Perhaps Britain? (middle-class, apartment, rental market)

[ndheah]

Hello,

Looking for some insight here from all you wonderful people. My wife may be getting a job in London, we are young, college graduates and we aree considering the move. Currently, we make about $70,000 together in a small town(15,000), which puts us in 'upper middle-class'. Her job would probably pay about $45,000 / year in London, and I am unsure if my qualifications could find my a suitable job in London. I have experience in the field of IT (Network Admin) and a few years work experience (By the move would be 4-5 years).

What would it cost for us to live comfortably in the London area (20-25 minute commute is acceptable), what would be a good target salary for the two of us? We would rent for the first couple of years, no home yet...

[ian6479]

Where is your small town?

You have to look at it like you would NYC or LA. London is very expensive, especially when you think about it in dollars. A 1 bed apartment will run from $1800+ for anywhere liveable. $70k (around £38k) between will not be enough.

London is a great place to live, and it is doable, but think of it terms of New York expensive or southern california.

[swim73088]

to put it bluntly, on $45,000 a year in london you will be living in a ghetto and your commute would be much more than 20-25 mins if her job was in london central.

i used to live in the states and $70,000 does not put you into the upper-middle class at all. you need to be earning upwards of $100,000 to even be considered as upper-middle class.

[BrianH]

Think he meant upper middle class living for the town, not America in general.

[jenn02674]

Yes he meant for the small town he lived in. There are MANY places in the US where $70,000 would provide you a nice middle class income (although my perspective of upper-middle might be different). I mean there are still areas of the country where the median house price is still $70,000.

[nitokenshi]

Originally Posted by swim73088

to put it bluntly, on $45,000 a year in london you will be living in a ghetto and your commute would be much more than 20-25 mins if her job was in london central.

i used to live in the states and $70,000 does not put you into the upper-middle class at all. you need to be earning upwards of $100,000 to even be considered as upper-middle class.

Are you sure $45k will get him the ghetto? Thats 20k pounds! Maybe if they had 13 other roommates they MIGHT be able to afford the ghetto.

[ndheah]

1) Only her job would be $45k, my job would be additional, but my job would be found AFTER we were to make the move. Her pay is only based off of what they would pay her in America, not sure about England at all, just a guessitmate.

2) $70,000 in Northwestern Wisconsin, where my 3 bedroom home costs $110,000 at purchase. That puts us at Upper-Middle class in our area, not the country as a whole.

Thank you for replies.

[Jezer]

I think that the correspondents so far are being kind in terms of the cost of properties so close to London.

Even though prices are starting to drop, they would make your eyes water.

Just check out a few Estate Agent (realtor) sites.

$110,000 currently equates to around £55,000. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that you get you zilch. You could put down a reasonable deposit, but have nothing to spend on anything else.

I don't know much about the rental market, but my suspicion would be that anything less than £700 a month would be suspect.

I'm sure other posters will clarify that.

I've lived in the US, and now live in rural UK. All I can say is good luck- you need one very well paid job to be happy around London.

[AnthonyB]

Originally Posted by ndheah

1) Only her job would be $45k, my job would be additional, but my job would be found AFTER we were to make the move. Her pay is only based off of what they would pay her in America, not sure about England at all, just a guessitmate.

2) $70,000 in Northwestern Wisconsin, where my 3 bedroom home costs $110,000 at purchase. That puts us at Upper-Middle class in our area, not the country as a whole.

Thank you for replies.

As the others pointed out, that would be a tough salary in London. Prices there are well above NY metro prices and in my neck of the woods, 45 minutes outside Manhattan, $70k is barely livable I'm afraid.

It would be tough and you would suffer a pretty big drop in your standard of living. Is the move being considered one which would be a great career move for your wife? As you are both young, it may be a great learning experience for a time.

[RH1]

Originally Posted by Jezer

I
I don't know much about the rental market, but my suspicion would be that anything less than £700 a month would be suspect.

I'm sure other posters will clarify that.

I've never looked at rental in London but that's the right kind of price for renting houses in the village near Leeds that we're looking at, so you can probably double it for London. "Suspect" at best, "garage" at worst.