £20k, just don't expect to live the "high life"... If you have any outstanding bank loans etc etc this will impact heavily on your quality of life and make things difficult for you down here.
I've lived in London over 3 years now, originally from up North, and it took some getting used to the prices (I was, and still am on well over £20k), especially if you're popping out for a sandwich at lunchtime! £3+ is the norm in central London, just for a butty.
Also, as the chap above mentioned, you'll have to carefully factor the distance travelled from home to work as the travel will probably cost you £100 a month...
G.
I've been lucky with (most) of the places i've lived. I'm in a lovely semi-detached cottage, about 100m from the canal (not even that far to be honest). Allotments over the way with little horse things (those mini ones), goats and a few other things. The street is really quiet, although some parts of Hanwell (such as the Broadway) are a little rough, and I have some really nice neighbours who look out for each other.
I also live with 3 superb people, all around the 30 mark (i'm 25), who have good jobs (immigration officer, personal trainer and a sales manager) and so it's not all waking up in the morning to find 15 people scattered through your house, cabbaged, not knowing if any of my gadgets will go missing when they finally sod off.
It's very easy to find a dive to live in, complete with dossers + travellers, but it's a few years since i'm past all that rubbish and it's nice to have a place I can properly call home. Can sometimes take a bit of trial and error to get this...
Aye.
I have now bought my own place in East London - and my mortgage is cheaper than what my share of the rent was, but now I have to pay the bills myself I do find it is more expensive.
However, as I earn 30K ish ... my mortgate + bills etc is not that much of a struggle atm.... :yippe: