Sure. I used to commute from Zone 2 to Zone 2, and it took over an hour. Had I instead moved out of the city, and commuted in from Reading, it would have been 45 minutes. Don't assume that commuting in from outside of London will take longer than commuting across London.
I'm next to straight underground line going right to my office.
'Just go to Reading' was exactly my point. In order to save enough for a basic housing in London, my quality of life have to drop significantly for years to come. Yet I'm considered to be 'rich' by HMRC. (Practically, this'd mean switching schools for one of my children, and waiting forever for free timeslots in nearby nurseries for another - while saving maybe extra £5-6k/y in rent, which is peanuts when counting towards possible mortgage).
Avg. house prices in my current ward are ~$750-900k for a 3bd terrace. That's ten years of my net income - and you don't have to work for that! Just sell a house you bought 15 years ago for a fraction of this cost - and here you go. Sure, you'd have to rent - just as I do. Yet, all those people are not considered to be wealthy (and they aren't, with many of them struggling with today's job market), and not taxed on the wealth they hold.
So, for me - it's all about taxation and government imposed incentives. If they want to put a leash on a younger britons generation and then pass it to Chinese landlords - they're on the right track.
Changing taxation alone can drastically shift the power balance between landlords and tenants to ease underlying supply-demand issue.
peteretep|11 years ago
srgvd|11 years ago
'Just go to Reading' was exactly my point. In order to save enough for a basic housing in London, my quality of life have to drop significantly for years to come. Yet I'm considered to be 'rich' by HMRC. (Practically, this'd mean switching schools for one of my children, and waiting forever for free timeslots in nearby nurseries for another - while saving maybe extra £5-6k/y in rent, which is peanuts when counting towards possible mortgage).
Avg. house prices in my current ward are ~$750-900k for a 3bd terrace. That's ten years of my net income - and you don't have to work for that! Just sell a house you bought 15 years ago for a fraction of this cost - and here you go. Sure, you'd have to rent - just as I do. Yet, all those people are not considered to be wealthy (and they aren't, with many of them struggling with today's job market), and not taxed on the wealth they hold.
So, for me - it's all about taxation and government imposed incentives. If they want to put a leash on a younger britons generation and then pass it to Chinese landlords - they're on the right track.
Changing taxation alone can drastically shift the power balance between landlords and tenants to ease underlying supply-demand issue.