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Comment by save_ferris | Hacker News Reader

I moved back into my parents house after my lease expired, primarily to have regular social interaction again.

> "While moving back home during the pandemic makes sense and is seen as socially acceptable or even smart, it also means you are living with people who still see you as your 18-year-old self."

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed among millennials is how many parents fail to understand the emotional and mental situation of what their children are currently experiencing. I feel so incredibly lucky that my parents understand that I’m not 18, and they’re happy to help out during these uncertain times. I’m so much more productive working from my parents house because I now have enough space for a decent home office.

I also have coworkers that have openly talked about how their parents refuse to let them move back in during the pandemic, citing the “time to grow up” mentality. I’m all for taking personal responsibility in one’s life, but there are a whole lot of older people out there that are oblivious to just how serious the pandemic has been economically.

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> how many parents fail to understand the emotional and mental situation of what their children are currently experiencing.

This is crucial to understanding:

- The immediate distress of young males. They have no chance of seducing externally if they don’t have moral support at home. Explains the billion of 9Gag posts about young people who fall addicted to gaming and joke about virginity and lack of self confidence, who joke about the thing they know they’ll fatally become. They’re stuck in a bad place in life.

- The rise in what all Democrat fans would call “Extreme right”, which they don’t understand is just people who we’ve abandoned, who count on no-one because no-one cares for them. Isolation and individualism goes hand in hand. I keep telling my leftist friends if they want solidarity to triumph, they can’t just focus on women-at-the-workplace, one day they’ll have to face the men-at-the-game-addiction-station question. Especially if they want a cohesive society.

Living with the parents isn’t the best way to get social interactions, unless it is a venue where they can be for _caring for others_. Because young men are especially deprived of places where they can care for someone, women being very independent nowadays, especially in their 20ies. And caring for someone is the blood of the soul.

> they don’t understand is just people who we’ve abandoned, who count on no-one because no-one cares for them

"The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth"

> Living with the parents isn’t the best way to get social interactions, unless it is a venue where they can be for _caring for others_. Because young men are especially deprived of places where they can care for someone, women being very independent nowadays, especially in their 20ies. And caring for someone is the blood of the soul.

I think you put that very nicely.

I think I understand this problem, and I have empathy for these men (it also took me a long time to get my first relationship, I know how it feels). I just don't know what the solution is. Their frustration might to some extent be caused by the independence of women (where women now may prefer to be single than to be in a relationship they don't really want), but I don't think it's right to hold back on women's emancipation in order to make men feel better about themselves.

What exactly is the right's suggested solution here (I ask this out of genuine curiosity)? Today's mainstream right looks at these frustrated men's hardening hearts, and all it seems to see is an opportunity to accelerate that hardening for political gain, by convincing them that the source of their woes (and the rightful targets of their anger) are immigrants/feminists/protestors/... I'm skeptical that we should expect any workable solutions from there.

Also, as a side note, why do you feel the need to use quotes around "Extreme right"? Do you disagree with labeling rising movements like QAnon and incel/blackpill subculture as "extreme right"?

> I just don't know what the solution is.

Not 100% sure, I think we'd benefit from society broadening what acceptable ways of living and gender roles are available for men. There are plenty of women that grow up feeling dejected or romantically undesirable, but we don't necessarily see the same sort of frustration expressed the way we're familiar with in young men. My take is that there are social expectations for how men are supposed to act or live, and there are elements of said expectations that contribute to the frustration and loneliness we see in many of them today. I think the world would be better if a lot of young men felt able to express what was bothering them to their peers, as well had peers (not necessarily always romantic) that cared enough to at least listen.

I was once browsing a Reddit group for Transmen, and a discussion the members were having on socializing with masculinity hit a lot of the notes I expected. [1]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/FTMMen/comments/irh34j/there_is_too...

The use of quotes might be because the labels of "right" and "left" are very geographically dependent. The political Overton window in the USA is very different to other English-speaking countries, not to mention the rest of the world. For the record, I don't disagree with the labelling, just explaining the possible reasons.

This is really well put. Would love to read more if you have more resources in this vein.

I’m surprised, I didn’t expect to have resonating words ;) Listen to Karen Straughan for example, she’s a good resource on how to learn to see boys where they are, not for what we project of them. She shakes me every time.

+1 - I see this around me all the time.

I will never understand this mentality, I mean if the child is an out and out slacker maybe I could understand, but to this day, if I fell on hard times I have a host of family members that would take us in, no questions asked. We as a family where raised that way to the extent that I could show up on a second or third generation cousins door step and they would take us in. That fairly distance relatives I can't imagine a family where the dynamic is that they will not let their direct descendant come home to catch their breath. I mean that is your legacy.

I actually had to come home when I was in my early 20's. I spent my high-school and post-secondary years pursuing culinary arts. It never dawned on me to actually get a job in a commercial kitchen until I had my culinary degree due to the fact that I worked thru school as a finish carpenter and made a pretty good wage for a 18-19 year old kid. Anyways with degree in hand, I set off for New Orleans to make a name for myself as a chef. From the moment I got into a commercial kitchen I realized I had made a big mistake, while I loved cooking, being a chef in a commercial kitchen has little to do with actual cooking. So I came home hat in hand with no direction, went back to carpentry while I regrouped, the entire time my grandfather (I was raised by my grandparents) kept saying you know you really have a knack for programming those computers. I always viewed it as a hobby but folded to his suggestions and took a job at a local shop doing custom business software. This was the dawn of the internet, so there where still small shops doing desktop software for small businesses. Anyways the rest is history but the point being, is I knew I could come home, I could not imagine not having that relief valve as a young person, especially in today's climate.

> "While moving back home during the pandemic makes sense and is seen as socially acceptable or even smart, it also means you are living with people who still see you as your 18-year-old self."

I feel that this is the case for many people and in other contexts. If you develop a lot during say two years of employment, then depending on who your manager is, you may still be seen in the same way as when you started.

There is an inherent poetic dilemma with reconciling yourself with how you age. Parents can buffer this change, whether for positive or negative effect.

Interestingly in most parts of Asia(East, SE, South), living with your parents is the norm, so parents usually prefer if their kids stay with them but it does mean way less personal space and freedom.

Due to the culture, everyone will go out of their way to make you feel as independent as possible. Plus there's single day hotels if you want to have a room alone with someone who should not meet your parents yet. In the end, living with your parents then boils down to going to a restaurant with them on the weekends to honor your ancestors, but most of the time they behave more like roommates.

Which culture are you referring to?

At least to my knowledge (of S.Korea) and my experience, most will eat together, watch some shows together.

I really don't understand the argument of "time to grow up" if a person lived without parents fine for years. Obviously he/she had already grown up.

I think it’s cultural. American society absolutely looks down on those that live with their parents as failures. If I were to guess, some parents might see their children asking to return home as a reflection on their ability as a parent to prepare for the “real world”, but that’s just my guess.

Only a certain vocal rich segment of American society.

Honestly I hear this much more from those closer to poverty. I think they view it as children should be self sufficient so I no longer have to pay for them. I think a lot of what people consider “cold hearted” in the modern world is really just veiled economic uncertainty. People would rather be considered strict than poor.

I don't think it has much to do with wealth. In fact, in old societies primogeniture practiced by the wealthy meant that the eldest son was expected to stay at home. The second sons with limited inheritance often set out on their own.

In the US context, it has historical connections to the glorification of pioneerism and expansion through the western frontier (along with the genocide that accompanied that).

After that, in the post WW2 period, opportunity in the US was so abundant that a (commonly white male) school dropout could walk into a factory and get a job with benefits. The same person could then afford a modest house (not the gigantic houses of today), support a family on a single income, and had access to affordable health care and good public education for their kids.

In the context of that sort of opportunity, staying at your parents' home in adulthood was far more indicative of personal failings, and that's where the current trope disparaging adult (mostly male) children living at home originated.

But given how diminished all of those opportunities are today (no lands to forcibly take from less technologically advantaged peoples, no new factories, expensive housing where jobs are available, high qualifications required), it's a trope that's pretty irrelevant today.

I'm not sure how irrelevant it is (though Covid may change that).

If I wasn't engaged I would have gone home to WFH immediately during the pandemic, it would have been nice to spend time there and be with family (rare opportunity for easy ability to work remotely and spend time with family on the east coast).

That said, most of the successful people I know moved out to areas with more opportunity and those that stayed behind (particularly those that live at home) are more likely to have 'personal failings' of some sort.

Maybe this isn't true if you were lucky enough to grow up in an economic hub to start, but if you didn't there's still some truth to it.

Obviously during the pandemic this changes and no longer becomes relevant since remote opportunity and being able to save money by living home (since everything is locked down anyway) makes way more sense. Most people don't think independently from the cultural context though so it'd take a while for this to update.

Why live in Palo Alto and waste lots of money on rent because of stupid housing policy when you don't have to? When you can't go out and do stuff?

> Why live in Palo Alto and waste lots of money on rent because of stupid housing policy when you don't have to? When you can't go out and do stuff?

I hear sentiments like this a lot lately, and it feels short-sighted to me. COVID restrictions are not going to be around forever. There are financial, professional, social, and other costs that come with moving somewhere else.

For people who genuinely don't like it in $HCOL_AREA regardless of the pandemic, and see this as a way to get out permanently, then that's great, and they should do that. If it's more like "it's expensive here and I can't go out to my favorite bars/restaurants right now", the latter half of that situation should fix itself by next summer, and hopefully earlier in some fashion. Sure, that's a while to wait, but isn't much time when considering that an alternative is to uproot your entire life.

Sure, then you can move back - maybe mid to end of 2021?

Still a year or so where it's not worth it.

Maybe that's not enough for some people to be worth the effort, but if your lease was ending and you don't have a ton of stuff it's pretty easy to do.

You are conflating two independent phenomena here. One is the pandemic related pattern of young people moving back in with their parents. The other is the cultural judgment reserved for young people who never leave their parents home well into adulthood. I was addressing the latter.

> That said, most of the successful people I know moved out to areas with more opportunity and those that stayed behind (particularly those that live at home) are more likely to have 'personal failings' of some sort.

Sounds like you are almost defining "personal failings" as "unable to gain the skills to compete and thrive in a high opportunity area".

If that's the case, perhaps we should reconsider whether such a high level of achievement should be required in order for a person to establish a basic non extravagant life on their own independent of their parents.

Nah, rich people boost their kids through life. Poor people are the ones who subscribe to Labour Theology: Hard Work is Righteous, Assisting Kids Ruins Them.

There are people who never grow up if given the opportunity to keep living with their parents. My cousin is one of them.

Get a job? Why? Go to school? Why? Things are fine. I have someone to cook my meals and a warm bed to sleep in.

My uncle ended up booting my cousin out of the house. It was the best thing that happened to him. He matured significantly, went back to school, has a great job. He even admits it himself that he was in a rut that would have never ended had he been able to keep living at home. Living at home sheltered him from the real world.

> There are people who never grow up if given the opportunity to keep living with their parents. My cousin is one of them.

The case of a totally unmotivated individual not engaging themselves in school or work is totally different than the case of working young adults who want to live independently of their parents, but can't afford to do so due to high cost of living, high debt, or other financial factors. I know people who have been in both categories, and they are not much alike.

Depends. When I stay with my parents I somehow forget that I can do the dishes and washing myself. I very deliberately have to remind myself.

Isn't they because your parents refuse to grow up? A roommate wouldn't tolerate that.

Not OP, but at my parents' home it's such a classical traditional division of labor that the housewife does all the cleaning, it's her domain, her full-time job. She'd be self-conscious of not doing her part (and annoying) if someone else was doing it.

It wasn't even considered normal for me to cook anything in the kitchen while I still lived at home. It was like being in someone else's workshop and using all their tools and putting things back not quite where they like them or wasting soap/water when washing implements or being too messy or abusive to the equipment. It was impossible to not cause some sort of trouble, I literally started grilling outside daily to not touch the kitchen and still feed myself real food as a young adult.

One could argue it was the parents refusing to grow up, but it's also arguably a predictable outcome when the husband works like a blue-collar dog to pay the bills and the wife doesn't have to work a formal job. Obviously the husband is going to expect the wife to keep the house clean and do all the cooking, if she slacks off on these relatively trivial duties while he's grouchy and overworked, bad times for sure.

Moroccan household?

Italian, Scorsese's short film ITALIANAMERICAN [0] is uncannily representative, @~7:20 the husband outright declares cooking isn't his line of work.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxYl93p0ksc

it's what shitty parents say when they prefer their privacy but don't want to articulate that.

Living with parents and being "grown up" are almost entirely orthogonal in well-adjusted societies.

The fact that it's somehow related in American culture is very unfortunate.

It's not peculiarly American, it's a Western European, especially Northwestern European, pattern. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917824/, particularly the multigenerational household columns in the various tables.[1] And I'd bet it's related to the phenomenon of late marriage that has historically distinguished Western Europe from most of the rest of the world for the past 500 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajnal_line

I'm tempted to admit that the expression of this otherwise shared culture might be intensified by some of the more distinctive aspects of American culture (e.g. pioneer spirit, as mentioned elsethread), but I hesitate because assuming America is exceptional is a bad habit I'm trying to kick =)

[1] That paper is something of a rebuttal to the argument that NW European culture (including North American culture) was always strongly nuclear. But the lack of multigenerational living seems pretty clear; what they seem to show instead is that the trend of the elderly living alone is relatively new. Which doesn't seem surprising. A culture that pressures children to move out of the home doesn't imply a culture that pressures the elderly to live alone.

> how their parents refuse to let them move back in during the pandemic, citing the “time to grow up” mentality.

My sarcastic response is that I hope they enjoy the retirement home their kids put them in in the future.

I don't actually mean that, but just to make a point...

This is the toxic "American Dream" mentality coming home to roost.

I will probably be going against the grain here, but I managed to rent a flat by myself while in university years ago with a part time job in a supermarket at weekends and applying for some hardship funds and other money available at the time.

Rents have risen a lot since then, but is it really impossible for someone in work to be able to afford rent? Or are they insisting on living in a fashionable part of town? (For me independence from my parents was quite a high priority in those days).

In a lot of areas normal jobs are literally impossible to do at the moment. It isn't a matter of whether or not people want to do them. In my city in a non-US country you actually are doing something illegal if you go to work in certain industries or undertake extremely common activities that were normal 6 months ago. This is unique and far beyond anything me (or my parents) have ever known. No obvious end to a lot of this is in sight.

You didn't manage to rent a flat by yourself. You were given money to do so, by your own admittance. I don't blame you for taking advantage, but you're using it to argue that young people can or should be able to make it on their own. You've just got anonymous parents supporting you in place of your own parents.

Sorry but that doesn't address the issue at all. I got the majority of money through working, and that was at weekends and holidays, I wasn't in a position to work full time, which i am assuming the people in the article are. The university hardship funds were a bit of extra money, but not a huge amount. No one has explained what has gotten so expensive that a full time low wage job can't support it.

Not in my case, I was easily able to afford rent and I’ve stayed employed throughout the pandemic as a tech worker.

The challenge has been maintaining my sanity. My previous apartment was small and didn’t have space for a good home office setup since I never expected to work from hone when I leased it. Additionally, I was having little social interaction due to the pandemic since Texas wasn’t doing a good job preventing spread early on.

My other reason for moving in with my parents was that my company did a lot of business in the travel industry and I feared layoffs. Not having to worry about my living situation while looking for another job in the midst of a crisis was a huge relief in my mind. Fortunately, I’ve been able to stay at the same company so far.

If being independent is the absolute most important thing to you, that’s great. But I’d argue that America’s individualistic culture is one of the biggest reasons we’re struggling to get past this pandemic. People demand the right to ignore basic public health requests, and it’s a major problem.

The tech industry is not representative of most industries right now.

Rents were already way above wage growth prior to the pandemic:

https://www.cbpp.org/blog/census-income-rent-gap-grew-in-201...

While I’m sure they’ve gone down a little in certain urban cores, like SF, they remain absurdly high in the midsize, Midwestern city where I grew up and now live. When I moved back, apartments here were going for only a bit less than what I paid in Los Angeles and seem to have not gone down at all. Home prices also remain artificially high because there are less listings and more interested buyers.

In general rent doesn't appear to be dropping. Most landlords have mortgages and many would default if they lowered rent.

Wouldn't they also default if they cannot find anyone willing to rent at those prices ?

I think the strategy is to play chicken until they either go bust or get bought out by a giant corporate real estate firm.

This is something that really depends on where you live more than anything. I will say there is no state currently where you can afford an apartment by yourself making minimum wage.

I've seen this claim and associated study pop up a couple of times. The study is done year on year and it's been amusing watching the increasingly long lengths they go to to hide the fact that their comparing _average_ rent for a _two bedroom_ apartment to the _minimum_ wage.

Anecdotally, this is simply not true. I lived in a fairly nice area next to my university for the better part of the past five years at well below the poverty level. (~$10,000) per year so far less than minimum wage.

2 rooms is luxury now?

Yes. You can always get a roommate and split the cost.

I mean, should this be a design goal?

I'm mostly voicing a much more general confusion here. I think you have to bolt down our [lets be honest] mostly imaginary system to reality in some spots. Rents can simply be adjusted to whatever people can pay. That way there is no technological or economic progress to be had for those at the bottom. The fix is in?

Or let me put it like this: If I want a banana I want to pay for what it costs to grow the banana, the packaging, the logistics of it and for those who perform the miracle of trade. If all the steps involved also involve maximizing wealth extraction from those employed in those steps by [any and all means!] my banana will naturally grow in price to the point where my minimum wage has doubts if it can afford it. Not just now but forever! Regardless of anything.

Regulation cant be like: We will cap the price of bananas at this point since everyone involved in making them happen for me has to pay rent that grows along with the kiwi's. I very much doubt we cant fix rent. There might be a layer or 2 of maximized wealth extraction above it. Those are not impossible to fix. If we had real collective goals we could just be like: It wont happen - forever! and get a really cheap but highly profitable banana in return.

Note: I can stack bricks and run tubes though them. Its not hard and not a lot of work. IOW: I'm not impressed by a concrete box. End of the day my government owns all the land.

You clearly do not understand the economics behind renting. Wealth extraction as you call it, isn't pure profit for the layers above. Your rent pays for the landlord's mortgage, maintenance, inspection and risk being taken on from a tenant. Your landlord pays the bank, who use the money to pay off their own obligations, including your grandparents pension plan. It would never be possible to adjust that system.

The other reason things are so high is there are too many people and not enough houses, so there's little opportunity for competition.

When, if or where people are either poor or primitive enough it works like this: You build a house then you live in it.

There is nothing in this that suggests one needs to spend 1/4 or 2/3 of the productive labor in their lives to maintain the house.

Progress is to reduce the maintenance cost. The lower it is the lower the salaries can be which increase productivity exponentially.

IOW grandpa's pension plan is for a large part to continue to pay for housing. He spend his entire life busting his ass but some how didn't manage to earn a place to live.

It's still possible possible to build a house today and live in it, and there is plenty of land, even some going for cheap. But most people don't want that because they make that trade off for today's luxuries.

Actually it is not, we very much need these people to do all kinds of work for us.

> I will say there is no state currently where you can afford an apartment by yourself making minimum wage.

Neither could I which is why I shared. Is that something that isn't expected any more?

>>> but is it really impossible for someone in work to be able to afford rent?

Yes. I've seen what my younger sisters and exes earned working in London in jobs like waitress or saleswoman or law.

The salary simply doesn't cover rent and bills for a one bedroom. It doesn't matter how you put it, it just doesn't work.

Ok, I will give you that London prices are silly, but it isn't the norm as far as the UK goes. And again I shared a flat, why does no one under 30 expect to do this any more?

Well, people live in flatshare a lot. I don't think you can ask why they don't do it when they do it ^^

One cultural thing I noticed in London and I assume in the UK at large is the lack of studios. There are plenty of 1 bedroom but there aren't studios (200-300 sqft).

If you go to Paris for comparison, you will see an incredible amount of studios.

It makes a world of difference when you get 25+, you make a living and you want to be independent (forget about dating and getting married otherwise). In the absence of studio, you're forced to pay up a lot to get a one bedroom (more than what low end jobs earn so they're stuck with flatmates).

I started as a trainee broadcast engineer in London on £17,800 a year in 2003. This left me with £1,082 a month (back then student loan payments were far higher than now). Rent for a tiny bedsit with a shared bathroom was £520 a month, 2 mile walk from work. I could live further out, but commuting costs outweighed any savings.

That's the equivalent of £828 a month now. Bills were included.

You can actually pick up a studio flat for £737 in the same area, which actually looks better - it's about 60 square feet which I think it a little smaller than the one I had, but it has it's own toilet. Council tax is on top of that at £45 a month, but still fits in the budget, just.

Assuming the same 50% of take home wage in rent, or a net wage of £1500pcm, would be about £21k/year

My £17800 salary in 2003 would be £28,300 today, or net of £1900pcm, so could afford (on the same ratio) £910 a month, which gives you a fair amount of choice at the moment in W14 according to rightmove.

I'm surprised as I felt renting was far harder now than 20 years ago, but seems it might be slightly better. Of course rents on tiny studios are presumably depressed because of covid19, I'm not sure what they were this time last year.

Where I live, most property agents will do a credit and income check, and would turn you away for not meeting the "minimum income level" for renting those places.

Even if you feel you can afford spending 50% of your income, it doesn't follow that you can easily find a landlord who allows it.

If you have a bad credit rating, as many people do these days, it will be even more difficult as more landlords check that than income.

In my case, where I am currently living, I had insufficient income at the time I moved in to qualify, and was only allowed to rent on the condition that I paid 12 months rent up front. And then I had to do it again the following year. Obviously that's only available to people with decent savings.

But that's no different to 2003 (you could have a guarantor - typically a parent - who would be on the hook for your rent if you didn't pay it)

Before I started looking I was under the impression things were harder now then they were in 2003, but it seems not, at least in this one case (tiny studio/bedsits in a dodgy part of west london) -- unless asking prices on rent are massively depressed due to covid.

In 2006/7 I lived in Tunbridge wells, paying £800pcm for a 2 bed flat that looked almost identical to this one, although it was in the next door house and had a garage instead of a parking spot.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/84635425#/

£800 in 2007 is £1,117.29 today, so a near identical flat for £900 is an interesting price point.

Things seem to have become more difficult to obtain in some cases. Back in 2003, nobody asked me for proof of income for renting. Just basic credit checks (which don't directly know about income or bank balances). Proof of income is more recent.

(And difficult if you're self-employed with highly irregular income, I found.)

If using a guarantor, a guarantor has to pass similar checks.

Guarantor works a lot better for a young person starting out in a cheap-ass room in a shared place, whose parents expect this. For a flat and an older adult with retired parents on a low pension, or their own housing costs, not so much.

Good like finding a guarantor if your parents or friends:

- don't have enough spare income to cover your rent in addition to their own expenses

- don't pass the credit check themselves

- can't pass the proof-of-income check themselves

- don't have enough assets to use as security

- are not happy using their assets as security for you (e.g. their limited life savings or their one and only home)

Some people don't have parents, and these days, quite a lot of parents rent precariously too. They would be turned down as guarantors.

More parents renting is a factor which has changed in recent years.

I imagine most people don't have friends who would be willing to be long term rent guarantors, even if they could be.

>Things seem to have become more difficult to obtain in some cases. Back in 2003, nobody asked me for proof of income for renting. Just basic credit checks (which don't directly know about income or bank balances). Proof of income is more recent.

Because they can ask those things more quickly and easily now. There's a bunch of jerks in California who are hellbent on connecting every DB in the world to every other DB that we can thank for this.

> Guarantor works a lot better for a young person starting out in a cheap-ass room in a shared place, whose parents expect this. For a flat and an older adult with retired parents on a low pension, or their own housing costs, not so much.

Absolutely. When my mother-in-law divorced and moved into a rented house, I was her guarantor.

I did have parents in 2003, but they lived 3000 miles away in a greek village where there was an ISDN line a 20 minute ride down the mountain, so not too practical. But this artcile is about 18-29 year olds moving in with their parents, not 50 year olds.

> 18-29 year olds moving in with their parents, not 50 year olds.

It applies in that age range as well.

A 29 year old moving in with their 64 year old parent(s) who are themselves poor and renting while on the edge of official retirement age, is going to find their parents probably rejected as guarantors.

Go check again, you got everything wrong. ^^

That flat is southeast England in the middle of nowhere.

Not london, not greater london by any metric, it's nowhere.

That's a second example, literally next door to the flat I rented in 2007 in Tunbridge Wells for £800pcm

You said you were in London though, this is not London, this is countryside in the middle of nowhere.

Properties have increased significantly in cities but not in the desolated countryside. No argument there.

> Where I live, most property agents will do a credit and income check, and would turn you away for not meeting the "minimum income level" for renting those places.

This is where room in a shared house comes into play. They're available for $4-500 a month in my city.

Where I live, there's a minimum income level for shared house rooms as well, and the cost of a room can be 50% of someone's income if they are working but poorly paid, so they won't be allowed it.

Luckily rooms are more likely to be rented somewhat informally, or by less stringent agents & landlords, compared with flats, so there's a decent market of these without a hard income requirement, alongside those with the requirement.

TL;DR: London will chew you up and spit you out unless you live so far out that your commute is measured in 1.5-hour increments, or unless you're already rich. A young person is sentenced to renting.

My personal story:

I lived there up until about a year ago, not far from the center. Being a young person, I earned the usual entry-level software developer salary. I tried to live a relatively frugal lifestyle, which included not going out and spending not a whole lot on personal entertainment costs.

The rent was £1500, so I had to rent a flat with my friend. Travel was expensive, and a fixed cost in my circumstances. Bills were not included, so we had to pay those as well. I tried to cut costs as much as I could, and in retrospect maybe I could have cut £80-100 a month from my grocery spending by shopping in cheaper stores, or perhaps even another £50 on top of that if I was willing to trade off some of my sanity/time for the savings. I had some savings, but not a whole lot.

The whole time, I was cutting into my savings each month and literally losing my money by staying in London. Even if I tried to save harder, that would get me nowhere nearer to saving up for a deposit for the next few years.

I eventually decided to leave the city behind and move to Scotland. Instant quality of life improvement, and I actually got the chance to start building up my savings rather than chipping away at them.

There aren't studio or one bedroom below about £1200 a month in London, closer to £1500 toward the center.

You're talking about Kensington in London? That's the center and one of the most expensive location in the city.

Where the fuck do you see a place for £737 in there?

Either it's a flatshare (that's a bit low, must be 6+ people) or you confused 737 per month with 737 per week (that'd be £3000 a month, possible for a luxury 1 bedroom in that area the size of what people consider a 2 bedroom, typical ads that come at the top of rightmove).

> Where the fuck do you see a place for £737 in there?

The area near "West Kensington" and "Kensington Olympia" tube stations. It's technically in Hammersmith+Fulham.

Kensington borough contains(ed) Grenfell, it's not one of the most expensive places in the city, it's varied, like many boroughs.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/49989753#/ - £737

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/66191535#/ - £758

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/95389700#/ - £806

The £806 is prety much what I got for £520, and inflation wise pretty much the same price.

I suspect the prices are so low because of covid, I don't have any evidence of that though.

Here's a pre-covid article with some average rents: https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2019/09/.... Dagenham (Zone 5) studio: £688

https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/renting/ave...

reports "Rents in the capital are down 4.2 per cent as tourists stay away and short-let landlords switch to long-term contracts, flooding the market."

I suspect rents on tiny bedsit studios are down even more, especially as weekly commuters no longer need them, and young people move to live with parents.

Wow, they are less than 3x3 meters (10x10 feet) including the corner for shower. The bed is literally touching the cooker/oven in the first one.

That explains the £737. Can't even put a desk to do your homework. Nobody would want to live there, especially with COVID.

Regular studios in student accommodations go for double that in this area. I've actually seen friends paying as much as £2000 a month, when they come from far or from abroad, don't have the luxury to visit 10 properties and landlord won't rent to students with no income.

Yup, but that's what I got for £520 in 2003, and managed to live there just fine. Hell for 2 months I lived there with my girlfriend (now wife) before we moved out towards Reading for an actual 1 bed flat. I was working shifts then though so could drive to work mostly off peak, get free parking, and it was only 7 days a fortnight.

The room in my hall of residence was smaller than that, although being in Exeter it cost far less (£90 a week, so £390 a month).

Of course I had an office to go to for that time, clearly it's different in the last 6 months.

Communal toilet would be a miserable experience, especially during covid-19 or winter vomiting outbreaks.

Yes, I'd gladly have sacrified the room to have a private one, like the £737 rightmove property.

Similar story, also 2003. Think the pay was £24K, but I had to be in for work quite early in the morning so that limited the location. Rent was £800 a month for new building, but in a not-so-nice neighborhood. It was a 1BR, the sort of size that's big for a student but small for anyone else. Had its own kitchen and bathroom.

Moved in with a friend after that, saved about £100 a month, but also in a nicer part of town.

Have to say the budget felt stretched at £24K, luckily that went up a lot pretty fast.

> saved about £100 a month

Do that every month from age 21 and you'd be able to get a 10% deposit on a house by the time you're 40.

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