From The Metro:
Soaring rail fares could spell the end of the commuter town as price increases swallow up the benefits of cheaper housing, experts predict. Many workers could actually save money by living in the city – even though homes often cost far more, a new study reveals... Jonathan Haward, of County Homesearch, the agency behind the study, said: ‘With the government focused on extensive house building beyond the London green belt, the future availability of affordable family homes will only continue to conflict with the cost of travelling to and from them.’
Taking their numbers at face value, it currently costs £1,000 a month to rent/buy a house out in Colchester and £900 a for two monthly tickets into London, total £1,900. If you live in Greenwich, it currently costs you £1,700 + £200, total cost also £1,900.
If we take two jobs in London as the couple's fixed starting point - and ignore all other factors, as they do - then rents are quite simply a balancing figure of £1,900 minus the cost of two monthly tickets. So if season ticket prices from Colchester increase by £90 a month, rents will simply fall by £90 a month relative* to Greenwich and the balance is restored. People will still largely be indifferent between living in Greenwich and living in Colchester, so this will not sound the death knell for towns like Colchester.
* It might be that the extra ticket price just goes into higher profits (we don't know what the demand curve looks like) in which Colechester rents fall by £90 a month; it might also be that the extra ticket prices go into improving services, in which case Greenwich rents might increase by £45 a month and those in Colchester will only fall by £45, but that £700 gap will no doubt widen - unless of course, the new service from Colchester is improved so enormously that people are happy to pay the extra and there is no particular impact on rents.
This Is How To Stop This Nonsense...
47 minutes ago
9 comments:
Well, well. How serendipitous. Lola Child No. 4 lives and rents in Greenwich. Mrs Lola and I live, and owner occupy, between Ipswich and Colchester. All of us work near where we live, but, house prices / rents do exactly reflect what MW says... The trick is to find work nearby that pays enough so you don't have to waste your life commuting...
I agree, you have not taken into account the social/personal cost of being ruled by your commute.
I win by living in a cheap flat in a central area! But then I have the snobs you refer to in an earlier post wondering what I am up to!!
@Lola,
I live in Maze Hill. It's a nice place.
AC1
Forgot to add cycling in from there is pretty cheap.
AC1
At those prices, I'll not be moving south any time soon.
I spent three years waiting on the platform at Colchester in the invariably howling wind wondering whether the 7:04 had bothered getting its boots on that morning. Since it was many years ago and I don't remember anything about the prices (except that I never got round to moving to London, so the commute must have been worth it) this is a bit irrelevant, but it brought back memories.
L, ta.
BE, they were simplifying, so was I.
AC1, if you dare cycle in London.
JH, wages are higher, jobs are easier to find and rents are accordingly higher. It all largely cancels out.
CI, that is impressive. I've sometimes had to wait an hour or two for a delayed train but never as long as three years :-)
I don't think commuting long distances is worth it in many cases. (Unless you have a very big house).
I live in Bromley and for my budget (small 3 bed semi) I worked out that it was cheaper to buy here than commute from Norwich which is cheap) after taking into the price of ticket prices.
Even assuming that they don't increase by more than inflation(which of course they do).
The weird thing is that people commute from Woking to London when places like Bromley and Orpington are closer, have better train services, are nicer and have cheaper housing.
Why someone who works in London would choose to live in Woking is a mystery to me.
ANon, excellent, thanks for anecdotal. Maybe they have bigger gardens in Woking, or is there is more snob value?
But either way, it is certainly the case that people weigh up cost of house against commute time/cost, and there is some inverse correlation between the two.
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