[tensorproduct]

I have sort of a different experience. I just moved to London, from Dublin, a few months ago. I make a good, but not outrageous, salary: pretty close to a reported average for software developers in London.

I live in a somewhat rundown area, just outside zone 1. The rent is expensive, but not unmanageable. I have flatmates; the area feels safe; its close enough to bus and tube lines that getting around is simple. I live fairly frugally otherwise. I don't at all feel like I can't afford to live in the city, and I can't imagine having the access to the range and depth of culture and social events anywhere else.

Maybe it's that I don't have any interest in buying a home, but I feel like so much of this doesn't apply to me. Maybe it's also that I moved here from Dublin, another very expensive city, that I don't feel like it's so bad.

[camillomiller]

How old are you? You mention that you have flatmates, but not everybody wants to live in a shared apartment far into their thirties, especially if you would like to find a place for you and your partner. The problem is that housing in London looks like a commodity that big sharks trade like many other long-term investment commodities. Problem is, that's the places where people would actually like to live that you're trading like it was crude oil barrels. How is that even barely sustainable for a city in the long term? Not limiting that by rules of law is a big mistake, but no politicians would be ever called into account for that.

[tensorproduct]

I'm late-twenties/early-thirties. I'm probably just on the old side to still be perfectly happy to rent a room in a shared apartment. If I find myself in a long-term relationship then I imagine my priorities will change, but part of the reason I moved to London was because I thought it would be easier to meet romantic prospects.

I completely agree that property prices in London are insane, and that the political system is doing nothing to reign it in (quite the opposite, from my point of view).

But, from what I've experienced, if you don't want to buy your own property, then it's perfectly possible to live in London without earning crazy hedge fund money.

[srgvd]

It's completely possible to live in London. But imagine trying to stay here, like, for life. Starting family, raising kids, buying your own place. Not possible, on any income. You need wealth, and in London there's no way to build it for salaried professional.

It's a good place to spend one's youth though.