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Comment by doc_holliday | Hacker News Reader

Whilst London is quite apart from the rest of the UK. It isn't the only place in the UK with disproprtionately high rents. Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, anywhere with a bouyant jobs market you pay over the odds for compared to Europe.

Granted not as high as London, but as a % of income not dissimilar at the end of the month.

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If you compare local earnings to house prices, London is, in fact is only #2, behind Oxford.[1] The problem with Oxford and Cambridge (as well as a place like Reading) is that they are still within commutable distance from London (Oxford and Reading slightly more so than Cambridge), which means you get people who earn well even for London standards who live in those cities and commute, in turn making those places more expensive. Some of the other cities, like Edinburgh, Manchester (in parts) and Aberdeen (oil) are certainly pricey as well, but they are not nearly as expensive as the South of England.

[1]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/house-prices/114...

Oxford is indeed pretty bad. I have to live ~20 miles from the centre, and even then it's not cheap.

Ireland has large variances in its rent as well. Dublin is substantially higher than the rest of the country. London is just beyond this normal deviation though. The rent between Oxford and Dublin for instance would be very comparable.

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