Anyone rent in the UK? Can you help?

[Joe]

Anyone here renting in the UK? We might be moving back to England soon(ish) but we don't want to get back and end up in debt or barely surviving because its too expensive!

My folks and family/friends live in Essex and unfortunately it is pretty expensive to rent, even four years ago we couldn't afford to do it on two wages and save any money at the same time (1 bed apartments are like £700+ a month..) location wise it would be a great choice because of having family and friends and it's super close to London so nice location..just expensive!

So whereabouts do you guys live in the UK and if you do rent, how much (roughly of course) do you pay a month if you don't mind saying? I have heard up North and in Scotland you can get rented places (2-3 bed places) for as little as £300+ a month? Is that true?

My only reservation about moving so far away from where I grew up is having to learn where everything is and knowing anyone and not having anyone to speak to for a bit! lol Mind you moving countries was a bit like that too..

Anyways, sorry for the story but I just spent today looking at places close to where I lived before we moved and the rent on anything nice is £850-1200 a month which for a 2 bedroom maisonette or apartment it just seems like impending financial hell

 

[Frunkstar]

rent on anything nice is £850-1200 a month which for a 2 bedroom maisonette or apartment it just seems like impending financial hell

That sure does sound like financial suicide Joe, I moved away from the city 18 months back as it was getting silly with rents & to many people who care little for one another, I have moved to a very remote location in North Wales & its not for everyone, but we now have a huge 3 bed house with lots of extra room & rooms, nice grounds, garage caravan workshop etc & for less that we were paying for a 3 bed semi in the town burb's, only a mile from a great beach to so the children are leading a much happier & IMO more normal lifestyle, its £500 PCM, same place back in Leicester you would be looking at twice that or maybe more, so its all depends what you want & where you are willing to settle.

Good luck with whatever you decide m8.

 

[Joe]

That's exactly the type of reply I was looking for Frank many thanks mate!

I am a city boy unfortunately so not sure how well I would fair out in the sticks even if it was cheap! Mind you, the only thing in the world that seems to spoil my life is actually people lol

Sounds like a cracking place mate and wow £500pcm! You couldn't get a wheely bin for that much in Essex!

 

[geordie]

Joe,

it depends entirely on the location mate, i live in the north east ( i own my home ), my brother rents a nice 3 bed house on a nice estate where we both grew up and he pays £425 a month, for a 2-3 bedroom house @ £300 a month you aint gonna be in the best area...imho.

maybe try some of the letting agents and tell them what you can afford and where / what your after, im sure they will point you in the right direction.

incidently any one see todays people? people are renting tiny and i mean tiny (the size of a car garage) shed? near west hams ground for £600 a month.........

 

[Caswellbot]

For £740 a month you can rent a nice back to back two bed maisonette in Surrey mate. Good location not far from London. I think you could get cheaper than that around here too.

Whats brought on the possible move buddy? Family??

Hope you are well. Chris.

 

[plantman]

We live near Sheffield and rent round here is cheap, but if you can mortgage we only pay £480 a months on a 100k balance.

might be worth looking at buying a smaller house?

 

[Joe]

Appreciate your replies fellas definitely helps!

Chris - We are just thinking of Emma's future really, we both think it would be better for her to grow up / go to school in the UK, we have a few years till School is a concern of course but it's always good to plan ahead.

Probably going over this year to visit my folks and will do some investigating on prices/mortgages/rent when we do.


My next thread may will be : Best way to pack up and move your collection from one country to another :lol: *something I am really not looking forward to!*

 

[itfciain]

Hi mate

Have you thought of Colchester, Ipswich or even Norwich. Pretty close to Essex (and in Essex for Colchester) - I know house prices are cheap and we rent a very nice 2 bed for £580 and I have seen plenty of 2-3 beds for that sort of price in Ipswich & Colchester as well.

With interest rates so low, and the housing market in such a bad state then it is also a great time to get on the ladder - you should be able to put some pretty low ball offers in and might just get one accepted.

 

[weasel]

Is buying out of the question!?

Personally, I've never really understood renting. All you are doing is paying someone else's mortgage for them!?
For £500-£600 a month could you not find somewhere decent, in a decent area and buy?
Obviously, I don't know (nor, with the greatest respect, do I want to know) your personal financial situation. But renting is just pouring money down the drain! Unless, of course, you're not sure the move is gonna work out. Then I guess it makes sense.

Rental prices on my island vary. In Belfast you'll pay £400-£500 for a small terrace/end terrace etc. Outside of Belfast you'll get a nice 3-4 bed house with a decent sized gareden for that.

Like anywhere, it all depends on location.

 

[e30318is]

I rent Joe- I live in Herefordshire (Just south of Birmingham) in small market town. We pay £575 PCM for a three bed place.

I rent because I cant scrape a deposit together at the mo. To buy our house we would need between 15-20% deposit..... £25-30k :? That would buy a **** load of Jawa stiuff :lol:
When we have got the wedding out of the way we will start saving for the deposit though and look to buy our house.
Good to hear your moving back to Blighty Joe- might get to finally put a face to the name at a convention sometime in the future 8)

 

[edd_jedi]

I rent in Central London, 4 bed house costs £2600 per month. I obviously share it with friends :lol: Yes the South of England is dramatically more expensive than the North.

 

[PGowdy]

I know Edd, reading this, my jaw is dropping at the price of things elsewhere in the UK. 500 a month for a house!?!! My god! For that in london you get a room in a small shared flat tho that would have to be in a fairly shitty part of london. I'd move up north if there weren't so many northerners up there. :roll:

 

[Frunkstar]

If your daughters education is the major concern Joe, you may even want to consider my neck of the woods, the schools here are of a really high standard which was another major draw for us with 3 children, all our kids were in really great schools back in Leicester, with the eldest being in what we considered to be the best public school available within the county (hard to get in to), when we came up to scope the place out & was so over the moon with the school on offer here it really clinched it -

3 main buildings with new dedicated facilities for

Home economics (not called that now but you know what I mean).
5 IT suites with about 30 terminals in each all to a high speck.
outstanding fabrications building for the technology (wood & metal work to you or I lol) though its all plastics & polymers now, all glass ceilings as well so they can work under natural lighting.
extended outer workshop - they are making a single seater plane at the mo - yes a real one :shock:
30 acre farm is also part of the school which they use.
& dedicated art facilities with a up & coming local artist as a teacher.

the head master was embarrised when he showd us around due to them having 1 mobile building & it was one of those huge 40 x 40 ones :? - any school in Leicester would have given there eye'd teeth for that building.

They have also had the best exam grades in the county for the past 3 years running (25 schools).

So all in all my kids are getting a far better standard of education than they were in the city, plus the junior schools do not have the level of pupils here so less children per teacher so much more one to one time which I value.

& it shows with the kids already.

Worth consideration!

Only issue is once they reach collage age its a bit of a trek to get there, but the transport system is also a lot better, all 3 of my kids get picked up & dropped off at the end of our drive - you would not get that in the city & its saved me a tonne of time & cash with drops to & from school which means I get more time to talk **** on SW forums - great :mrgreen:

 

[e30318is]

I rent in Central London, 4 bed house costs £2600 per month. I obviously share it with friends :lol: Yes the South of England is dramatically more expensive than the North.

Wow. Thats scary!

 

[edd_jedi]

It sounds very scary! But I rent with 3 friends, so it works out at £650 per room. Which is actually pretty good for London, you won't pay much less than that even in the shittest areas.

It's all relative, my rent was half as much when I lived in Bournemouth, but then so was my salary. So people in London probably have a similar disposable income to people living near mines up north :lol:

I don't think I'll ever be able to afford to buy here though, so I'm currently saving and will hopefully be able to afford to buy somewhere with a small (or even no) mortgage outside of London in 10 or so years.

 

[e30318is]

Very true- If you dont mind me asking, what do you estimate your rented house to worth Edd?

I reckon our place is £130k and it costs us £575 to rent => 225 months renting (at our current rent) and we would have paid enough to buy it.

The owner is yielding about 5.4% on his investment. Not too shabby really!

 

[edd_jedi]

I have no idea but reckon it must be worth at least a million, houses are crazy money here.

 

[PGowdy]

I have no idea but reckon it must be worth at least a million, houses are crazy money here.

A 4 bedroom place in the centre of london is easily gonna be worth that. My friend just bought a small terrace in Barnes. Very small 2 bed place and that was just under 600k.

 

[tiefighterboy]

I would rather live out in the countryside...than London...kinda similar to Detroit.

 

[e30318is]

The sticks take some beating. Here is my cow:

:lol:

This is about a five minute drive from my house.

I have no idea but reckon it must be worth at least a million, houses are crazy money here.

Interesting- the return isnt anywhere near as good, at 3.1% yeild P.A. for the owner. Also its 385 months months worth of rent to effectively "buy" your house.