Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Like it or not, it's a lifestyle that only about 10% of the UK can afford. £20k is the holiday budget for a whole decade for most people. And that tax number includes healthcare and pension.

View on HN

Oh, I fully agree with that - in fact, in certain other European countries it is more like 0.10%, but that's not the point.

The point is - I don't understand all the whining going on here.

If I make £500K a year, and I gave it up for £20K a year, would that really make any of you better off? REALLY?

Replacing the £500k job with ten £50k jobs would make at least nine people better off, yes. The ten people could then manage at least four hundred hours a week of work. It's strange how indivisible the really high paid jobs are.

Given that London house prices are a function of supply and demand, if everyone on £500k did that then I personally would be a lot better off.

Alas, I suspect supply will be very carefully managed to ensure that voters in the UK do not have their main asset devalued over the next 10 to 15 years or so.

After that, enough younger people will be renting for the balance to flip and the price correction to occur.

Whilst population continues to rise, you'll be waiting a long time for your "correction".

What % of average wage do you think people will want to pay for housing? What is the limit? There has to be one.

Average wage has very little to do with it, at least when it comes to London. People there pay a lot more than the rest of the country, but they're earning a lot more too. And even within London the same kind of logic applies.

So what happens when you have no teachers, no retail staff, no police, no ambulance and no refuse collectors?

Really: there has to be a limit.

Partly those people's wages rise. But more commonly they live elsewhere. Those people's wages have no connection to the house prices in zone 1, because those people live further out and commute.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com