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Comment by petercooper | Hacker News Reader

It’s possible to find a nice apartment in a major city for less than $50,000. The place I found was in Las Vegas and it cost $40,000.

Wow, I had no idea things were that good/bad. Here in the UK, I deliberately choose to live in a cheap part of the country and you'd still be talking $120k or so for an equivalent 1 bed flat. This really illustrates to me why efforts to turn various areas in the US into "mini Silicon Valley" areas could actually work.. when you can have a good, secure base for a year's salary, it surely changes your attitude to risk.

I don't think there's anywhere in the UK you could buy a house for under $100K where you wouldn't be getting bricks through your window or dealing with gangs of chavs on a daily basis. I wonder if this goes part of the way to explain why Brits are far more reluctant to take risks in the entrepreneurial sense.. you gotta be on a darn good salary to have a place of your own anywhere on our isles.

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Several aspects you may want to consider on UK vs US:

- the population density of the UK as a whole is about 7x greater. The US has really got a lot of space that could still be built on.

- there is limited reason to live in Las Vegas unless you work in hospitality (although there has been a recent boom- and bust-cycle).

- housing market tends to be more divergent in the US than in the UK: it's more likely you can find some city that's relatively cheap.

I think you exaggerate. zoopla and some research gives me (all city centre addresses):

Manchester - £55K+

Leeds - £70K+

Birmingham - £45K+

Hull - 50K

Bristol - 100K

Norwich - 70K

etc.

If you're happy with a small village then I think you can find even cheaper.

Yes, I think the OP is rather mis-informed. There are plenty of places in the UK where you can get a one bed apartment for between £50-70k and not get a 'brick through the window'.

Are these places you're likely to be able to rent out to full capacity on AirBNB? That's a different question.

The solution is simple, get an apartment above the 3rd floor and no one will be able to throw a brick high enough.

I said "a house for under $100K" not a one bed flat. The one bed flat comparison was in my first paragraph.

Where in the UK are you going to pick up a (small) house in a non-rough area of a city for ~£61k? Let alone the equivalent of Las Vegas.. (don't say Blackpool!)

As someone who owns property in the UK, has lived in numerous areas of it, and is actively looking for somewhere new to live, I hope I'm not too misinformed in this area, but standards do vary. I'd contend you'd find nothing as attractive as the Las Vegas pad in the UK at such prices though.

> the equivalent of Las Vegas..

Are you referring to the glut of available real estate, or the tourist attraction? Or is there some other thing that makes Las Vegas special?

You're talking in terms of pounds, $100k is approximately £63k. I'm inclined to agree with the parent here, good luck finding a place in a decent area in Manchester for less than £100k.

I live in London. I'm looking at >$600k for my first apartment. Jon's apartment in Vegas would be a small fraction of my deposit.

Ugh, I feel sick. And need to move.

If it makes you feel any better (I'm sure it won't), folks in San Francisco and New York face similar.

Las Vegas is somewhat unique in having low housing prices coupled with a huge tourist market which makes such a setup workable.

Well, it makes me see the appeal of the Vegas tech scene ;)

but then you'd have to live in Vegas...

as far as i'm concerned, though, is that other than zappos... there really isn't that much of a tech scene there. tony hsieh has been trying to develop one, and has put a lot of his own money behind it, but honestly i doubt it's going to work.

Aren't you guys in a bubble?

London has its own economy when it comes to property. Prices have soared to a new record high just in a month (+10%).

So yes, I think the capital is overheating.

Maybe - I can't see prices ever dropping significantly though. Maybe 20%, but they'll always be intimidatingly expensive for first-time buyers.

Lehman Bros collapsed because their computer models excluded the possibility of a major decline in real estate prices. Investor confidence is a contrary indicator.

I feel your pain.

Don't move to Vancouver, Canada. We are right up in in unaffordability, just like London, NY, Hong Kong, SF, Zurich etc.

Blame the governments of both Labor and Tory persuasion that decided that it should be incredibly difficult to build new housing virtually anywhere in the country. In particular the pernicious greenbelt rules and the grotesque planning permission process. Also worthy of special condemnation are London's protected views.

Your GitHub says Cambridge, is that true? I am in Cambridge and it is not cheap here.

No, I live in the middle of Lincolnshire. Cambridge is a relatively easy 2 hour drive though and GitHub only let me choose from a limited number of UK cities (at least at the time I set up my profile).

But yeah, Cambridge is ridiculously expensive. So, increasingly, though is rural Lincolnshire! I'm looking for a 4 bed house close to town and £250k is about the minimum for something decent. I suspect that would barely buy a nice flat in Cambridge though..!

Here's one for £65K in Brora - not the most attractive of properties but Brora is a pretty nice town (bit out of the way though):

http://www.hspc.co.uk/details.asp?id=42481

[Brora is also home to my favourite whisky - Clynelish]

"bit out of the way" - I thought where I was living in West Dorset was remote :D

I wouldn't say Brora is that remote - it's about an hour from Inverness by car, is on the main A9 road and is on the Far North Line.

Somewhere like Arnisdale or, even better, Inverie in Knoydart are far more remote (the latter is probably the only village on Great Britain that has no road access).

I also find this incredible. Particularly when you can spend $50k just renting a place in Vegas for three months. I realise there are slums in Vegas but the place actually looks quite nice for the money.

$200/month for an unlimited cleaning lady? Those are Thailand/China prices. Crazy.

Seems like a clever way to skirt labor laws to me.

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