Rich offspring - arrogant

From experience the most stuck up 'rich' are usually the new rich or the people who are only just passing as rich.

I really don't understand why Southern England is associated with being rich and Northern England is with being poor. You get really affluent parts of Manchester, it just seems too mixed to make such broad judgements.

There is a divide with income inequality between north and south that is growing. London has the most amount of millionaires in Europe.

Alex that hasn't been my experience. These people are a different kind of 'stuck up'. Normal people don't act like the world owes them something.

Really?


I always think being born the 17th Earl of whereaver and just collecting rent money from your robber baron estate, would make you more of a jackass than some guy raised poor who made it.

Those figures are strongly influenced by the house price surge in London - loads of reasonably ordinary Victorian semis are now worth over a million across a number of boroughs, so that makes people without mortgages milionaires on paper. For most, it's largely illusory, as they need to live somewhere and wouldn't want to move away from the areas they know. People do borrow money (riskily) against these valuable properties to fund buy-to-lets and house purchases for children, so it does lead to an escalation in family wealth if used in that way. However, it doesn't mean that people have a wildly different lifestyle, necessarily, although average incomes are also higher in the South East.

I've never understood this.

There seems to be so many people who are millionaires on paper, but live just normal lives, like middle England.

So weird.

Those figures are strongly influenced by the house price surge in London - loads of reasonably ordinary Victorian semis are now worth over a million across a number of boroughs, so that makes people without mortgages milionaires on paper. For most, it's largely illusory, as they need to live somewhere and wouldn't want to move away from the areas they know. People do borrow money (riskily) against these valuable properties to fund buy-to-lets and house purchases for children, so it does lead to an escalation in family wealth if used in that way. However, it doesn't mean that people have a wildly different lifestyle, necessarily, although average incomes are also higher in the South East.

If that were me I'd sell it, get the money, then move somewhere else

Not much to understand in a way. They own houses worth more than £1m. I know a girl who's parents bought their house in Clapham Common about 40 years ago for something trivial like £25K or something. (Maybe a fair bit then, but way less than the value now, even adjusted for inflation.) Their house is now worth at least £1.5m. All they did was live there.

One thing they did (this story is not all that unusual for London and SE families) is that a few years back, when we were still students together, they borrowed £300K against the value of their house and bought her a house. Her place is now worth about £600K and they made back the £300K of the loan in about a year and a half or so, with values surging up recently. She has been repaying them slowly for the original loan, but basically she made at leat £300K out of thin air!

It's smart and there is something fun and satisfying about speculating, but if I were in that position, I would just sell up and buy a nice detached house outside London with the money.

Small gardens, everyone's on top of each other, constant pop-up events, go to Hackney without even being stabbed or mugged, it all seems very stale and contrived rather than full of real soul

Most people in London are firmly convinced that it's a better place to live. Given the difficulties in commuting and many ordinary activities (the roads are completely stuffed now in most areas, for example) other people take for granted, this causes puzzlement. Apart from work opportunities, it's really down to things like the range of cultural activities on offer and that kind of thing. Also just sheer inertia.

Most people in London are firmly convinced that it's a better place to live. Given the difficulties in commuting and many ordinary activities (the roads are completely stuffed now in most areas, for example) other people take for granted, this causes puzzlement. Apart from work opportunities, it's really down to things like the range of cultural activities on offer and that kind of thing. Also just sheer inertia.

i'd rather own lots of land than a 2 bed in Kensington.

If you are just talking about money, then the flat in Ken is far more likely to make you richer, faster. If you mean quality of life, it's a question of what you're into.