5 ms·

> I'm one of those who is in the middle and work; I rent in an up-and-coming area (i.e. people look down on it until they come here) and rent is going up 8 time

by cjrp 13y ago

> I'm one of those who is in the middle and work; I rent in an up-and-coming area (i.e. people look down on it until they come here) and rent is going up 8 times salary. We are already at rent being 30% of combined salary. Ditto (Brixton). Flats in my area are already at the £350k (2 bed) mark, with landlords upping their rent accordingly (having bought the flat for < £200k 9yrs ago). My solution is moving further South (Surrey) near a good train line which gets you into Victoria/London Bridge in 30 mins. The rent on a flat/house out there is ~50% of what it is in London, not to mention cheaper council tax/insurance/etc.

vidarh 13y ago
I'm near East Croydon - you can get 2 bed houses in the ~200k range, and 3 bed houses with a garden in the 250k-300k range, and with rents to match. 15 min to Victoria 18-20 min to London Bridge, which frankly means that despite being zone 5 it's still faster to get to the centre than in a lot of places in zone 2/3. Less desirable areas of Croydon are cheaper (on the opposite end of the spectrum, you can buy 6-8 bedroom mansions in the 800k-1.5m range, still a steal compared to central London) The price pressure is so high in central London because so many people can afford it, and prefer to pay out ludicrous amounts rather than even consider moving further out - it's the opposite of the trend cited in the article: The prices are skyrocketing not because outsiders use it as investments, but because the demand make the properties a good investment. The outsiders buying explains the high purchase prices in the centre, the demand explains the pressure on rental prices.
- CmonDev 13y ago
  I don't want to be mean, but isn't Croydon a generally undesirable area?
  - collyw 13y ago
    The whole of London is an undesirable area in my opinion. Expensive, busy, polluted, full of unfriendly people. Many people love it however.
    - cjrp 13y ago
      I'm right there with you having lived here for 3 years. It seems like you have to be single to enjoy living in London. I just find it crowded, expensive and rammed with traffic!
    - lucaspiller 13y ago
      > The whole of London is an undesirable area in my opinion Agreed. I think OP was more referring to crime. Ok maybe Chelsea vs Croydon is a bit different, but compared to any of the surrounding areas e.g. Wimbledon and Clapham, it isn't much different. (I was in South Wimbledon - close to Mitcham and Tooting - for 2 years)
      - vidarh 13y ago
        You might be surprised. In the year to date, Kensington & Chelsea have had about 12 crimes per 100 people according to the Met. Croydon have had about 6 crimes per 100 people. K&C does come out better if you look at certain subsets of serious crime, but Croydon is consistently in the "better half" of London Boroughs in terms of crime, often doing very well. Most of the worst boroughs in London in terms of crime are the inner-city boroughs, regardless of wealth (Westminster in particular is a crime ridden hellhole if you look at the raw numbers by population, due largely to the amount of business and nightlife and low number of people living there; but Croydon city centre suffers from some of the same effect, dragging the overall crime rate for the borough up, even though the totals for the borough still remain better than average for London).
        CmonDev 13y ago
        I guess it makes more sense to rob richer people.
  - cjrp 13y ago
    There are still areas that area (as with any town), but on the whole I think it's increasingly seen as an option for young professionals working in London who don't want to live there.
  - alextingle 13y ago
    Greater London is generally quite homogeneous. Good areas and bad areas are often cheek by jowl. One end of a street can be quite nice, while the other end is much poorer. Obviously there are better & worse areas, but even there there's lots of variability. So just like everywhere else, Croyden has lots of good, lots of bad, and lots and lots of in-between.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Amongst people who have never visited, yes. Which is presumably one of the reasons it is still so cheap. The central business district also still suffers from ugly office blocks, as the town centre was bombed out during the war largely due to the proximity to the RAF base at Croydon Airport (which used to be London's main airport until Heathrow - it's been closed since the end of the 50's) and the factories at Purley Way, and most of the rebuilding resulting in massive amounts of large, ugly concrete office buildings mainly used by the home office initially. As I mentioned, it's below the London average when it comes to crime, quite a bit above the London average in terms of salaries. A lot of good schools, including a handful of expensive high end private schools. There are a few run down areas though the worst are "hidden away" far outside the main town centre, but also quite a few upscale areas, including Purley (in South Croydon), which is consistently one of the wealthiest post-codes in the UK due to a large number of very spacious estates (we're talking houses that can hardly be seen from the gate facing out to to private roads, forming adorable little seemingly old but entirely fake vestiges of old country villages) dotted around a leafy and generally nice little town centre. Most of Croydon, though, is covered by mostly firmly middle class neighbourhoods and parks. Lots and lots of parks (120 of them), some of them very substantial. There's of course also the central shopping area, which is one of the largest in England, with two massive shopping centres (which look to be refurbished and combined into one centre as part of a join venture that includes the Westfield operators). Some of the best public transport in London (central choke-point on main lines from Victoria and London Bridge to the South Coast, as well as the tram system). Part of the reputation problem is probably because most visitors at most see the central business district (which as mentioned still looks ugly), at most, including TV footage of Luna House (immigration processing for the Home Office), and don't even realise that most of the much nicer looking small towns and villages surrounding Croydon town centre are also part of the borough. The last 5 years or so, we've also had a massive increase in building of upscale housing (highrises with 1m+ penthouses etc...) - they're in the process of putting up another high end 50 floor highrise in the city centre - and upgrades to the town centre, with more underway, so soon it'll even look nice.
    - CmonDev 13y ago
      I've been there, it seemed quite culturally-diverse. Didn't a lot of the riot happen there with the building burned down etc.?
CmonDev 13y ago
"My solution is moving further South (Surrey) near a good train line which gets you into Victoria/London Bridge in 30 mins." The sum of your rental and travel expenditure will probably stay constant though? Train fares are quite hight.
- cjrp 13y ago
  Nope, my Oyster travelcard (zones 1-2) is £116/m, the season ticket is £164/m. Just the drop in car/home insurance and council tax makes that up, let alone the £500+ drop in rent!
  - vidarh 13y ago
    And the other thing worth noting for people considering this: If you have any way of avoiding zone 1 (if you work near the border to zone 2, and it's viable for you to take a bus, walk or cycle the last bit, for example), zone one makes up for an atrocious amount of the travelcard price in London - getting a travel card that excludes zone 1 can be a major saving.

by cjrp 13y ago

vidarh 13y ago

I'm near East Croydon - you can get 2 bed houses in the ~200k range, and 3 bed houses with a garden in the 250k-300k range, and with rents to match. 15 min to Victoria 18-20 min to London Bridge, which frankly means that despite being zone 5 it's still faster to get to the centre than in a lot of places in zone 2/3. Less desirable areas of Croydon are cheaper (on the opposite end of the spectrum, you can buy 6-8 bedroom mansions in the 800k-1.5m range, still a steal compared to central London) The price pressure is so high in central London because so many people can afford it, and prefer to pay out ludicrous amounts rather than even consider moving further out - it's the opposite of the trend cited in the article: The prices are skyrocketing not because outsiders use it as investments, but because the demand make the properties a good investment. The outsiders buying explains the high purchase prices in the centre, the demand explains the pressure on rental prices.

CmonDev 13y ago
I don't want to be mean, but isn't Croydon a generally undesirable area?
- collyw 13y ago
  The whole of London is an undesirable area in my opinion. Expensive, busy, polluted, full of unfriendly people. Many people love it however.
  - cjrp 13y ago
    I'm right there with you having lived here for 3 years. It seems like you have to be single to enjoy living in London. I just find it crowded, expensive and rammed with traffic!
  - lucaspiller 13y ago
    > The whole of London is an undesirable area in my opinion Agreed. I think OP was more referring to crime. Ok maybe Chelsea vs Croydon is a bit different, but compared to any of the surrounding areas e.g. Wimbledon and Clapham, it isn't much different. (I was in South Wimbledon - close to Mitcham and Tooting - for 2 years)
    - vidarh 13y ago
      You might be surprised. In the year to date, Kensington & Chelsea have had about 12 crimes per 100 people according to the Met. Croydon have had about 6 crimes per 100 people. K&C does come out better if you look at certain subsets of serious crime, but Croydon is consistently in the "better half" of London Boroughs in terms of crime, often doing very well. Most of the worst boroughs in London in terms of crime are the inner-city boroughs, regardless of wealth (Westminster in particular is a crime ridden hellhole if you look at the raw numbers by population, due largely to the amount of business and nightlife and low number of people living there; but Croydon city centre suffers from some of the same effect, dragging the overall crime rate for the borough up, even though the totals for the borough still remain better than average for London).
      - CmonDev 13y ago
        I guess it makes more sense to rob richer people.
- cjrp 13y ago
  There are still areas that area (as with any town), but on the whole I think it's increasingly seen as an option for young professionals working in London who don't want to live there.
- alextingle 13y ago
  Greater London is generally quite homogeneous. Good areas and bad areas are often cheek by jowl. One end of a street can be quite nice, while the other end is much poorer. Obviously there are better & worse areas, but even there there's lots of variability. So just like everywhere else, Croyden has lots of good, lots of bad, and lots and lots of in-between.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Amongst people who have never visited, yes. Which is presumably one of the reasons it is still so cheap. The central business district also still suffers from ugly office blocks, as the town centre was bombed out during the war largely due to the proximity to the RAF base at Croydon Airport (which used to be London's main airport until Heathrow - it's been closed since the end of the 50's) and the factories at Purley Way, and most of the rebuilding resulting in massive amounts of large, ugly concrete office buildings mainly used by the home office initially. As I mentioned, it's below the London average when it comes to crime, quite a bit above the London average in terms of salaries. A lot of good schools, including a handful of expensive high end private schools. There are a few run down areas though the worst are "hidden away" far outside the main town centre, but also quite a few upscale areas, including Purley (in South Croydon), which is consistently one of the wealthiest post-codes in the UK due to a large number of very spacious estates (we're talking houses that can hardly be seen from the gate facing out to to private roads, forming adorable little seemingly old but entirely fake vestiges of old country villages) dotted around a leafy and generally nice little town centre. Most of Croydon, though, is covered by mostly firmly middle class neighbourhoods and parks. Lots and lots of parks (120 of them), some of them very substantial. There's of course also the central shopping area, which is one of the largest in England, with two massive shopping centres (which look to be refurbished and combined into one centre as part of a join venture that includes the Westfield operators). Some of the best public transport in London (central choke-point on main lines from Victoria and London Bridge to the South Coast, as well as the tram system). Part of the reputation problem is probably because most visitors at most see the central business district (which as mentioned still looks ugly), at most, including TV footage of Luna House (immigration processing for the Home Office), and don't even realise that most of the much nicer looking small towns and villages surrounding Croydon town centre are also part of the borough. The last 5 years or so, we've also had a massive increase in building of upscale housing (highrises with 1m+ penthouses etc...) - they're in the process of putting up another high end 50 floor highrise in the city centre - and upgrades to the town centre, with more underway, so soon it'll even look nice.
  - CmonDev 13y ago
    I've been there, it seemed quite culturally-diverse. Didn't a lot of the riot happen there with the building burned down etc.?

CmonDev 13y ago

"My solution is moving further South (Surrey) near a good train line which gets you into Victoria/London Bridge in 30 mins." The sum of your rental and travel expenditure will probably stay constant though? Train fares are quite hight.

cjrp 13y ago
Nope, my Oyster travelcard (zones 1-2) is £116/m, the season ticket is £164/m. Just the drop in car/home insurance and council tax makes that up, let alone the £500+ drop in rent!
- vidarh 13y ago
  And the other thing worth noting for people considering this: If you have any way of avoiding zone 1 (if you work near the border to zone 2, and it's viable for you to take a bus, walk or cycle the last bit, for example), zone one makes up for an atrocious amount of the travelcard price in London - getting a travel card that excludes zone 1 can be a major saving.