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I hate living in the burbs, at least the modern ones, but I did it because I was sick of paying rent, wasn't saving up any money, and the developer was giving away deposits. Then shit happened and I couldn't move.
BUT the real issue isn't with me living here, it's with there being no decent public transport. I wouldn't mind anywhere near as much if there were. Fortunately, that's being addressed by the (Labour led) WG.
So we now have the moving goalposts
I don't think anyone is. You see your decisions as consciously made by you, which they are, and those choices are available to everyone else, which they aren't. It's really as simple as that. If you cant see past that your own circumstances of being part of your decision making process, that has given you options that may not be available to others then there's no point in carrying on the discussion.
You're well educated, in a profession that has largely immovable city centre locations, that have strong workplace unions and with well defined career plans and work place benefits. (like sick pay and paid leave). That gives you options to make decisions - and it's own limitations admittedly.
TJ - you don't seem to grasp that other people are in a very different situation to you. It must be nice to be retired and own a rental property...
Where I live, I'd estimate that it would be 40% more expensive to live in the city than rural - yes, that is different to your situation, but that is the reality of my situation. Why can't you grasp that everyone's situation is different?
If I was to live in the city, I might be able to afford tiny flat in a tower block, and have 'interesting' neighbours... No thanks. Even including all the costs of car ownership, it is still cheaper to live where I am - we don't all buy new or luxury cars.
(By the way, which area of Edinburgh are your £200k flats in, and would you want to bring up children there if you lived in that flat?
You have previously stated that you wouldn't now be able to afford to live in Edinburgh if you were starting out now, and that you would have chosen to live + work somewhere cheaper. That is great, but who would then staff the hospitals in Edinburgh if everyone is supposed to live close to their work? - no nurse could afford to live there!
you are retired, presumably mortgage free and also own a rental property - stop criticising people who are in a VERY different situation to you.
Nothing to do with luck. its a result of conscious decisions
a conscious decision to be born 5 + decades ago....
Even in my life time - my mum a factory worker and my dad a digger driver (employed not owner driver)
were able to buy their first 2 bed NEW BUILD for £29000 - which was a stretch back then especially with the huge interest rates
A new build 3 bed locally when i was buying was 269k
An old one on the outskirts of the city with more space was 200k.
a 2 bed flat in town was 180k.
The cost of moving means it was silly to buy a flat and be stuck there by the costs of solicitors/selling/property tax / negative equity etc.
if my mum and dad were buying today in their roles even with wage increases- they could not have afforded it.
My mortgage on the house was also less than the rent on the 1 bed shithole flat i had in town.(and that was the one of the better availible that wasnt in the multis or 1000 a month,
Our decision to move from the city to a burb after we had kids was partly influenced by schools.
Take a look at the top 20. Apart from Jordanhill (where we couldn't afford a house in the catchment) and the Gaelic school which wasn't around, all the best schools around Glasgow are in burbs.
Crime? I've been in my street over 30 years and there has never been a house, garage, or shed broken into. I just click past the threads on here about garage security.
Car parking? At the gate every time. When I lived in the west end I struggled to get parked in the same street.
I recognise the advantages of city centre living. I miss a choice of pubs within 5 mins walk but everyone's priorities are different.
Flats have good and bad points. The neighbours having the council noise officer visit us because of an allegedly noisy tumble drier being one. Noisy neighbours. You might be lucky you might not be. IME noisy neighbours are a bigger risk in a flat than a house.
Getting communal work done on the close was always a pain. One flat was rented and the owner didn't want to spend a penny she could avoid. In a house it's down to me.
Oh, and having my parents within walking distance for babysitting was priceless. As was the kids having good regular contact with them.
My commuting costs are less than the difference between payments on the mortgage here and the mortgage i would have to get (probably have to triple it TBH) to live somewhere within cycle or bus commuting distance of work.
Fuel, tyres, time, parking, maintenance, tolls, etc. the ex and i worked it all out, on a spreadsheet...
Oh, i'd still need a car even if i moved.
Actually, i could probably get away with doubling the mortgage, downsizing massively and/or living somewhere less than ideal. Can you imagine living somewhere with trucks driving past and shaking your home? Horrific. How could anyone make a conscious decision to live like that?
Or i could rent, but that's going to be double the mortgage payments, unless i want to share a bedroom with my kids...
FWIW. housing where i live has doubled in price (give or take) since we did the calculation. In the city it's gone up near enough twice that much, a friend at work has just bought a 100 sqm flat in a nice area for the equivalent of half a million quid. Last time it sold it was £140000 (2007).
They have an issue with noisy neighbours already.
This isnt really to do with petrol prices but more to do with locations. We live right on the edge of a city boundary but come under the County Council rather than the City Council.
When it came to applying for primary schools for my son we applied to the local school which was a 5 min walk away (but within the city boundaries) but were given a place at a school 3 miles away because it is within our catchment area (and the County boundaries).
This wasn't our choice but does mean that we have to drive him to school. Their are no options for public transport to get him there and I quite like my son so there is no way he would be cycling along 3 miles of country road without any pavement to get to school.
So its not as simple as saying its a choice. Luckily the school he is at is enabling him the thrive.
All of these problems need to be (and could be) solved by government, not by individuals making choices because every choice we make has to be traded off against other things.
Agree - One way of helping the commuting problem is the right to work at home, whatever happened to that idea that came up in the pandemic where you can work at home unless your employer can provide evidence that it is not viable for your job.
Nothing to do with luck. its a result of conscious decisions
You may have chosen to swim in the right direction, but you were helped by the tide.
I'm similar: I chose to move back into the city so I could live within a cycle commute of my new job, but that was based on:
1. A free higher education so I wasn't starting out with a mountain of debt
2. A reasonably secure public sector job
3. Earning enough and being debt free firstly to afford city centre rent then a modest first house with my partner's joint income
Given the way house prices and job security have gone in the last twenty years, it's highly unlikely that I'd be able to do the same if I were starting out now. I'm very fortunate to have been born when I was.
One way of helping the commuting problem is the right to work at home
Yes but also actually invest in it - provide facilities for people who want to leave their house for example, even if it's just incentivising private companies to do it. Costa could branch out into office spaces with coffee and food and cubicles, your company rents a space for you and claims tax back from the govt or some kind of grant. Expensive, maybe, but cheaper than endless new roads I'd guess.
Can you imagine living somewhere with trucks driving past and shaking your home? Horrific. How could anyone make a conscious decision to live
like that?
JFC
🙄
Some, perhaps many, of us don't need to imagine it.
🙄
its not cheaper to work in a city and live in the burbs / dormitory towns.
It is. It really is.
Back on the subject of fuel prices; At the same BP garage Diesel at 166.9 Monday night, today 172.9.
Reading this thread, I am very lucky to be able to live in a cheaper area and be within cycling distance of work.
On the way into work i saw one petrol station with diesel at £1.91/l
It is normally overpriced there but i thought that was a bit much
I was just speaking to a friend who mentioned that the M40 services at Beaconsfield, which are normally horrifically expensive, are actually cheaper now than other local stations.
When I say horrifically expensive, they’re usually 15-20p/litre dearer than anywhere else in normal times.
I’m in Taunton right now and have just seen unleaded at £1.60 ish - which is better than I was expecting which is good as I have a 250 mile return journey home to do.
How you costing running a car it can be done cheap
My last 3 have been 1k or under. And done 3/4 years
With routine servicing etc bet the costs are 600 per year plus 200 quid insurance.
So maybe 1200 quid a year plus fuel. How much did you spend on bus tickets and taxis?
Yes it's a cost but it doesn't need to be 295 quid pcp a month plus running costs
I bought a house in a town I liked and comuted from as little as 4 miles to 27 miles a day before I went wfh full time. At that point I moved properly away.
197.9 derv by me.
It's more kero that's worried me could be 450pcm to heat n cook here. I'm in the process of doing work that'll help but even still 80pl for kero is eye-watering.
We're doing green tech now in the firm I'm in and I'm hoping to get some kit to trial etc