I don’t complain about the rain. It’s enough to keep the area ■■■■■ most of the time, but in the few summer months it’s nearly completely dry. It’s not rain city. It’s ■■■■■ city.
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Ya know, when the Brexit vote came in, the US (and other) stock markets tanked overnite. Now, a weekplus later, the S&P500 is just about back where it started. I wouldn’t be the least surprised to see housing prices rebound in a couple of months, too.
London house prices had reached the level at which people in middle class jobs cannot afford to live there. With a small terraced house in Lewisham going for £750k, and end terraces or semis going for over £1 million, hardly anybody but dinkies can afford to get on the ladder. People with children have major problems because they almost all need two incomes, and the people who provide childcare can’t afford to live there. Then there’s the problem of getting the streets cleaned, the rubbish collected, and the infrastructure maintained. Those are unresolvable economic factors, not untruths and anecdotes. Cheaper areas generally have poor schools, high crime and poor transport links, which is why they are cheaper, so the inhabitants find it hard to get to jobs in the well paid areas. (There are maps of the relation between house prices and gangs for given areas, and the effect is startling, though the degree to which it is causation is unknown.)
The expensive developments designed for foreign “investors” are a separate issue, but they are not the people buying houses in the half to two million pound range.
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I believe farming occupies about 70% of the non-marginal land in Great Britain (the island). The actual percentage of land in England which is built on for housing is a little over 2% in England, and under 1% in Wales and Scotland.
Our problem is one of food supply, not housing. We could built a lot more houses with almost no impact on access to open space. But that would make a lot of very rich people a lot less rich as house prices dropped, since the largest percentage of house prices is the notional land value.
London apparently has fewer inhabitants than it did at times in the past, but at those times the roads weren’t full of Chelsea tractors and jobs were more local.
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Speculators and rental backed bonds probably do just as much damage here.
Putin invades London to save Russian … summer homes.
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I think that it both the cases you mention, and many others, the bubbles have been driven by the supply of funny money. In the US, the rich and their institutions could get money at near 0%, so why not get tons of it and bet on real estate and the stock market, either directly or indirectly (the subprime market, etc.)? Inflation won’t occur as long as you keep money away from the poor and make them work. This kind of thing can go on for a long time even when it’s widely acknowledged that it’s a Ponzi scheme on a grand scale. When it does fold up, the collapse can start at the top or the bottom (if there is one – for all I know, the poor in London may be living in mud huts).
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These are the same problems New York City, San Francisco, and (soon) Seattle have. The people that are working class are still needed for labor but can’t live there and even career middle class can barely wedge themselves in, if at all.
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I woudn’t either. In the US, all the gobment has to do is run the printing press a little faster and real estate, equities, and collectibles will be right back where they belong.
And if they do it in the UK, the credit rating agencies will do a further downgrade.
Given the fall in the £ versus the $, the FT250 - which includes British companies as well as multinationals - is way down. The people who voted to get immigrants out may soon find that it’s the immigrants buying up the housing stock.
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If he offers us cheap gas he won’t even need to invade. In fact, there’s probably enough Russian “minders” living in London to be able to take the place over any time they feel like it.
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You can add the ATL to soon join that list, if the city doesn’t push for affordable housing intown with the wave of building going on. There are still affordable places in town, but there probably won’t be in, say, a decade if things continue as they are.
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I had a friend move from Seattle to Atlanta recently. He loves it. Of course, he’s white, about 6’4" and a Jehovah’s Witness who runs a gun-related company so… 
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Ha!! I looked at a place on Capitol Hill for…$1500/mo last year. Small basement apartment with 6.5 foot ceiling and multiple utility pipes running through the place. The apartment’s front door was thin, too, so little of my furniture would make it into the place, and they wanted first/last/security deposit to move in. Nothing like dropping almost 5 grand to move into a shitty little apartment… How anyone affords those places is beyond me.
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What part of Atlanta is he in? Inside or outside the perimeter? It makes a huge difference, of course! 
But I think it’s a great city to live, no matter your race or religion. The city itself is rather diverse, in part because Clarkston, which is on the east side has a refugee center, so have people from all over the world settling here. Where we live is still relatively affordable and has decent schools and good access to jobs intown (though we need rail out here).
Honestly, it’s a great city and the cost of living isn’t horrible yet, but I can see where it’s going if the city doesn’t implement stronger price controls and dictate to builders about more affordable housing). There is a ton of in town building going on, mostly for luxury condos/apartments and houses. Some parts inside the perimeter, like the City of Decatur are just off the charts expensive to buy (in part because of the city schools there and the general quality of life is great). West side/end are still up and coming and haven’t seen major waves of gentrification, but neighborhoods adjacent to down town really have - places like Auburn Ave., Inman Park, Candler Park, Cabbage town, East Atlanta Village are whiter and have a major wave of building and renovations going on and many residents are being priced out. There is going to be an initiative on the ballot in november to hike up funding for MARTA and one of the things they want to do is add another street car… but people who live and work in town want more buses rather than a tourist attraction (which is really what our first street car is meant to be).
So, I don’t know… I’m glad your friend like sour fair city, though.
He’s building a house (has posted pictures) so I’m going to assume well outside the perimeter.
I would never live in Atlanta because California is already too hot for me. I pine for the fjords of Puget Sound as it is.
Also, it violated the “never live more than 100 miles from the coast” rule.
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Yeah, it’s pretty hot here… and stupid humid! But the drive to the coast isn’t too bad, though it’s certainly more than 100 miles away…
Both the medieval peasant and the young professional cling to the hope that their deprivation will be rewarded with a better life afterwards.
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Near Pill Hill? I moved out of one that’s going for 1800 :o
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The stock crash (and temporary rebound) is a reaction to just the vote. The actual Brexit hadn’t happened yet, and it is unlikely that reactions to it will be short-term.
I think most people in the US will think “dinkie” is a Teletubby (not “dual income - no kids”).
While London is even more expensive than my town (Honolulu), let alone SF, LA, or NYC, it does have the advantage that England is a tiny country with adequate transportation infrastructure. Before rail deregulation you could get from Leeds to London in just over 2 hours for around 10 UKP. If the UK renationalized the rail and subsidized it back down to an affordable price, it would go a long way to fixing the housing problem (though making the city less desirable for foreign buyers is probably a better option).
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