Relocation, Relocation

Last week my favorite home finding show started a new season. Looking back at that sentence I realize it sounds a bit sad and pathetic, and I'm willing to concede that it is a bit sad. But the television over here is awash in property related shows, so you end up watching them from time to time. Anyways, since last summer I have been watching quite a few old episodes of Relocation, Relocation. I must admit I find it very intriguing to find out what your money can buy you in the UK housing market. But the problem was that the shows were old, and house prices have most likely changed in most areas since 2003, so hence my excitement for the new season.

Relocation, Relocation has the double name as in each hour-long episode the hosts find two homes for people. Generally this is a main family home in some quaint area of the country, and a much smaller city place either for the husband to live in during the work week or for the family to rent out. Last night there was a family where the husband obviously made bank and his wife had trouble lifting a finger unless it was to swipe her credit card. They were leaving London and had £550,000 to buy a house in Harrogate, which from the looks of it is a cute town way, way, WAY far north, and then they had £200,000 left over to buy a place in London for the husband to stay in 3 nights a week for work.

Up in Harrogate, the couple decided on a 4-bedroom house in the middle of town that needed a bit of work. It was an old stone townhouse on the end of it's little row (an 'end-terrace'). They ended up paying £525,000 for the house (yes, commonly known as $1,000,000), and had the work priced to cost about £75,000. Of course it could have been done for less, as they decided to tear down walls and put in free-standing baths and the wife required a project manager to oversea things as she just didn't have time for that sort of thing (we later learn her time is filled by lunches and teas).

Anyways, more interesting to me is what the £200,000 would get them in the center of London. Seemingly in central London it got you a 11 foot by 9 foot room. With no refrigerator. Deciding this was indeed too small, they dragged the folks out to (God forbid!) zone 2 in north London where they managed to get a studio above a cafe with an actual separate room for the kitchen. As a young person in this city who would perhaps think about buying something in this neck of the woods, this is not encouraging. How does anyone ever afford to buy anything in these parts? What regular person can just leap into a property market where you get a room that barely fits a bed for $400,000?

Quite a few of the people I work with nearing the 30 mark are property owners. They live in places I've never heard of and have commutes involving both overground and underground trains. They conceivable spend £2,000 in commuting costs every year (or more) and as they live in the sticks, might have a car for getting around on the weekends. They say house prices are going to be going down this year. We'll see if these house prices are on the same over-priced scale that many of the goods here or if they'll fall to at least semi-human level.

Speaking of over the shoulder reading, today I saw a headline saying that gas here had reached £5 a gallon. That's like, $10. Makes you ponder.