Moving north as a long term plan (cost of living related)

[Freefaller]

55k?

Must be in a very bad area or Wales, because if you search rightmove around a 40mile area of Stoke, places like this don't exist.

Lincoln area I believe, it was an ex-council property - I think they got it on auction, so I appreciate it's probably not typical, but heck, 300k up north will get you a lot more than it gets you down here!

 

[fastwunz]

I've just paid £350,000 for a gorgeous Georgian flat in surrey. 1000sq ft which isn't half bad either. My entire family bar mum and dad live in Birkenhead and west Kirby. Whilst I wouldn't live on Birkenhead, it's mind boggling what 350k would get me in west Kirby it really is.

I've bought in surrey as it's an easy commute into clapham around where I work and it's rural enough that I don't feel suffocated by town. I've lived in clapham for years now and every day I've been here I've dreamt of getting out into the countryside.
It's finally happening.

I'll give it 5 years and move to the midlands, get a 3 bed house, a lawn mower, an open fire, driveway and views of fields .

I'll be proper happy then. Wish I had a pipe lol

 

[mattyg]

A friend sold his house in Portsmouth last month for £340k bought an almost identical house in preston for £120k. He now doesn't have a mortgage

 

[Hagar]

I moved north in 1974 from Petersfield in Hampshire to St Helens in Lancashire. Primarily because I found a job up north but I settled down and eventually married.

I could afford to but would not live in the South again although my sisters still do. (Surrey and Hampshire).

I have been gravitating slowly south through Cheshire since About 50 miles in 40 years.

 

[englishpremier]

I bought this in May last year for £112,500.
A quiet cul-de-sac on the fields in Stoke On Trent.


I genuinely have no idea why people aspire to live in the South when the prices are so much higher.
I'd love to live in Cambridge, but I can't afford it, so I don't .

When you say move 'up north', the Midlands is as north as you need to go .

Wow, sounds like a bargain.

Can't buy a Studio or 1 bed flat for that in Norwich unless you want to go into council areas.

 

[Bossk128]

Remember even though southern/more expensive houses cost more you get the money back when you sell them (barring a huge recession obviously...), so long term you are still better off staying south living in a house that may not be not as nice.

That's why so many people wait for retirement, your pension isn't means tested to where you live, plus you can often upgrade or buy outright or both. House I mean.

 

[Eurofighter]

Remember even though southern/more expensive houses cost more you get the money back when you sell them (barring a huge recession obviously...), so long term you are still better off staying south living in a house that may not be not as nice.

That's why so many people wait for retirement, your pension isn't means tested to where you live, plus you can often upgrade or buy outright or both. House I mean.

This is only the case if you downsize when you get older. Having an expensive house doesn't give you any cash unless you sell it. I don't want to move to a smaller house when I am old and niether do most people so they are better off up north. Unless you have a large circle of friends and a job you can't get up north.

 

[D.P.]

This is only the case if you downsize when you get older. Having an expensive house doesn't give you any cash unless you sell it. I don't want to move to a smaller house when I am old and niether do most people so they are better off up north. Unless you have a large circle of friends and a job you can't get up north.

Actually, most people want to move to a smaller house when they are older. They don't need extra bedrooms for kids, offices etc, and don't want to pay so much tax on a more expensive property that is mostly empty, or have all the costs of upkeep, heating, elec. Then there is the cleaning and maintenance.

Once you retire is also a good time to move out of the city and into thec countryside to enjoy life.

Thu is does make a lot of sense when younger to earn more and have a more expensive mortgage to pay off because the end result will be you have much more assets for retirements. You may even be able to enter early retirement. Earning less and having lower living costs means you have much less financial flexibility in the future.

The alternative is to move abroad where you can have both higher salaries and lower living costs simultaneously!



Plus there are many things that just aren't that different in price. Cost of food, cars, petrol, insurance, utility bills, furniture, toys don't vary much at all across the country. In fact some of the cheapest areas will have more expensive food and utilities due to remoteness.

 

[Bossk128]

This is only the case if you downsize when you get older. Having an expensive house doesn't give you any cash unless you sell it. I don't want to move to a smaller house when I am old and niether do most people so they are better off up north. Unless you have a large circle of friends and a job you can't get up north.

I think you've just summed up perfectly what I was inferring

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Have a look at the Newcastle area.

Hewlett Packard have created a regional hub there and are closing all their SE/London offices (and some in the NW) and consolidating them onto the NE. Microsoft and Oracle are about to do the same this year. Reading will lose half it's tech companies by the end of the year.

 

[scorza]

Have a look at the Newcastle area.

Hewlett Packard have created a regional hub there and are closing all their SE/London offices (and some in the NW) and consolidating them onto the NE. Microsoft and Oracle are about to do the same this year. Reading will lose half it's tech companies by the end of the year.

You got a link to the HP decision to do that?

 

[413x]

i only see the benefit of staying down south also if you sell and move up later
but then. ie,,if a down south mortgage gets you a 6% rate as the mortgage is bigger but up north its 3% then it balances out a bit.
Also the 'living for now' comes into it a bit

 

[EdwardTeach]

Don't think so, I'm only down the road from Brighton, and that's worth about 175-200, the one Furyus posted would be closer to the 300k level.

Like anywhere else the actual price would be totally dependent, on where in Brighton it is located. Plenty of ****eholes in Brighton!

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

Wow, sounds like a bargain.

Can't buy a Studio or 1 bed flat for that in Norwich unless you want to go into council areas.

Yeah I was lucky. Would resell now for around £130k (put for sale at £135k).

As I write this I am in my office (box room). The other spare bedroom consists of an ironing board!

 

[D.P.]

i only see the benefit of staying down south also if you sell and move up later
but then. ie,,if a down south mortgage gets you a 6% rate as the mortgage is bigger but up north its 3% then it balances out a bit.
Also the 'living for now' comes into it a bit

The difference in mortgage rates wont be anywhere near that different though, if there is any difference at all. Checking around a 90% LTV is giving a UK rate of 4.0-4.1, an 80% LTV has a rate of 3.8-3.9% and a 50% LTV at 3.7-3.8%
Other factors will come into play as well, if you have a high paying job they may give you a higher credit rating which would then reduce the mortgage rate.

And all of that is assuming you have the same down-payment regardless of salary, which is not at all expected. If you earn more money then you will find it much easier to save even with higher living costs (and it is always possible to reduce living costs over a time by reducing living standards to save significantly.
E.g., if you lived in the SE you might need 500K for a house but have 50K in down-payment, if you live further out you might only need 250K for a house but will only have 25K down-payment. You are not really any better off on the mortgage.


Ultimately it comes down to your job. As long as you have a job that pays accordingly then you are almost always better off long term (from a financial point of view) living in a higher cost higher salaried area.
If you have a relatively unskilled job that doesn't have a salary that matches living cost differences then yeah, you will be better off living up north in a lower cost area. If you have a relatively non-specialized skill set you will find work across the country, if you have a specialized skill then you will be much more constrained and will more often than not find yourself in the SE.


When figuring finances although having twice the salary wont net you twice the take home pay, your living costs have many fixed costs that don't reduce so your ability to save increases much faster. E.g at 15K it is very to save anything at all, almost everything goes to food, bills, cars, rent. At 30K you can save a little, even if your rent is much higher. At 60K even with high living costs you can save far more. And from what I have seen that is often the salary difference. I've seen jobs in my field advertized at 30-35K in Scotland, but 60-80K in london.


Saying all of that, I could never live in london or the SE!

 

[413x]

i have been looking around my job area and i live on the traditional north south border
without knowing the area there are some actually quite nice looking places for less than 125k

i am quite fortunate that i dont want a big house at all, in fact i am as happy in a flat as i would be in anything else.. except i do like a bit of garden

i work in ..peterborough.. which has a bit of a poor rep in places so i am not sure if these places are in said places

i would say my salary isnt in the high band at all and is probably on the edge where i could loose some as it wouldnt be anything like halving it.

i can easily see where if you are on a pay rate where north to south is 50% difference it is better to be in the opportunist south

 

[craptakular]

You could also move East or West. Suffolk and Norfolk are cheap.

 

[The_Abyss]

You could also move East or West. Suffolk and Norfolk are cheap.

Some parts are, others are not. Again, it is all about the local employment opportunities. Plus, anywhere near a mainline rail station and prices rocket.

 

[blitzwing85]

Someone said earlier that your house will be worth more as it's more expensive down south - but that means you will have paid more interest on it over the years.

25 year mortgage on £150k against a 25 year mortgage on £350k is going to be a hell of a lot. So despite selling it for £200k more, you will have paid that much more in interest really so the price difference won't really matter when you sell.



We only earn just over £50k a year at the minute between 2 people up North and we have around £1500 per month disposable income. (after all bills and food).
And that's also after me being insane with cars and now having a brand new car, and a loan for a car I no longer have.

On saying that though, £50k is well above average for my area. In fact, having a job at all is above average!!! Average for a household in my town is only around £20k per year which won't get you that much unless you don't have kids.

We could certainly get more money down south, but not enough to make it worthwhile. We can probably hit around £80k max up North with our careers if we both go as far as we can and up here that cuold pretty much get you anything you could reasonably want out of life (without being a millionaire).
Of course working life wil be half over by the time we get there (if at all) but IF you can find decent jobs up North it's quite easy to have a very high standard of life.

It's a big IF though and if I loved down South and wanted to move, I'd be much more inclined to emigrate anyway. Plenty really nice places to live.


My wife is in economics and a recent chart she showed me put USA as the worst developed country for income vs cost of living. UK was quite bad too. Japan and Scandanavia came out on top (Norway, Sweden and Finland). This is surprising to me as the cost of living is known to be high in those areas.

I recently had a chance to emigrate to Norway but it was right up North in a really deserted part of the country so didn't fancy it.

Canada came out well too but of course it's all subjective as you need the job to go with it.

IF you find the right job, there are countless countries where you'd be financially better off than the UK with a better quality of life

 

[D.P.]

Someone said earlier that your house will be worth more as it's more expensive down south - but that means you will have paid more interest on it over the years.

25 year mortgage on £150k against a 25 year mortgage on £350k is going to be a hell of a lot. So despite selling it for £200k more, you will have paid that much more in interest really so the price difference won't really matter when you sell.



We only earn just over £50k a year at the minute between 2 people up North and we have around £1500 per month disposable income. (after all bills and food).
And that's also after me being insane with cars and now having a brand new car, and a loan for a car I no longer have.

On saying that though, £50k is well above average for my area. In fact, having a job at all is above average!!! Average for a household in my town is only around £20k per year which won't get you that much unless you don't have kids.

We could certainly get more money down south, but not enough to make it worthwhile. We can probably hit around £80k max up North with our careers if we both go as far as we can and up here that cuold pretty much get you anything you could reasonably want out of life (without being a millionaire).
Of course working life wil be half over by the time we get there (if at all) but IF you can find decent jobs up North it's quite easy to have a very high standard of life.

It's a big IF though and if I loved down South and wanted to move, I'd be much more inclined to emigrate anyway. Plenty really nice places to live.


My wife is in economics and a recent chart she showed me put USA as the worst developed country for income vs cost of living. UK was quite bad too. Japan and Scandanavia came out on top (Norway, Sweden and Finland). This is surprising to me as the cost of living is known to be high in those areas.

I recently had a chance to emigrate to Norway but it was right up North in a really deserted part of the country so didn't fancy it.

Canada came out well too but of course it's all subjective as you need the job to go with it.

IF you find the right job, there are countless countries where you'd be financially better off than the UK with a better quality of life

Although you would pay more interest on the more expensive house you are still building more capital and have more income to pay the interest.
Imagine 2 scenarios, one you live in the south and have a 350K house, you put every penny into paying off the mortgage and so have no savings after 25 years but a mortgage free 350k house. Or you lie in the north and have a 150K house and again you pay every penny into the mortgage so after 25 years you also have no savings but a a house and no mortgage. Remember, house prices reflect expected/mean family incomes and expendable assets.

In 25years the person who lived in the south can sell up and move to the north and buy a 150K house and have 200 K left over from the sale of their old house to put into stocks/bond and other financial tools for retirement. The people that stayed in the north don't have that extra assess.




And then you have to take into account inflation and house appreciation. In 20 years time that 350K house might be 700K (100% increase, as an example, actual inflation might be more or less), the 150K house might be worth 300K (100% increase). The extra 200K in the initial purchase has appreciated to 400K when they want to sell. This appreciation will have neglected much of the interest. Taking this into account the person in the south retires sells their house for 700k and buys a house in the north 300K and has 400K in savings to retire on.