please empty your brain below

Even the 'by borough' approach paints with a broad brush - there are huge contrasts within boroughs. To take one example, the smallish borough of Harringey includes both the expensive housing of Highgate and the more modest properties of Tottenham.

Sometimes even a single road within a borough can exhibit these contrasts - take Shirland Road as it runs Little Venice up into West Kilburn.
I don't like to criticise dg, but a single person would usually look for a one-bedroom flat, not a median property (which is guess is a three bed house).

It has been a very very long time (if ever!) that a single person on a median salary could afford to rent a two-bedroom flat or a three-bedroom house on their own in London.

It would be useful to see pockets of one-bedroom flat affordability. Eg until just a few years ago, someone on median salary could afford a one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow or East Ham without stretching themselves too far. It is these pockets that seem to be are drying up.
@ Dan - a one bed flat in Walthamstow costs £925 p.m. On the London living wage you'd only have enough left over to pay your fare to your job and little else. This is the whole point - you can no longer be single. Singleness does not count in the eyes of the govt.
Dan - I see your point about 'median' not being a one-bedroom flat ... but it can hardly be a three-bedroom house either!
Dan,

I don't like to criticise dg, but a single person would usually look for a one-bedroom flat, not a median property (which is guess is a three bed house).

Yes that is very true nowadays but it wasn't always the case. By saving carefully (helped by living with Mum and Dad), even on a relatively modest salary, as a single person I was able to buy a small two-bedroom end-of-terrace house when in my 20s. Such a thing would be almost unthinkable nowadays except for well-off professionals or those who are rich for other reasons.

At that time, friends, who were single and had a relatively good but not exceptional job, would typically buy a reasonably sized flat with a large bedroom and a smaller guest bedroom.
So all the big inner London hospitals - where are their staff supposed to live? Particularly as they long since sold off/converted the nurses accommodation they used to have.
That 28k average - is that before or after tax and NI? Is it average or median?

And, as others pointed out, a "median property" can be anything. Do you have the numbers just for one bedroom flats? Or perhaps "how many square feet can a single income afford"?
Not just hard working families, hard working single people trying to meet the rent!
My son is 22 and still at home with us here in East Greenwich/Charlton. The 'affordable' one bed flats down the road are priced at 260,000 pounds each.
He is on 1200 pounds a month (net) and currently manages a betting shop with all responsibility that that entails.
He hasn't got a chance until me and the wife cark it.
The house 2 doors from me is for sale for £125k, 2-bed terrace, not too bad around, was previously up for rent at £550 per month.
The rental data comes from the Greater London Authority (see link near start of post), and they only break it down into median and quartiles, sorry.

The release presents the mean (average), median, lower quartile, and upper quartile gross monthly rent paid (ignoring any adjustment for services not eligible for housing benefit), for a number of bedroom/room categories for each Local Authority (LA) in England for the 12 month period.

Obviously it's very broad brush data, and merely hints at generalities rather than proving specifics.
Of course we all already know that London rents are absurdly high. But DG's article is another, quite innovative, way of making the same point. And it's a point still well worth making.

Although the causes of this situation are complex, politically controversial and so on, they are not inevitable results of any law of nature. In theory, things could be otherwise, and maybe it's something we should all be aware of when talking to or voting for politicians.
Back in the mid to late 90's when i was approaching my late teens, circumstances at home (2 bed house and 6 people) meant i put myself on the council waiting list for a flat, luckily i got one after only a year of waiting, rent is just under £100 a week

I know its much harder to get a place these days from the council but theres no way even in my borough of greenwich that i could afford private rental!
Nationally, gross median earnings is about £518 per week, or about £27,000 per year. After tax and NI, that is about is about £21,500 per year (or about £410 per week).

So, a third of your gross earnings (about £170 pw) is about 40% of your net take home pay. And 40% of your gross earnings (about £200) equates to about 50% of net take home pay.

Good luck.
I've done a similar thing for myself but using a "Rightmove" search of rental properties on a per bedroom rate within walking distance of the main stations for an area (I looked at Harrow & Wealdstone, Camden, Euston, Old Street, London Bridge and Elephant and Castle).
I think you've painted a slightly optimistic picture here, but it's not too far from the mark. I couldn't find a single property in my target areas that would suit me, and I earn well over the average salary, until I got up to sharing with 3 others and allocated 40% of my monthly to rent & council tax.
I was surprised to find a colleague earning less than me had a single lifestyle in Camden... until I discovered that there were six of them living in a three bedroomed upper-level flat 20 minutes walk from the nearest tube in a slightly dodgy area bordering on a slum town, and they'd converted the living room into a bedroom and shared the small kitchen, 1 bathroom, 1 toilet.
And it's not going to get better any time soon. House building is still way way under what's needed to just keep up with the population growth, never mind catching up with where we were.

Hence, Crossrails, Thameslinks and other ways of trying to get people to live outside London instead, and suffer a long commute (not much longer than living in London and using Southern Rail though). But those places suffer price hikes near the stations too, and the problem continues.










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