North-South house price divide 'to narrow'

[iamnumerate]

Just now, winkie said:

I am talking since the 1950s 1960s and 1970s......different and better times imo, great to be a child, children were valued and invested in then.

Always seems a strange word to use for the last 50 years of a city that has been around for almost 2000 years and as a modern city for over 120 years.

[spyguy]

11 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

It has not always been as cosmopolitan as now (not saying it is bad nor good for that matter) look at photos of the Blitz, it is 99% white.

 

Its also not as been so benefit dependent.

[iamnumerate]

7 minutes ago, spyguy said:

Its also not as been so benefit dependent.

That is disgraceful, with mass numbers of jobs and people traveling long distances, no one in zones 1 and 2 should be unemployed for long.

[Si1]

1 minute ago, iamnumerate said:

That is disgraceful, with mass numbers of jobs and people traveling long distances, no one in zones 1 and 2 should be unemployed for long.

+1

[spyguy]

17 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

That is disgraceful, with mass numbers of jobs and people traveling long distances, no one in zones 1 and 2 should be unemployed for long.

Well ..... if they dont speak much English and only went to school for ~5 years .....

[iamnumerate]

Just now, spyguy said:

Well ..... if they dont speak much English and only went to school for ~5 years .....

Then they should be given a home somewhere else.  (I am sure someone will attack me for this).

[Si1]

14 minutes ago, spyguy said:

Well ..... if they dont speak much English and only went to school for ~5 years .....

Cleaners, Uber drivers, cycle couriers deliveroo.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Si1

[btd1981]

One big difference is that 'ordinary' people that want to buy a house in the North still can if they wish. A single mechanic who was renting a room next door just bought his own place (house, not flat). Good luck to a similar person doing that where I've just returned from (west berks)

[winkie]

4 minutes ago, btd1981 said:

One big difference is that 'ordinary' people that want to buy a house in the North still can if they wish. A single mechanic who was renting a room next door just bought his own place (house, not flat). Good luck to a similar person doing that where I've just returned from (west berks)

Correct.....would rather live in a place where ordinary workers have the possibility to gain a stake in the place they live and work in......where their earnings and investments stay local to benefit their neighbours rather than others living elsewhere, who do their spending elsewhere....where you don't know where they are or what their name is.

[simvastatin]

2 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

It has not always been as cosmopolitan as now (not saying it is bad nor good for that matter) look at photos of the Blitz, it is 99% white.

 

Ahhh the good old days when the Luftwaffe were dropping bombs on us, how I miss them

....sometimes you say the most stupid things.

[iamnumerate]

2 minutes ago, prozac said:

Ahhh the good old days when the Luftwaffe were dropping bombs on us, how I miss them

.

I thought you were 50, how do you remember the Blitz?  I didn't say it was a good time (I doubt it was but I wasn't there so can't judge).

I was just saying that London was less cosmopolitan then.   (I also didn't say that is good or bad, it is just a fact).

If I had said during the coronation, would that have made you happier (I chose the Blitz as it is a clear period in history, well photographed)?

3 minutes ago, prozac said:

 

....sometimes you say the most stupid things.

I didn't know that the side effect of prozac was being aggressive and miss interpreting things.

 

[simvastatin]

1 minute ago, iamnumerate said:

I thought you were 50, how do you remember the Blitz?  I didn't say it was a good time (I doubt it was but I wasn't there so can't judge).

I was just saying that London was less cosmopolitan then.   (I also didn't say that is good or bad, it is just a fact).

If I had said during the coronation, would that have made you happier (I chose the Blitz as it is a clear period in history, well photographed)?

I didn't know that the side effect of prozac was being aggressive and miss interpreting things.

 

It seems like you need to speak, to be heard, you don’t seem to get that from your life situation 

[Riedquat]

On 02/11/2018 at 09:22, Tes Tickle said:

Clearly a marketing piece that's more about what they want to happen rather than based on anything credible.

But... I really could see this happening.  I'm in the south, looking to move north and I suspect I'm not alone.  As more people become freelance with fewer geographic restrictions then people will naturally gravitate to the better value and possibly more pleasant areas.

Perhaps the industrial revolution's pull of people from the countryside to the towns and cities is about to go into reverse too - not only will people stop heading south but will also sprawl outwards in all directions from the cities.

More likely thanks to that reduction in geographic restrictions the poorer continue to get priced out of the more pleasant areas and shoved in to the crap ones. And a big reverse out of cities will just mean a lot more villages turn in to towns, towns in to cities etc. There are too many people around for such a move to happen without significant detriment to where they're moving to.

[Riedquat]

On 02/11/2018 at 10:08, Tes Tickle said:

I know that in many offices "Working from home" has the inverted commas around it when spoken, as everyone knows it's basically having a day off while pretending to do stuff.  But, with more advanced tech, being at home could be little different from being there.

And it's an idea I find very disturbing. The last thing I want is for work to invade my house. I strongly believe it's very beneficial to keep them separate. When I step out of the office door at the end of the day that's it, I've nothing to do with work until I set foot back in there the next morning. It's simply not part of my life, my surroundings, my vicinity. The idea of it chasing me home makes me feel nauseous, the idea of the office squatting in my house even more so. And I really don't think continuing to further reduce day to day human contact with other humans beings is at all healthy for society.

I'd be happy enough with local small offices springing up (subject to my scepticism in the post above), so people can just rent a spot in the nearest (or more appropriataly their company rents one for them), so it's still out of the house and you're still with other people, maybe some facilities like a canteen in the larger ones.

It'll take off simply because businesses have no problem whatsoever invading your private life and they can get to use your home for free office space. It'll be cheaper for them and detrimental for the rest of us, like so much labelled as "progress" these days.

[dougless]

20 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

It'll take off simply because businesses have no problem whatsoever invading your private life and they can get to use your home for free office space. It'll be cheaper for them and detrimental for the rest of us, like so much labelled as "progress" these days.

Have to agree with this.

[Tes Tickle]

I didn't say it was a good thing, but it is the inevitable way things will head.

I agree that an employer invading your home would be something of an invasion, but I'd bet that many would choose it over travelling, especially if it meant that they could live somewhere cheaper, prettier and healthier, probably if the pay was higher, definitely if it was the one and only choice available.

I could easily imagine a day when getting a new office job means that a box arrives with the company's desk kit, consisting of a computer, phone and whatever else you need, perhaps even a desk and chair.  Connect it to your home wifi then login on Monday, after which you're on hourly pay and everything you do is monitored.  Log out at the end of the day and you're free again.

[Riedquat]

38 minutes ago, Tes Tickle said:

I didn't say it was a good thing, but it is the inevitable way things will head.

I agree that an employer invading your home would be something of an invasion, but I'd bet that many would choose it over travelling, especially if it meant that they could live somewhere cheaper, prettier and healthier, probably if the pay was higher, definitely if it was the one and only choice available.

I could easily imagine a day when getting a new office job means that a box arrives with the company's desk kit, consisting of a computer, phone and whatever else you need, perhaps even a desk and chair.  Connect it to your home wifi then login on Monday, after which you're on hourly pay and everything you do is monitored.  Log out at the end of the day and you're free again.

I can imagine that too and see it as the way it's going, and it's yet another aspect of the future that makes it look like a bleak place (might be a struggle to fit the desk in to some of the rabbit hutch houses though).

How long do you think those cheaper, prettier and healthier places will remain so? Freed from geographical constraints the demand to live in them will shoot up, so they'll either become uglier, more expensive, or both. Easier travel has already achieved that to some degree. The wealthy get an even wider pick of the locations, the poor shoved off even further to the crappy locations At least being restricted geographically means if you're not well off you've still got a chance at somewhere pleasant to live, even if not a great one.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Riedquat

[Save me from the madness!]

I like homeworking. All the negatives expressed above I can see, but it depends on if you want to be negative or positive. Positives would include:

1) No commuting - we're a 1 car family now saving about £1.5K plus fuel so call it £3K post tax income a year, so call it say £5K gross income.

2) Flexibility to go to the gym very easily - good for my mental health

3) Flexibility to assist with family life - today I held our newborn who was upset whilst my wife ate, a small thing, but you can bet my wife's stress level would have been high without this little contribution. So many little examples of this, sports day, harvest assembly, nativity, I've been to them all this year. 3pm parents evening (Yes, incredible that such a non-inclusive slot would be offered), I can make it.

4) Improved home security - harder to burgle

With regards to the invasion of the home though I think that has happened anyway with mobile phones. There is a space aspect which is negative, but then I remember my Dad having a chunk of his bedroom for his structural engineering drawings etc decades ago and he was an office worker (just didn't want to commute in for overtime at the weekend when he occasionally had to work).

 

[winkie]

On 03/11/2018 at 13:44, dougless said:

Have to agree with this.

So the easy answer is to have value for money close by local hubs/office space where people meet and trade/talk/do business with local and as far as the rest of the world......they can all go to lunch together to discuss tactics.

 

Edited November 5, 2018 by winkie

[mrtickle]

On 03/11/2018 at 13:26, Riedquat said:

And it's an idea I find very disturbing. The last thing I want is for work to invade my house. I strongly believe it's very beneficial to keep them separate. When I step out of the office door at the end of the day that's it, I've nothing to do with work until I set foot back in there the next morning. It's simply not part of my life, my surroundings, my vicinity. The idea of it chasing me home makes me feel nauseous, the idea of the office squatting in my house even more so. And I really don't think continuing to further reduce day to day human contact with other humans beings is at all healthy for society.

I'd be happy enough with local small offices springing up (subject to my scepticism in the post above), so people can just rent a spot in the nearest (or more appropriataly their company rents one for them), so it's still out of the house and you're still with other people, maybe some facilities like a canteen in the larger ones.

It'll take off simply because businesses have no problem whatsoever invading your private life and they can get to use your home for free office space. It'll be cheaper for them and detrimental for the rest of us, like so much labelled as "progress" these days.

Yes, thank-you for posting this, I agree with every word. I'd get cabin fever if I worked from home in my little rabbit hutch. It's bad for mental health not to interact with other people.

Work does not invade my house. Someone mentioned "it already happens with a mobile phone" - no it bloody doesn't. A colleague of mine (a manager) was given a company mobile which he didn't want. It never left the office and was locked in his office desk's drawer every evening and weekends.

 

[GreenDevil]

On 02/11/2018 at 08:21, dougless said:

North-South house price divide 'to narrow'

More nonsense from Savills via the BBC.  According to the article prices are on the way up!  It does seem completely disconnected from the reality of the housing market and our crumbling economy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46059279

Surely the reason for price falls in London and rises elsewhere is simple. London's a shithole and everyone wants out....

[dougless]

10 hours ago, GreenDevil said:

Surely the reason for price falls in London and rises elsewhere is simple. London's a shithole and everyone wants out....

I am inclined to agree with you on that point.

[winkie]

10 hours ago, GreenDevil said:

Surely the reason for price falls in London and rises elsewhere is simple. London's a shithole and everyone wants out....

Two issues.....they move out and collect rents in London or buy a second home in a nice place leave empty/ use it to escape the grind with an idea to move to more permanently when the time is right......meaning that many places have empty homes most of the year in places where local working people are becoming even more priced out......?

[Riedquat]

18 hours ago, Save me from the madness! said:

I like homeworking. All the negatives expressed above I can see, but it depends on if you want to be negative or positive.

 

I see a difference between having a chunk of the bedroom like that for an occasional thing and full or nearly full time working from home; I don't have a problem with taking a work laptop home if I'm expecting a delivery for example, I just don't want it to become a regular, expected thing. Short, i.e. walking distance commuters would IMO be the best balance but with job centralisation that's never going to be possible for many again. The local rent-a-desk office idea was an attempt at trying to square that circle but I doubt it would work - it would fall victim to the curse of not being the cheapest and most convenient option.

Overall I'm firmly of the view that the negatives significantly outweigh the positives, although the immediate appeal of the positives nudges a lot of people that way (as is pretty obvious I think the same about a great many things!)

[Riedquat]

11 hours ago, mrtickle said:

Yes, thank-you for posting this, I agree with every word. I'd get cabin fever if I worked from home in my little rabbit hutch. It's bad for mental health not to interact with other people.

Out of all the many, many things I dislike I think this is the one that's going to impact everyone else the most. I'm quite an unsociable loner by most standards but even I don't want the degree of being cut off that we seem to be heading to. Not forcibly cut off, true, but there are huge numbers of people who'll never leave their house if they don't have to.