Cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London (2013) | Hacker News Reader

Cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London (2013)

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54 pointssebg105 comments

Guys the author isn't actually proposing that this is a viable option to working, they're highlighting how absurd the rent disparity is, and how cheap the flights are.

I'm really surprised that the comments here are seriously critiquing the viability of spending fourteen hours a day commuting.

You're not seriously suggesting that HN commenters like to nitpick small details and miss the wood for the trees?

I don't know how many comments I've begun writing only to change my mind and not post precisely because how draining the phenomenon is.

Especially tiring when one attempts to be cordial only to be met with further critique and (without non-verbal ques) what appears to be hostility.

I've often wondered why HN so often seems to prefer to prefer to upvote some tangential rabbit hole rather than discuss the topic in the article itself.

They're the same people that do bike-shedding and code golf all day at work. I hate them with a febrile passion

It was, this article is from 2013; the cheapest flights I can find now are twice as expensive round-trip, and will likely go up even further to discourage frequent flying to try and reduce emissions.

That's true, but since then we also have had some sort of global event. One of the side effects of that event has been that remote work has become much more normalized around the globe. Which is reflected by the fact that the lifestyle of digital nomads also has taken off in recent years.

Yep. Flight prices have gone up.

Btw, I hope he didn't think he would get to the company Christmas party on just eur 54, even in 2013.

My data points are having a kid studying abroad (one direct flight away, inside the EU). The days when she could get a round trip for the holiday for eur 59 are loong gone.

I refuse to believe anyone can make money selling $50 flights on a $150M plane

Nevermind the cost of the plane, I don't understand how they aren't losing money on the petrol alone. We're talking the price of a full tank on a small car to transport someone from Barcelona to London and back

(Even though they don't pay taxes on that gas)

I'm sorry, are you seriously proposing that I should read the text before commenting on it? That isn't how the things are done around here.

Sorry :(

In 2008 I had a colleague who commuted from Birmingham to Lambeth. Sadly trains aren't as cheap as planes.

It's normal that different countries have different housing markets. What do flight price have to do with housing market?

This article is from 2013 and it's not true anymore.

Just did a search and the cheapest 3-bedroom flat in Les Corts area of Barcelona starts at 1500 EUR/month, compared to 680 EUR/month in the article. There are only 2 offers at this price, the rest start at 2000 EUR / month.

Cheapest flight to London (and back) on same date (Nov 20) is now 76 EUR, compared to 34 EUR in the article.

Interestingly, the prices in London seem to be around the same as in the article.

Salaries in Spain, are around the same, too.

I live in NW5 - the reason for the stable prices is that there was an episode of extreme house price growth in the area circa early 2010s that has completely flat lined, and in some cases, reversed. Some might argue this is a case of conscious organised de-gentrification by several London boroughs.

Cheap and sunny places in Europe got extra fucked by airbnb, digital nomads and, more broadly, capitalism. Locals are still paid more or less the same as 10 years ago but housing grew 50-100%. Why would your rent a flat for 600 euros a month when you can get 100 euros per night from tourists

Why does everyone seem to blame digital nomads - that seems lazy and probably not backed by numbers. I bet if you actually look into it, there’s way more retirees from northern European countries in the desirable sunny, warm places. And those ones actually have money to spend and buy property, etc.

Also, if “capitalism” means “freedom of movement” of people and of money I think I’m gonna stick with that system versus the alternatives that we’ve seen play out… also, people do not wanna hear this ever - but the solution is often to build more housing, to build housing up (meaning vertical). For example, more people would be interested in moving out of London if housing was affordable.

>For example, more people would be interested in moving out of London if housing was affordable.

I think it's the opposite, people would move to London if the housing was affordable.

Are there so many "digital nomads"?

I've worked full remote for years but I never even considered leaving my home for months and working from somewhere else.

Enough to fill a cruise ship at least! https://www.nomadcruise.com/

Hardly, I did that once (it was great). But we were just a few hundred vs a couple thousand. And really only 30% were actually true digital nomads (in the remote job/biz, real income sense); the others were just your typical travelers going along with the trend.

Good to know, thanks! I've never gone.

> Why does everyone seem to blame digital nomads - that seems lazy and probably not backed by numbers. I bet if you actually look into it, there’s way more retirees from northern European countries in the desirable sunny, warm places. And those ones actually have money to spend and buy property, etc.

Most retirees mostly choose Costa del Sol. Barcelona usually attracts said "digital nomads" to have vibrant atmosphere of "international crowd"... and even until recently it was "very cheap".

> Also, if “capitalism” means “freedom of movement” of people and of money I think I’m gonna stick with that system versus the alternatives that we’ve seen play out…

Why do you think you are entitled to FoM?

> also, people do not wanna hear this ever - but the solution is often to build more housing, to build housing up (meaning vertical).

Barcelona is one of the densely populated cities... What's more, it's usually building up (though luckily those are not skyscraper but sane 4-8 storeys which makes living there nicer). There is also problem with spreading out due to geography but still lots of people go to Sabadell, Terrassa o Mataró and everything in-between.

> For example, more people would be interested in moving out of London if housing was affordable.

Welcome to the UK, where old NIMBYs rule the world (you seem to be thrilled by the system of "people with money" doing the f* they want, including blocking everyone else) and public transit being ruled by "capitalism" (i.e. "money rule the world")... so... everything is perfect according to your worldview? :P

> Why do you think you are entitled to FoM?

Because I'm a human being, not a slave or subject.

> everything is perfect according to your worldview

What you described is called "cronyism"

> Also, if “capitalism” means “freedom of movement” of people and of money

No, it means transforming every single part of life into a money equation.

Capitalism isn't a boolean by the way, there is plenty of wiggle room

I cannot even freaking visit without being a "digital nomad" suspect, while your local politicians and millionaires are balls deep in real estate and short term rental.

Maybe you shouldn't visit then? :P

Exactly. Not possible to rent anything livable in BCN for 700 EUR/pcm. Flats in good condition/location now start from 1400EUR and immediately attract hordes of applicants. Estate agents don't even bother replying to most of them.

Joking aside before the jubilee line went to Canary Wharf (out in the East of London) I used to work there as a contractor. A new guy from Glasgow[1] got hired and for the first couple of weeks while he found a place in London he commuted by plane from Glasgow every day. He got a place in West London. He found it had been quicker each way to fly than to get from West to East London, and of course the coat of living in London is way higher so the difference would have more than paid for the flights if he had stayed. It’s no longer the case as there is a tube the whole way.

[1] in Scotland, the opposite side of the UK.

Considering this was before September 1999, the airport wait times were also much shorter, making this more viable. These days, getting to the airport less than 90 minutes before the flight is cutting it pretty close.

Yup it was. Also there is a (very small) airport right at Canary Wharf called "London City Airport" that has a direct flight to Glasgow so it was pretty much an ideal case.

Some teachers in Ibiza fly daily from Majorca because rental is too expensive. Of course it works because flights between the isles are subsidized by the goverment, but stuff like this happens.

Link: (in spanish) https://www.periodicodeibiza.es/pitiusas/ibiza/2024/03/06/21...

Take your hourly wage and calculate how much you could have earned instead of sitting in transport. From that find the most cost/earning-efficient place of staying. My guess is you will end up somewhere in London.

If you are paid hourly and can adjust your number of hours this is a sensible way to compare. But many of us are paid a fixed salary. Also, many of us could potentially get work done while commuting.

>Also, many of us could potentially get work done while commuting.

That's not much of a life though is it.

Have you ever flown with ryanair? The only people reliably getting work done on a ryanair flight are the pilots and cabin crew.

Just wanted to say that the big plus of Ryanair is that the chairs are non adjustable. Which gives significantly more space than some other airlines.

I get the point, but can Stansted really be considered as being in London?

It sounds like a trick by Ryanair to make the airport sound more important than it is, similar to their airport Frankfurt-Hahn which arguably isn't anywhere near Frankfurt.

Depending on where you are going in London, flying to Stansted / Gatwick might be faster than to Heathrow or City.

OK, true but for City that's a really small part of London: the Totenham Hale train station and its immediate vicinity. It's 46 minutes from Totenham Hale to LCY and 34 to STN. Anything further into London will win for LCY.

We recently flew to Gatwick and I was pleasantly surpised how quick everything was. Barely any waiting times, the hardest part was figuring out which train to London needs what ticket.

It's in Essex, and the London moniker is silly but it's a 45min train ride to Liverpool St so about the same journey time as coming from Finchley in London zone 4 (even if it does cost 4x more each way).

I worked in London in the mid 00's with someone who did this.

  - He worked 2 Days at London Office, 3 days WFH in Spain.
  - He would book his flights about 3 weeks in advance and stay in a cheap hotel for 1 night.
  - As a contractor/sole trader, he could offset some of the costs against his taxes.

If I remember correctly, his reasoning was that the combination of costs, better weather, and being close to friends/family made it worthwhile.

I've seen this with other city pairs - for example there was news of an intern doing Charleston (South Carolina) - Newark (New Jersey) that made the rounds in 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/business/tiktok-summer-intern...

But her internship only required one day a week in person, so this isn't the same as a daily commute, and would be less viable now with increased RTO most places.

Lol I think once the high speed rail is laid across Malaysia there could be similar logic for living anywhere along and commute to Singapore for work. Rate disparities are far worse.

People already commute from Johor—not just JB, but further afield too. But yes, stops along the Singapore-KL HSR route will get very gentrified, methinks, as rich Singaporeans move across the border for cheaper housing and lower costs of living.

This totals a commuting time of 9h a day - never-mind all the hassle.

What are the renting prices for places in the UK that are 4.5h a drive/train away from London?

I guess it sounds like a bug, but it is effectively a feature. The real cost of a flat in London is the proximity to things that people want - well paid jobs, culture and tourism. Nice flat + long commute thus can cost far less than small flat closer by.

Door to door commute time is probably, what, 3 hrs one way at best. You can probably get some quite stunning properties in the UK on the same budget with a 3 hr commute.

> Nice flat + long commute thus can cost far less than small flat closer by.

Unfortunately this compromise is invalidated in England by their train prices.

> Unfortunately this compromise is invalidated in England by their train prices.

Yes. If you're truly min-maxing for money in London then the best strategy is to buy a nice place you're happy living in, hopefully just a cycle to the office. Avoid all sunk costs into commuting, and instead pay all the differences into an asset that you can eventually sell and recoup all that money when you move out of London (provided you do).

I was doing that, and it worked well, until we decided to have children, and then other factors became more important than mix-maxing.

I'm incredibly lucky that I get to work from home a lot, because we moved into Surrey, quite a long commute to the office, and horrendously expensive if you're going every day. But as it is, I could afford a nicer house and avoid most of the commute costs. It doesn't really work out that great otherwise.

I wonder if it’ll be normalised in the future to live in a place like Barcelona and travel to a place like London once a week for two or three days for work and then go back to live in Barcelona. Perhaps a hostel like place in London to crash after work + Pub in those 3 work days, while enjoying a nice comfy house and local culture in Barcelona for the rest of the week..

> while enjoying a nice comfy house and local culture in Barcelona for the rest of the week..

Kind of hard to have any local culture when everyone local is pushed out by rich elites from another country who fly to commute and can afford to have two homes in two countries. AirBNB, "nomads", and the likes are city killers.

I get your sentiment but I can think of so many exceptions. I've seen people here in Germany splitting their time between tiny flat near workplace for <500 EUR during the week and (whatever bigger, better, often inherited) in the countryside.

Does not mean you're rich per se. Not poor, sure. Also yes, you said fly in, but there's really no difference if they fly in or go to their weekend house on Thursday or Friday by car, they're not here. I think the main point is the "is the person actually living there or visiting twice per year", because I think that is killing neighborhoods (if people talk to each other, not the case here in my building).

Brexit made this far less likely - but perhaps people in France, Germany, Spain, etc. could do this.

Maybe it could be normal for a while, but eventually we'll start running out of oil, which will make flying expensive.

We are creating far bigger problems than running out of oil.

It's Europe. You can take the train, right?

You will not sleep cheaply in London, forget about it. Housing and train prices in London blew up every budgeting into some absurd dimension.

Used to be a few cheap options . . .

    at the Twopenny Hangover, the lodgers sit in a row on a bench; there is a rope in front of them, and they lean on this as though leaning over a fence. A man, humorously called the valet, cuts the rope at five in the morning.

~ George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)

Perhaps apocryphal. ( https://mikedashhistory.com/2021/05/19/the-twopenny-hangover... )

From October 2013

I did a quick check (https://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/property/west-hampstead/) and contrary to what I thought, a 1 bedroom apartment over there is still in the same range as 2013; I was sure it would've been double by now.

While in Barcelona rents have been skyrocketing, largely due to British and other "expats" moving in:

https://www.ft.com/content/d82f2c93-ab1b-46c7-b25f-ba768b813...

Why would you expect it doubled?

Population has not doubled, wages have not doubled, remote working became common after 2020 covid.

(not the person you're responding to, and I wouldn't have expected it to double, but definitely increase with double digits %)

Yes, but it's well known that in most of the developed world housing is becoming more expensive and housing costs are outpacing wages, for a variety of reasons.

Here's an infographic about the EU, based on Eurostat: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/ZAsqzx4tRo

Mostly it's a function of interest rates, the boom in prices happened after interest rates dropped close to zero (after the financial crisis).

Unfortunately house prices tend to be sticky so they won't decline so quickly when interest rates rise but they certainly haven't been keeping pace with inflation nor wages over the last few years (in the UK).

> Mostly it's a function of interest rates, the boom in prices happened after interest rates dropped close to zero (after the financial crisis).

Same as inflation, it's a complex multidimensional issue, anyone trying to reduce it to one single thing is missing at best half the picture.

Very strict zoning (most heavily impacting anglophone North America), which caps potential supply + property as an investment boom which increases investment in and financial incentives out of, and thus prices + Airbnb and similar reducing supply + increased building standards + vested interests (for lots of people them owning their home is a significant portion of their portfolio, so they don't want to see it's value decrease) resulting in NIMBYism reducing or slowing down construction + increased concentration in prospering cities and further inflating prices there, low interest rates enabling cheaper investments from people or corporations, etc etc etc.

Well 2013... "good old times"... which I missed because had no money then. It's not true anymore as rent prices caught up in basically every marginally attractive location within EU, while salaries haven't. In particular case of Spain, Brits played shameful role in wrecking their housing market.

Canadian example, this year https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/ubc-student-flying-commute-c...

Not a great example. An Air Canada student pass is 6 flights for for $1200 (not terrible value).. so $400 a round trip. With classes twice a week that's $800/week, $2400 a month, or $9600 for a 12 week semester (the shortest in Canada, many are 14).. excluding finals (+1 return flight, + hotel nights or inconveniencing friends)

4 months of rent in Vancouver at $2000 is... $8000. $1600 more, plus the utilities he pays his parents, plus time wasted travelling, plus bonus flight at finals and hotel nights (possibly offset by skipping a day during the semester).

Discussed at the time:

Cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6617319 - Oct 2013 (270 comments)

An apartment like that could cost 1500€ today. Also, flights are also more expensive.

hour for hour, it is cheaper to fly from Nova Scotia to Cuba or Venezuela,etc than it is to talk on the phone,thats just the flying time.Need to find out about accomodations, food and travel. Self employed, so making excuses and begging off for Jan/Feb is looking more optional, or the optimum option.

You should check how much a taxi ride is from like Suffolk to London. Last time it was nearly £200

2013. It was crazy flying to Norway for lunch at 10Euro round trip.

Title is missing: (2013)

Barcelona is not cheap anymore.

I was about to say, and neither are the flights. Then again, nor is London.

But neither is London. Both London and Barcelona rents are up between 40-60% since the article was written as far as I can tell:

https://www.catalannews.com/business/item/barcelona-rent-pri... https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/property-news/average-rent...

Yeah but then you have to fly Ryanair

Every. Day

Would you like to buy a lottery ticket with it?

Daily commuting probably not practical since Brexit because of longer passport queues. I know quite a few Doctors who do a weekly commute to UK from Cascais, Lisbon were I live, they have a big house here and small apartment in London. Also many BA pilots live here, because of NHR low tax, they use budget airline (not BA) to fly into London whenever needed before long haul flights.

And the time spent in commuting door to door and the radiation you get by flying 4 days a week? Not worth it.

Indeed, going by train I can just walk up and get on.

I've never been on a flight that didn't take a long time to get through all the corridors, wait for plane, fly and then walk the corridors at the other end not take hours. Even short haul from smaller London airports to a Spanish city.

The system is set up to take up a significant amount of time.

Try out Singapore and fly for example to Phuket. It’s a very lean process with optimised waiting times (read: nearly none) and walking distances on both sides.

It can be done, most airports are just amazingly inefficient. No idea why that is.

To sell meals, drinks and other goodies. Tired travellers that are forced to wait are easy targets. Add in the occasional perfume store and Bob's your uncle.

At least in the US the problem is that you can’t afford to shut down existing airports and so a lot of the remodeling ends up being hodgepodge and convoluted extensions and fitting whatever goes into a nook or cranny.

The last major airport to be built in the US was DEN in 1995.

Because the UK really doesn't do regional airports. If they did it would help, but basically I dont have many option outside of the London three or Manchester.

Funnelling everyone through such a small number sounds efficient for the airport, but isn't from a travellers perspective. Heathrow and Gatwick, are massive.

I haven’t been to UK airports, but often I find one of the more prominent bottleneck to be central checks per terminal instead of distributed checks at each gate like they happen at more efficient airports. The latter is a major improvement: You can directly go to the gate and bag checks happen there.

But you realize that this isn't meant to propose a viable working plan, rather to highlight an absurd situation.

Yeah it's a 2 hour 30 flight apparently, times two, that's five hours spent flying alone, and the quickest time through an airport is 30 minutes or so even with all the VIP access. Cost of flying has gone up since then too, and probably rents on both ends as well.

I've long ago realised that cost, comfort, and commute are like the project management triangle, you can pick two: Short commute in a comfortable home is expensive, cheap home with a short commute is uncomfortable, and cheap and comfortable home means a long commute.

This is why work from home is so valuable, in that you can live comfortably and affordably (say, a three bedroom apartment in Barcelona) without the cost or time spent commuting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com