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The figures aren't quite honest: the UK prices are extravagantly high for mortgage anywhere apart from London, which is one of the world's most expensive cities
by bonaldi 18y ago
The figures aren't quite honest: the UK prices are extravagantly high for mortgage anywhere apart from London, which is one of the world's most expensive cities. Elsewhere in the country you can expect to pay c. £700 or less, which brings the yearly total down to £15k -- well below the travelling costs.
- chromoose 18y agoLikewise it isn't really honest to look at UK mortgage repayments versus rest-of-the-world renting costs.
- iuguy 18y agoI agree. I live less than an hour from london and my mortgage is in the £900s. Renting in the same area would be about £700-£800 mth here.
- sdragon 18y agoI don't get this. I live in London, on the edge of zone 1-2; renting a room. Expenses: 510 pounds / month for rent including utilities; 300 pound for food (granted, I haven't really upgraded my lifestyle ever since college -I simply don't feel the need.). So this comes to 800 pounds + occasional funtime = 1K -still below what they've calculated for most places. Are they really that bad at negotiation?
- swombat 18y agoI think they're looking at the costs for 2 people, and also they've clearly pointed out that they're living fairly comfortably.
- catz 18y agoMaybe. His figures for South Africa is fairly high. Although rent differs from place to place, 680 pounds/month is on the tad expensive side (I pay 200 pounds per month for a 50 sq meter flat). Although he lived in cape town which makes it more expensive. What is expensive however is renting a car (especially in season). The problem is that public transport is virtually non existent. He left another thing out: medical aid. It is essential that you have a medical aid so that you get taken to a private hospital. This can be 140 pounds per month.
- loc_independent 18y agoAuthor of the article here - as the post states, the mortgage figures include other items too, not just the mortgage. The figures include: Council tax, contents insurance, buildings insurance, all utility bills (including phone/internet & mobile phones), TV licence etc. etc. We recently came back to the UK for a few months and had to go through all this setting up of bills etc. again and were shocked at how much all the extras add up, which you just don't get when you live overseas in furnished rental apartments. I think many people would be shocked if they added up all these extra little bits too.
- iuguy 18y agoIf you don't mind me asking, where in the UK were you came back? Also it sounds like you were buying somewhere, not renting. A furnished rental apartment shouldn't require buildings insurance, contents should either be part of the rent or not at all (as the landlord is required to insure their equipment by law - but not yours - you'd do that separately but you'd certainly have to do that anywhere else I've been), a TV licence is optional - you only need it to watch live TV and all the major channels have on-demand Internet equivalents that are perfectly fine unlike other countries you may have been (we're looking at ditching the licence when the Digital TV switch kicks in). I'm surprised you're putting phone, internet and mobile phone in there - unless you're flatsharing I'm not aware of anyone that would include those as part of the rent, especially mobile phones? I guess my point is that it's not a like for like comparison to compare your rental costs in one country with mortgage + all inclusive of everything, even secondaries in another. Rather than defending it, and I appreciate it's a PITA to do what I'd suggest and may contradict what you're trying to achieve, I'd like to suggest that you write a followup comparing like for like costs with their equivalents and provide explicit examples alongside the benefits and drawbacks of each - e.g. being near the beach at Cape Town versus being near the beach at Blackpool.