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Comment by SCdF | Hacker News Reader

> The average cost of a flat in London is 500k

House prices are horrible in London yes, but for transparency that's central London.

Prices get better (but still terrible) if you go further out. I just started looking at houses and for 500k you cant take a 40 minute tube journey twice a day and get a three bedroom house. With a yard.

The average room price at The Hilton is high as well. The solution isn't to sleep on the streets, it's to stay in a cheaper hotel.

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> take a 40 minute tube journey twice a day

Having lived in London for a year and hearing daily talks about delayed and cancelled (not to mention full) trains from coworkers, this sounds dreamily optimistic, as if coming from a real estate agent. London property market, central or not, is horrible.

I used to travel from Bow to Westbourne Park and it wasn't that big an issue. Took 45-60 mins each way.

I wonder how much Crossrail will help with the commute and make distant properties more appealing.

Pro tip: live near the end of a tube line, get a seat every morning.

tbh it's not that much cheaper, I live in Zone 4 and there are new build properties going up starting from £390,000 for one bedroom.

...the OP sounds like he has a wife and child, so realistically a 2 bedroom is his minimum requirement, and that would probably get your close to that £500k figure.

I lived in airbnb for 4 months whilst waiting for purchase to complete, was considerably cheaper than renting (winter months)

Now live in Kent, 33 mins to London Bridge, 3 beds with a garden for almost half the cost of a flat in London...

How much is your monthly train pass? I had coworker in Watford beside the train station with an awesome 2 bed terraced house with a backyard for £1000/mo, but train tickets were upwards of £20/day.

Yeh it's £450 a month but that is worth the cost for me as my mortgage is that much less than renting.

How did you find that kind of deal on airbnb? I tried it myself during winter months in London, most airbnb properties don't give any discount or a fairly nominal one (e.g.: 10%) on multi-month rentals, so I found it much more expensive. I found eventually went with a serviced apartment.

About £1k a month on airbnb in the canary wharf area so not central, we were paying £1400 before + bills renting.

Yup, his one-bed flat prices are overblown due to being very central. I moved from Waterloo, Canada to London in 2013. First I was in a shared 4 bed flat in Whitechapel for £580/mo all inclusive. Next I found a one bed in Deptford right beside the DLR station for £900/mo. Later when the landlord wanted to sell that flat I found a 1 bed in Woolwich for £800. My office was beside Farringdon station, so my commute was always under an hour (one-way). I could been bike most of the time. I was doing well on £43k in the first year and £45k in the second as a single person.

So, if a person is supposed to sleep for 8 hours a day, and can manage to cut out of work after spending exactly 8 hours in the office, that 80 minutes of commute is about 17% of the bit of your life that you get to live.

Spend 17% of your life on that house, man.

You can do things on the train. Especially if it's a long ride. Like reading a book. It's not wasted time.

It might not be completely wasted but it certainly isn't quality time either.

If you have kids and a complex job a spot of time on the train when you have no ability to respond to other people is quality. Of course I am more of a reader than a fitness person but bicycles have a similar quality of self determination.

On the train maybe. The London Underground during rush hour is relatively crowded and uncomfortable... You probably won't get a seat.

Even commuting for almost an hour door to door, housing is very expensive. London has chronic money laundering, an out of control banking sector and a culture of rent seeking. That's why it's expensive.

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