Cost of renting in London - will we ever see prices drop?

doesnt seem like I am entitled unfortunately

obviously the wage is too much..

as i have no other income or benefits...

seems you cant get it unless you have a family or earn feck all i.e. less than 20grand

Yeah in general, childless people don't really get much from the benefit system. It massively favors families and single mothers. The second you have kids, you get a fortune. Until then, you are pretty much on your own.

You have earn below 20k to be eligible for housing benefit? That can't be right.



So have loads of kids or be super rich? Seems like those are the only ways you'll be able to live comfortably in London.

always good to know and cheers for advice

think il give the transgender operation a miss all the same...

Was actually curious just how much people got at that level of income, so I checked too.

£25,000 salary in London with no kids = £0 in benefits

£25,000 salary in London with one kid= £6,944 in benefits (equivalent to a £35k gross salary)

£25,000 salary in London with one kid that requires childcare = £15,088 in benefits (equivalent to a £48k gross salary)

£0 salary (i.e. unemployed) with one kid = £17,455 in benefits (equivalent to a £21k salary)

£0 salary (i.e. unemployed) with two kids = £24,771 in benefits (equivalent to a £32k salary)

The UK is a pretty screwed up place at the moment

seems to be as a singleton..without kids.

I just did the calculation with a 20k wage without any extra benefits and Im entitled to zero apparently.

but do correct if Im wrong..I just used the calculator on the website and no little else..


true.ideally marry a disabled woman and breed like rabbits.

so basically unless you get kids you get nothing...cheers for the extra info none the less

why is the equivalent salary alongside the benefits figure? is that after tax?

So have loads of kids or be super rich? Seems like those are the only ways you'll be able to live comfortably in London.

Pretty much, as soon as you have a large family you are set.

Eg (same site) lets say you have a 2 parent family with 3 kids. Both parents work 40 hours a week for minimum wage (=£12,480 a year) and pay childcare costs for the kids. In that case, the benefit entitlement is £30,713 a year, which combined with the money from their jobs, gives them a total net income of around £54k. For a single person to earn that amount via work, they would need a salary of over £80k.

For the same family, if the mother didnt work and instead stayed home so they didnt need childcare, the same minimum wage worker would get an effective gross £52,000 salary through benefits.

If you want to understand why London rents are so high, this is the reason.

Pretty much 0% chance of them dropping. Demand is still extremely high and continuing to rise, due to a) immigration (which will continue to increase rather than decrease), b) lack of career opportunities for young people in other UK cities, and c) housing benefits (70% of people renting in London get government assistance with their rent - the reason why landlords can get away with charging so much is because the government will happy pick up the bill on behalf of the tenants).

Woah, where have you got 70% from? As someone who worked as an estate agent in London I can tell you that private landlords are VERY reluctant to take any tenants in receipt of benefits.

Holy crap. So it's essentially a significant tax free income bump? It's quite sad people end up having children purely for monetary reasons. The system encourages people to have children despite the fact there aren't enough homes to house large families. This is mind boggling. I saw a girl in Argos yesterday who looked around 21-24 and she had four kids flying around her. It all makes sense now.

I'm aware of the reluctance to take on people who completely rely on benefits, but does this also apply to the 'working poor' too?

Thats why people should only get Child Benefit for two children only (or first two sets - i.e if a person has twins etc)

What are the chances of rent prices coming down in London over the next 10 years? And if they are going to continue to soar, what are some of the major contributing factors pushing prices up?

Won't the goverment's plan for welfare cuts hit housing benefit claimants too?
The outlook seems bleak - makes me wonder how renters will cope.
What would you say is the minimum yearly salary that a single person needs to be on in order to be able to rent (in London) over the next five years or so?




£1200 for a one bed flat in an inner London borough.



I'm seeing a lot of new builds pop up around my area. Modern flats for city workers - will these have any influence on local prices?

I'm not that much of a fan of living in London. Would prefer to travel in for anything I want. There's always stuff to do in other big towns or cities.

But surely immigration is a factor behind this? If there are few houses and high demand that always pushes prices up.

What sort of prices are we talking about, at the moment?

What are the chances of rent prices coming down in London over the next 10 years? And if they are going to continue to soar, what are some of the major contributing factors pushing prices up?

Child benefit isnt the problem, its only £1k per child or so. The main financial benefits of having additional children are a) Child Tax Credit (£3-4k a child, if you are low income), and b) the increase in your housing benefit (every child 'entitles' you to another bedroom, which is around £4-7k extra in London). The focus on child benefit is a total red herring, which misunderstands how the benefit system works.

Musie Suzie - the 70% figure includes social housing

Depends on what stage of your life you are at. If you are happy living in a room in a shared flat, then £30k. If you want to live alone and have no kids, then around £50-60k. If you have kids (and hence need to live somewhere that has reasonable schools, and have spare bedrooms) then around £100-150k would be the minimum.

In all these cases you would be renting in a decent (but not great) part of zone 2/3. For zone 1, double all the above figures. If you have kids and are willing to live outside London in one of the commuter towns and spend 1+ hours commuting in (like most people do) then you could probably get by on £70-80k.

This is simply untrue - "poor" people are not paying their own rent, the government is paying it on their behalf. As such, increases in rental prices has almost no effect on them. If you have children in London then benefits means that your equivalent gross salary is guaranteed to be at least £40k even if you only have a part time minimum wage job, and can be up to £70k if you have 4+ children.