Livin costs in London, Im clueless...
Discussion
Folks, a little help please...
What are the living costs like in London?
A tall order I may be asking but wanting to work out how much of a drain on resources it will be moving from up North to somewhere in London like I am doing hopefully for early Jan.
Asume that a flat is £280 per week (SW11) is this the norm for a 1 bed or is there other nice areas (SW or W) that are cheaper and close to the train links to get to docklands area in a reasonable time?
How much is the average (per month) in London for:
water rates
Electricity
Gas
Travel from Clapham are to docklands?
Does upkeep on rented flat cost extra?
Anthing else I have missed excluding insurance of flat, food and entertainment.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Si
What are the living costs like in London?
A tall order I may be asking but wanting to work out how much of a drain on resources it will be moving from up North to somewhere in London like I am doing hopefully for early Jan.
Asume that a flat is £280 per week (SW11) is this the norm for a 1 bed or is there other nice areas (SW or W) that are cheaper and close to the train links to get to docklands area in a reasonable time?
How much is the average (per month) in London for:
water rates
Electricity
Gas
Travel from Clapham are to docklands?
Does upkeep on rented flat cost extra?
Anthing else I have missed excluding insurance of flat, food and entertainment.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Si
As a London resident for the past 30 years I can hopefully give you a steer on this but to be honest any answer is going to be a bit subjective (but I’m sure you know that already).
Travel:
First things first, I think you are being ambitious if you want to live in SW London and work in Docklands. There are basically two ways onto the Isle of Dogs, the Docklands Light Railway and the Jubilee line on the tube. Neither one of these goes to SW London so you are looking at getting at least 2 modes of transport to work (probably tube and tube or train and tube). I think I am on safe ground when I say that transport in London and commuting in particular is one of the worst aspects of living here.
My advice: live close to where you work if you can or get a tube/bus map and live somewhere close to a station/bus stop that is on the same route as your work. It will also be much cheaper. Some of SW London is also in zone 3 so you will need a more expensive travel card (the more zones you need the more money it is). Looking on the web a 1-3 travel card is £1k a year www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/season/travelcard-3.shtml
Where to live:
As for flats, have a look at the rental properties on here: www.foxtons.co.uk/
Everyone I know uses Foxtons to look at what is out there on the property market (they have something like 25% of the estate agent market in London). The maps are very easy to use and they’ll show you lots of different places to live.
Costs:
Again, this is difficult to estimate but here is an idea based on my flat. I live in a 2 bed flat in Hackney.
Water - about £300 a year (no water meter)
Electricity - about £20 a month
Gas - about £30 a month (I’ve got a gas cooker and central heating)
Council tax (a killer) - I’m in Band E and pay £165 a month
Food - Being in London means that you can be as expensive or as cheap as you like, e.g. where I live I have a Waitrose round the corner where a weekly shop will cost you north of £100 and an Aldi where it will be less than half that.
Going out - again, how deep is you wallet. I would say good meal in a restaurant with a bottle of wine will set you back around £30-50 a head depending on where you go. You’ll be lucky to pay less than £2.50 a pint anywhere in London!
I’ve run out of steam now but I hope that helps!
Richard
Travel:
First things first, I think you are being ambitious if you want to live in SW London and work in Docklands. There are basically two ways onto the Isle of Dogs, the Docklands Light Railway and the Jubilee line on the tube. Neither one of these goes to SW London so you are looking at getting at least 2 modes of transport to work (probably tube and tube or train and tube). I think I am on safe ground when I say that transport in London and commuting in particular is one of the worst aspects of living here.
My advice: live close to where you work if you can or get a tube/bus map and live somewhere close to a station/bus stop that is on the same route as your work. It will also be much cheaper. Some of SW London is also in zone 3 so you will need a more expensive travel card (the more zones you need the more money it is). Looking on the web a 1-3 travel card is £1k a year www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/fares-tickets/2005/season/travelcard-3.shtml
Where to live:
As for flats, have a look at the rental properties on here: www.foxtons.co.uk/
Everyone I know uses Foxtons to look at what is out there on the property market (they have something like 25% of the estate agent market in London). The maps are very easy to use and they’ll show you lots of different places to live.
Costs:
Again, this is difficult to estimate but here is an idea based on my flat. I live in a 2 bed flat in Hackney.
Water - about £300 a year (no water meter)
Electricity - about £20 a month
Gas - about £30 a month (I’ve got a gas cooker and central heating)
Council tax (a killer) - I’m in Band E and pay £165 a month
Food - Being in London means that you can be as expensive or as cheap as you like, e.g. where I live I have a Waitrose round the corner where a weekly shop will cost you north of £100 and an Aldi where it will be less than half that.
Going out - again, how deep is you wallet. I would say good meal in a restaurant with a bottle of wine will set you back around £30-50 a head depending on where you go. You’ll be lucky to pay less than £2.50 a pint anywhere in London!
I’ve run out of steam now but I hope that helps!
Richard
You can rent a very nice 2 bed flat 2 bath modern 1 stop away from Docklands in an area called Canada Water (aka Surrey Quays). Its not the most salubrious (yet) but if you are coming from the North then you will appreciate things like having your own secure parking space; being able to drive to the supermarket etc. You are also 15 mins away from the West End on the tube and 10 mins away from the city. You can easily get someone to share as the area is popular with Canary Wharf workers.
Better still look into buying a flat in the Canada Water area as a massive £1bn redevelopment has just been signed off. You could buy a place for around £250k to £270k and easily get a tenant to move into the spare room. They would be paying a significant chunk of your mortgage too! This is a really great way to get onto the property ladder in London. Leave it too late or pander to paying for these "fashionable" areas in London and it may prove impossible
Better still look into buying a flat in the Canada Water area as a massive £1bn redevelopment has just been signed off. You could buy a place for around £250k to £270k and easily get a tenant to move into the spare room. They would be paying a significant chunk of your mortgage too! This is a really great way to get onto the property ladder in London. Leave it too late or pander to paying for these "fashionable" areas in London and it may prove impossible
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Looking at it that way, its not that much more expensive than living where I am (Leeds) and working in Sheffield.
The rent doubles for me (there will be 2 of us tho).
Already pay £70-80 a month on council tax.
Bills are the same.
It already costs me £11-12 a day to go to work on trains and buses.
Going out to fine restuarants in Leeds costs from £30 a head anyway.
Food relitively cheap about the same depending where I go.
Beer and entertainment can easily be £100 a night in Leeds
So at the moment I can't see any drawbacks for moving down there.
Is there anything I have missed?
Can anyone name some nice area within easy reach of Clapham Junction or any other stations on the line that mean I can get to the docklands relatively easily. Postcodes and names would help so I can view the rental prices and the local vacinity.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I live in West Hampstead, probably one of the nicer areas around that isn't stratospheric in price. The Jubilee line seems to be one of the more reliable and nicer tube lines. Having said that I walk to work, generally not much slower than catching a bus and avoids the constant delays of the tube. You also save a fortune on travel costs as well. Most people in London seem to spend most of the day commuting if they aren't working. Best to pay a bit extra and live closer to work, but that's my opinion.
If you are willing to travel in by train you can find some very nice 1 bed roomed flats in south East London for as little as £600 per month.
You have to be very careful where you choose to live because some places are the Chav heartlands, but there are isolated pockets of civilisation.
You have to be very careful where you choose to live because some places are the Chav heartlands, but there are isolated pockets of civilisation.
ProPlus said:
Beer and entertainment can easily be £100 a night in Leeds
Don't take this the wrong way, but if you regularly do £100 on a night out in Leeds, then I imagine your appetite for clubbing etc is quite high and you may well find that a similar night out in central London will be a fair whack more.
Saying that, presumably you'd be moving for a more highly paid job so maybe not an issue?
>> Edited by pdV6 on Wednesday 2nd November 13:36
TBH you'd be better off sharing. Look for a big flat as near to the city as possible, say Barbican/ Aldersgate, with a couple of other professional blokes, sky TV , a plasma screen TV, broadband etc......instant mates and a social life ( blokes normally manage to get along with any other bloke who likes cars/girls/beer which is 99.9% of us )for £300 you should be able to get setup in a nice pad.
I really would not recommend that you move down and live on your tod.....it's expensive, lonely, boring, and not much fun. Suggest you use www.loot.com
I really would not recommend that you move down and live on your tod.....it's expensive, lonely, boring, and not much fun. Suggest you use www.loot.com
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I live in Balham (SW12/SW17, which is the next stop down on the Northern Line after Clapham South - it's Wandsworth Council which has (unless I'm very much mistaken) the cheapest council tax in the country - my 1 bed (single occupancy) flat is about £330/year in council tax. Water rates are about £220, electricity is about £35/month. Slighty more handy tha Clapham High St location as it's got trains to London Bridge (25 mins but not that frequent), Clapham Junction (5 mins journey, with trains every 3 - 5 mins in rush hour)and Victoria (12 minutes, trains every 3 - 5 mins in rush hour) as well as the Northern Line which is easier to on the mornings, as the tube REALLY fills up when it hits Clapham - plus, it's up & coming unlike Clapham which is pretty much done....lots of new bars and restaurants opening up.
..it is Zone 3 though, so will need a zones 1-4 (can't get a 1-3) travelcard instead of a 1-2 in Clapham.
Personally I'd say live as close to where you work as you can - or rather the nearest inhabitable place. Then, when the transport goes tits up you can walk or cycle to work. You go to and from work 10 times a week, so you may as well spend the least time possible doing the journey. I live close enough to get a cab to work for £7.
Clapham - personally I don't like it, too far out of town and you're a slave to the northern line. I know people who live in Clapham or Balham, and frequently the tube is too packed to get on, so they end up walking to tube stations further out of town in order to get on!! Madness. Unless you pick somewhere near a mainline station.
Upside of Clapham though is that there are plenty of single twenty something women and there are quite a few bars / restaurants.
Costs: (monthly)
Mortgage: £1300 (but receive £700 a month from tenant)
C tax: £118
Service Charge: £100
Elec: £28.50
Gas: £19
Phone: £13 plus calls
Mobile: £45
Car insurance: £78
Food shopping: £140 - £300
Entertainment: varies immensely. £100 to £1000 a month
Broadband + digital TV: £27
Add all that together plus miscellaneous (holidays, car maintenance etc) and my average monthly expenditure is £4314 a month.
Clapham - personally I don't like it, too far out of town and you're a slave to the northern line. I know people who live in Clapham or Balham, and frequently the tube is too packed to get on, so they end up walking to tube stations further out of town in order to get on!! Madness. Unless you pick somewhere near a mainline station.
Upside of Clapham though is that there are plenty of single twenty something women and there are quite a few bars / restaurants.
Costs: (monthly)
Mortgage: £1300 (but receive £700 a month from tenant)
C tax: £118
Service Charge: £100
Elec: £28.50
Gas: £19
Phone: £13 plus calls
Mobile: £45
Car insurance: £78
Food shopping: £140 - £300
Entertainment: varies immensely. £100 to £1000 a month
Broadband + digital TV: £27
Add all that together plus miscellaneous (holidays, car maintenance etc) and my average monthly expenditure is £4314 a month.
Yep move from Leeds to London and make loads more money! That you have to spend to maintain the standard of living you had in Leeds. So you end up with no more money than before, not as nice a living environment, smaller property to live in, (or more people living it), less access to the countryside, etc etc......
munky said:
Clapham - personally I don't like it, too far out of town and you're a slave to the northern line. I know people who live in Clapham or Balham, and frequently the tube is too packed to get on, so they end up walking to tube stations further out of town in order to get on!!
There's always the 155/N155 bus which follows the northern line down, from The Strand...qhich is hand for getting home at night.
Or you could live where you want a get a bike/moped?
I travel into the city every day from SW6. It not only takes half the time of public 'transport', it costs much, much less too. I reckon Canary Wharf would only be ten minutes more from mine.
PS - Sharkfan, I strongly object to that overgeneralisation about white, middle class professionals in SW London - you forgot about the ozzies, kiwis and saffers...
>> Edited by Chris_w on Thursday 3rd November 14:55
I travel into the city every day from SW6. It not only takes half the time of public 'transport', it costs much, much less too. I reckon Canary Wharf would only be ten minutes more from mine.
PS - Sharkfan, I strongly object to that overgeneralisation about white, middle class professionals in SW London - you forgot about the ozzies, kiwis and saffers...
>> Edited by Chris_w on Thursday 3rd November 14:55
The Olympic village is a good idea. Would the house prices be lower than the surrounding areas while the building is going on or, on the other hand, being close to the development could drive prices up? Is the best thing to do to look out for where money had been allocated to be spent but not actually had house price rises yet?
As I said in my earlier thread..look around Canda Water. Its just had a £1bn redevelopment signed off-and is landlocked around other regeneration developents-e.g elephhant and castle, Bermondsey Spa, Greenwich, Cyclops Wharf area etc etc. It also has some handy facilities-which though are not currently brilliant but are OK to keep you going (eg largish shopping centre, sailing club etc). The thing that sets it apart from the Olympc Village stuff is that you can hapily and safely live there now rather than in 4-5 years and it will be affected both by the Olympic boom but also its own redevelopment boom and transport boom. After all-its 1 stop from canary wharf and 5 stops from the West-end and only 10 mins into the City.
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