4 ms·

The rent seems insanely low, it's hard to find a single-room apartment for that price in a medium-size city. By 1919 you have most of the utilities we expect to

The rent seems insanely low, it's hard to find a single-room apartment for that price in a medium-size city. By 1919 you have most of the utilities we expect to have in an apartment, so that doesnt seem to be a factor. Is there some factor not mentioned in the article, or have rents just gone up more than other things?

mattlondon 5y ago
Lower demand perhaps - e.g. the maid is living with you so they don't need their own place to live.
- dmurray 5y ago
  It's a four-bedroom apartment for one childless couple, so this particular case doesn't support the idea that there was less demand. And the population of London is within 20% of what it was.
  - mattlondon 5y ago
    I don't follow your point. The less demand is that the maid lives in the place they work, so do not need their own property to live in. The article seemed to suggest that having live-in staff was common compared to car ownership etc, so I would imagine there were a lot of adults living in their places of work, thus not needing to rent their own apartments etc so reducing demand.
roel_v 5y ago
Do you mean water, electricity etc? Because in 1919 those were not universal (not sure about how 'common' they were in London, but in much of Western Europe they weren't even that), and heating would have been done through coal too, I presume. No double glazing or any other insulation really, wooden stairs and wooden beams between floors, no hot water taps, ... 'Living' (as in, living in a house) back then was vastly worse than it is now. Just over the last 10 years, the required (as in, required by building codes) comfort levels of houses (in Western Europe) have gone up so much that they add at least 20% to the cost of building, not counting inflation. (source: am a part time real estate developer).
- shadowofneptune 5y ago
  Ok, that does help. Yes, I had been thinking of London as having the best available at the time, the most up-do-date. I didn't consider the impact building codes have.

mattlondon 5y ago

Lower demand perhaps - e.g. the maid is living with you so they don't need their own place to live.

dmurray 5y ago
It's a four-bedroom apartment for one childless couple, so this particular case doesn't support the idea that there was less demand. And the population of London is within 20% of what it was.
- mattlondon 5y ago
  I don't follow your point. The less demand is that the maid lives in the place they work, so do not need their own property to live in. The article seemed to suggest that having live-in staff was common compared to car ownership etc, so I would imagine there were a lot of adults living in their places of work, thus not needing to rent their own apartments etc so reducing demand.

roel_v 5y ago

Do you mean water, electricity etc? Because in 1919 those were not universal (not sure about how 'common' they were in London, but in much of Western Europe they weren't even that), and heating would have been done through coal too, I presume. No double glazing or any other insulation really, wooden stairs and wooden beams between floors, no hot water taps, ... 'Living' (as in, living in a house) back then was vastly worse than it is now. Just over the last 10 years, the required (as in, required by building codes) comfort levels of houses (in Western Europe) have gone up so much that they add at least 20% to the cost of building, not counting inflation. (source: am a part time real estate developer).

shadowofneptune 5y ago
Ok, that does help. Yes, I had been thinking of London as having the best available at the time, the most up-do-date. I didn't consider the impact building codes have.