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The cost of living in the south east

Was in Spain last week for my missus' birthday (and beer sampling). Got speaking to a retired guy who lived on his own, in a one bedroom apartment & he pays €300 a month, which includes his council tax, water, electricity & gas bills.

Based on the current, rather low, exchange rate, His yearly outgoing on rent & bills stands at £3360. Pre-Brexit, the figure would have been around £2700. Whereas the South East of our country, that figure would be around £18,000

Now granted, he has the misfortune of living closer to Barna than the average person would like to, but on the plus side, his local does a pint of Estrella and a packet of Golden Wonder Bacon Bites for €1.30
When I was living out in Alicante for 6 months I was paying €190 a month for a large room with a balcony in a shared flat in the town centre with all bills paid. Came back to uni here living in Bath and was paying almost that much for a week with no bills included and London is even worse.
 
It's been a a few days since I checked up on this thread. Great to see so many differing views.

For the record. I got married last year and with a lot of help from family we managed to get a shared ownership 3 bed house through the key worker scheme.

We had to move from Benfleet to Basildon on the craylands redevelopment. But we now own 25% Of that property With the potential to staircase to 100%. We still had to put 10k deposit and also 4k in fees but now have a mortgage and rent to pay, but the two combined equate to less per month than the rent on our two bedroom rented flat.

We have a 3 bedroom family home which is our for life if we choose.

Of course we didn't want to move to basildon but this has given us a chance to get on the property ladder.

I've seen posts that young people can save up etc but you can only do that if your living at home. I moved out at 17 so the option to save etc was effectively taken away. When you pay rent in this area you effectively take away your ability to save.

If you work in the public sector ie the NHS and you rent you better keep playing the lottery.

We are very very lucky to have support financially from family.

Fingers crossed the government may finally give nurses a pay rise in the budget tomorrow.
 
It's hard going for those that are first time buyers. Living at home a lot longer than we did means that money can be saved, but as OBL said, they need to prioritise and if going out every weekend on the lash is their priority, then they will never save. If they really wanted to save, they would. There are some low wage earners but there are plenty of 23/24 years old on 30k a year if not more and a couple on 60k a year can afford a 2 bed property in the Southend area.


There are of course those among us that own more than one house as they bought when houses were more affordable. They rent out their properties for a hefty fee, sometimes as much as a mortgage would be on the property. They could always reduce their rents to help the younger generation if they were that bothered about the younger generation being able to afford accommodation but why should they?

Surely if you're earning a fair salary then you should expect that you can save for a deposit while also having a social life and holidays etc. For many people that isn't the case, and I don't think the answer is to tell people to spend the whole of their twenties living at home with their parents and only going to work and back and nothing else. Sadly that's the reality for many people who want to get onto the property ladder, and it seems a completely unfair expectation of young people.
 
Surely if you're earning a fair salary then you should expect that you can save for a deposit while also having a social life and holidays etc. For many people that isn't the case, and I don't think the answer is to tell people to spend the whole of their twenties living at home with their parents and only going to work and back and nothing else. Sadly that's the reality for many people who want to get onto the property ladder, and it seems a completely unfair expectation of young people.

Oh I don't disagree with you. We all want to go out and have fun, especially when in our twenties. You are right, unless you are earning good money, it's going to be difficult. I guess there is a balance to be had between saving and spending. If you can save some and have fun, it may take longer but you will get there in the end. The tough side is if you don't have a well paid job.
 
It's been a a few days since I checked up on this thread. Great to see so many differing views.

For the record. I got married last year and with a lot of help from family we managed to get a shared ownership 3 bed house through the key worker scheme.

We had to move from Benfleet to Basildon on the craylands redevelopment. But we now own 25% Of that property With the potential to staircase to 100%. We still had to put 10k deposit and also 4k in fees but now have a mortgage and rent to pay, but the two combined equate to less per month than the rent on our two bedroom rented flat.

We have a 3 bedroom family home which is our for life if we choose.

Of course we didn't want to move to basildon but this has given us a chance to get on the property ladder.

I've seen posts that young people can save up etc but you can only do that if your living at home. I moved out at 17 so the option to save etc was effectively taken away. When you pay rent in this area you effectively take away your ability to save.

If you work in the public sector ie the NHS and you rent you better keep playing the lottery.

We are very very lucky to have support financially from family.

Fingers crossed the government may finally give nurses a pay rise in the budget tomorrow.


Grew up on Craylands from the age of 7 to when I left home. They are putting some nice houses together there now and getting rid of some of the god awful maisonettes. I watched them pull down the houses opposite and adjacent to my parents house as well as the street that went to the shops and the shops. Although it was a run down area, it was my run down area and to see all the buildings around my parents house being pulled down took away all those memories growing up. I used to have a wander from time to time and think about what we got up to but now it's all been pulled down and new houses built, I can't even picture where things were
 
Surely if you're earning a fair salary then you should expect that you can save for a deposit while also having a social life and holidays etc. For many people that isn't the case, and I don't think the answer is to tell people to spend the whole of their twenties living at home with their parents and only going to work and back and nothing else. Sadly that's the reality for many people who want to get onto the property ladder, and it seems a completely unfair expectation of young people.

You forgot about paying off the student loans too!
My daughter who had to pay to do her nurse training is just about getting to start paying that off (earnings must be over £25k) so how the hell she will buy anywhere, ever................AND have a family etc.
 
You forgot about paying off the student loans too!
My daughter who had to pay to do her nurse training is just about getting to start paying that off (earnings must be over £25k) so how the hell she will buy anywhere, ever................AND have a family etc.

It's incredibly tough.

My advice would be to try the key worker schemes. You can get shared ownership apartments at a 25% share and move in to a new home for as little as 5k. It's not perfect but it beats renting. When you get more financially stable you can buy a larger share our move on.

Without this scheme we would not be in a brand new house.

There are however plenty of people that won't be eligible for such a scheme and are essentially locked in the rent trap.
 
Grew up on Craylands from the age of 7 to when I left home. They are putting some nice houses together there now and getting rid of some of the god awful maisonettes. I watched them pull down the houses opposite and adjacent to my parents house as well as the street that went to the shops and the shops. Although it was a run down area, it was my run down area and to see all the buildings around my parents house being pulled down took away all those memories growing up. I used to have a wander from time to time and think about what we got up to but now it's all been pulled down and new houses built, I can't even picture where things were

I'm pretty sure I was told when we moved in that my house sits directly where the shop was previously.

I was unfamiliar with the area, but my understanding is that most if not all of those in older properties were offered new homes. I could be wrong.
 
You forgot about paying off the student loans too!
My daughter who had to pay to do her nurse training is just about getting to start paying that off (earnings must be over £25k) so how the hell she will buy anywhere, ever................AND have a family etc.

Has the percentage gone up with the increase in earnings to start paying? When I qualified we had to start paying at 21000 (i think) but it was pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things. Have to say though as an NHS worker who was renting wasn't easy to save.
 
Has the percentage gone up with the increase in earnings to start paying? When I qualified we had to start paying at 21000 (i think) but it was pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things. Have to say though as an NHS worker who was renting wasn't easy to save.

Yep and the budget announcement today hasn't help NHS workers....again!

Sadly I can see the unions push for strikes at some point. That doesn't really help anyone and pushes and already struggling system to breaking point.
 
Two contrasting case studies to not really prove anything:
I turn 33 in January, and earn just under 30k doing policy work for a charity.
My mrs has chronic fatigue syndrome and earns under 10k as a temp teaching assistant working 5 mornings a week.
We'd both love to move out to essex (I'm from Basildon and she's from Nottingham) but the work has to be there.
I've looked at moving on to other types of work but my experience and my age means I'm stuck because everything I am qualified to do is in or around SW1.

we both put the maximum every month in to help to buy ISAs but it is nothing compared to the cost of actually buying a place.

I've lived in the area in Lewisham where we live for 15 years and we love it here but we're going to have to move. Currently we have our eyes on Dagenham in 2019, but that's if prices don't sky rocket there.

Basically, saying people should save doesn't cut it for me. Saving 200-500 a month like i do is a lot for me but nothing in terms of actually getting anywhere.

We build more, build up, we build out and we need to talk about numbers coming in
 
I see the government are going to be building 300k new homes per year. That's never going to happen.

Also property prices will continue to soar due to lack of property and lack of first time buyers will continue to drive up the rents of greedy landlords.

It's a poor situation and won't change anytime soon.
 
I see the government are going to be building 300k new homes per year. That's never going to happen.

Also property prices will continue to soar due to lack of property and lack of first time buyers will continue to drive up the rents of greedy landlords.

It's a poor situation and won't change anytime soon.

I believe that's supposed to be by 2025.Otherwise, I absolutely agree with what you say.Indeed, that 300K target will probably never be met.

Let's face it the UK housing market is broken.

Things won't change until local councils are allowed to borrow more (at the current near record, low rates of interest) and build much more social housing.
 
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