
Cheaper to rent in Barcelona and commute to London - mrud
http://bestburgerinnorthwestlondon.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/cheaper-to-rent-in-barcelona-and-commute-to-london/
======
cstross
The point of this piece is not that living in Barcelona and commuting to
London is _sensible_ \-- it's that the North London property market has gone
totally batshit insane.

No, seriously: renting a 2 bedroom flat in a not brilliant suburb of London
costs around £25,000 a year, or US $40,000. Then you can add council tax
(another £2000), water, electricity, and gas bills, and travel. Upshot: the
_fixed costs_ of living in London are on the order of US $50,000 per year (two
beds) or around $40,000 per year (one bed). Note that I focus on the two bed
option because that's the practical minimum for a family unit, or for someone
who telecommutes from home. Note also that the average gross income in London
is a little under £28,000 per year (before tax).

Upshot: normal people and normal families can't afford to rent in London any
more. The only thing propping up these insane prices is the scarcity induced
by the current bubble in the foreign investment housing market. The crash,
when it comes, is going to be epic.

~~~
gaius
Not the only thing. The other major factor is housing benefit, in which a
landlord can charge well over the odds, and the govt just pays it. They are
trying to cap it, to howls of outrage but from whom? Not the tenants, they
never see the money. But from well-heeled buy-to-let landlords whose cash-cow
is about to be slaughtered. That's why papers like the Graun oppose it -
that's their readers!

~~~
DanBC
You know there's something called a local housing allowance, which sets
maximum rates for housing benefit, right? And that's been in place for years?
There are rules about ages and size of accommodation.

There are strict rules about over-accommodation too. The bedroom tax has been
operating for many years for everyone except those in council houses and
housing association properties.

~~~
cabalamat
> There are strict rules about over-accommodation too.

Not sure what you mean there

> The bedroom tax has been operating for many years for everyone except those
> in council houses and housing association properties.

Or there

------
meerita
Here a fellow hacker from Barcelona.

I rented a loft for 6620€/year. It's mint condition and it's in the outskirts
of Barcelona. I'm 12 min in subway to the plaza Catalonia and in 7 min using
the train or 20 mins in bus. To be honest, I would never never again will rent
in the centre of the city. It's expensive and all buildings are antique,
without the proper commodities.

If you want to come Barcelona, check the outskirts, get a scooter or enjoy the
Barcelona transportation system. It's wonderful.

I want to add some more info about living in Barcelona.

The weather is magnifique. It barely rains all the year. You can go mountains
withing 2h car travel if you want to enjoy the snow in winter.

Eating can be really cheap IF you go to the supermarket, buy all the meals and
cook yourself like I do, I saved 300€/month doing this instead eating outside.
If you can compile rails, you can be a chef, :). I do buy the meals and stuff
for around 90€/month. That includes the 40lts of water i buy. Then daily i try
to buy meat, fish or vegetables for the week and it cost me no more than 220€
month.

I pay 90 euros electricity, 30 gas and 40 water every 2 months. 60 euros for
100mbit fiber connection + phone and mobile and that's all.

~~~
majc2
Sounds great - but would I be right to assume that Spanish is the working
language in the tech community?

~~~
tanoku
Most tech startups work in English, specially the ones with
international/remote workers. Besides that, the "working language" is Catalan,
because Barcelona is a city in Catalunya.

------
outside1234
About 5 years ago I did this. I flew from the south of Spain (flying from
Jerez on RyanAir) to London once a week for 2 days a week (couch surfing with
a friend).

Its a hard lifestyle - by about the 10th of these flights you will be sick of
the security hassles (and RyanAir) - but it was way better than living in
London full time (no offense).

I did it for 18 months before finally burning out on it and moving to a full
time remote position (which paid less but I decided that that was worth the
upgrade in lifestyle).

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
Once a week for 2 days a week?

~~~
desas
Every week he flew in, spent 2 days in London and then flew back.

------
keithpeter
UK renting is just idiotic at present all over, although especially bonkers in
our capital city.

Remember that 1 bed flats are especially in demand at present as a result of
the (in)famous bedroom tax[1]. A single person or a couple are only allowed 1
bedroom if they need to claim housing benefit (unemployed or low-wage, and
remember that in London 'low waged' is a pretty high threshold, e.g. teachers,
social workers, retail staff, bus drivers &c).

Bear in mind that building 1 bedroom flats has (hitherto) been regarded as a
waste of money for housing associations or councils, so that really only
commercial lets are available (at usually twice or three times the rent of a
HA/council flat with 2 beds), so, ironically, the tax payer will be paying
_more_ to move couples out of 2 bed high rise flats in rough areas which are
hard to let into expensive private let 1 bed flats. There will be no takers
for the high rise flats (unsuitable for children) so they will be mothballed
then expensively demolished.

Yes, bonkers, but the UK is run by the Daily Fail and other populist idiots.

[1]
[http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/housing_benefit_and...](http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/housing_benefit_and_local_housing_allowance/changes_to_local_housing_allowance/bedroom_tax_from_april_2013)

Edit: OK anonymous downvoter, state your reasons

~~~
lucaspiller
Not the downvoter, but I think s/UK/London/. I agree with everything on what
you say about London, but outside of London the rest of the UK isn't really
that bad. You can rent a 3 bedroom house for £300/month in Yorkshire. Even if
you are the only earner in a household, on minimum wage, you'll still have
over £500/month left after rent (probably more if you have kids due to
benefits).

Bonus: It's a three hour commute to London [1].

[0] [http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-
rent/details/20671512?search_iden...](http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-
rent/details/20671512?search_identifier=9fd9a5bfe1e532e8ea1a096bfa063a11)

[1]
[http://traintimes.org.uk/Gainsborough/London/06:30/monday/18...](http://traintimes.org.uk/Gainsborough/London/06:30/monday/18:30/monday)

~~~
keithpeter
_" You can rent a 3 bedroom house for £300/month in Yorkshire."_

Leeds? York? I suspect not.

Bear in mind that _single bedroom flats_ are mainly built in areas where land
is expensive, because it is only then that the small space saving over a 2 bed
flat outweighs the similar building cost.

Birmingham: 3 bed house commercial, way outside city, is £750 pcm. That will
increase when H2S happens (if it does).

~~~
aaren
Maybe £300/month was a bit ambitious for Leeds, but here's £400/month:

[http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-
rent/property-4286620...](http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-
rent/property-42866204.html)

This is in Bramley / Pudsey, 4 miles out from Leeds city centre (well within
the Leeds / Bradford urban area). I imagine you could get similar in Armley or
Holbeck (1.5 miles out).

~~~
keithpeter
If the metro reaches Bramley, I accept your point!

In the Birmingham/West Midlands anything in reach of centre is over £500 per
month.

------
CWIZO
That's a roughly 4 hour commute in each direction: 1h flight, 1h train ride
from airport to liverpool street + commute to the airport and waiting. And
this are, in my experience, conservative numbers.

So you spend 128 hours per month commuting, to save 387€. Not what I would
call a bargain.

Oh, what about double taxation? I'm pretty sure you'd be hit by that and that
would most likely put you well in the negative.

~~~
busterarm
I know an assload of people who work in the NYC area that have commutes that
long or nearly that long. 3hour+ commutes aren't uncommon at all.

~~~
EGreg
Well then I would confidently say that's stupid, unless they are using their
commute time to work on something or catch up on their favorite shows.

Your most limited resource is time. Money is a distant second. And if those
people arent monetizing their commute or taking care of their entertainment,
they are wasting time to save some money. It's nearly as stupid as fracking -
wasting water to get oil, only to later have a water shortage and a raped
environment. And half as stupid as wasting your health for money, then trying
to get it back with money.

~~~
throwaway9848
It's not stupid. High salaried people in NYC often locate their families in
the suburbs in CT and NJ, which are safer and more livable. The commute is
just a function of where they determine the salary/lifestyle tradeoff is even.
Some people just place a higher utility on their family's lifestyle than their
own time.

~~~
Crake
I don't know that I'd call CT or NJ safer or more liveable. Especially not to
the point where it would justify such a long commute.

------
j2d3
Cheaper, but fairly ridiculous. Stay in Barcelona and telecommute.

Similarly, it would be cheaper for me to rent in Mexico City and commute to my
job in Los Angeles. Yes, some global metropolises have lower rents than
others.

~~~
bnegreve
> _it would be cheaper for me to rent in Mexico City and commute to my job in
> Los Angeles._

Is this serious? Because that's the whole point of this blog post: flying
everyday between London and Barcelona it's actually doable, for real. As in:
some people might end up doing it.

~~~
WildUtah
BCN-London can be had for E$34 round trip. LA-MEX goes for US$400 cheapest
average seat. That makes all the difference. Maybe try Tijuana, though.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
Nah, the Mexican government imposes a $100 tax on all international flights.

------
byoung2
I'm still convinced that we're just a few years away from a time when people
don't have to commute to an office just to sit at a computer. That company in
London could save some money and so could the employee in Barcelona if
telecommuting were an option.

~~~
gaius
I think a lot of geeks have a vision of a perfect world when a detailed,
unambiguous spec arrives in their email, they write the code and upload it,
then the money is transferred to their accounts. There is a fundamental flaw
with this concept, which is writing a spec that good is more work that just
writing the code yourself. And the guy who writes that spec will need to
collaborate with others enough that having everyone in the one place to do
that makes sense. Videoconferencing works if you want to discuss something
with which you are both familiar with someone you already know, and this
admittedly is a large part of many people's jobs. But for everything else, you
really do need to be there.

~~~
nawitus
I think videoconferencing sucks because the tech is so primitive. In 10 years
we'll have proper videoconferences which are using augmented reality and have
sufficient quality to replace physical meetings 90% of the time.

Of course, even conference calls suffer from the use of low-quality software
and hardware. For some reason companies tend to use $1 microphone and $5
speakers for conference calls.

~~~
eriksank
If someone cannot write it, he will want to say it, and if he cannot even say
it, he will want to come over to gesticulate.

~~~
collyw
God that annoys me. He can explain things properly, so assumes moving his arms
around will make it clearer.

------
lsb
This is silly. Just go southwest a few miles.

There is, for instance, a flat steps from the London Overground in South
Norwood ([http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-
rent/details/30891717](http://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/30891717)) that
is going for £400/month (€470/month).

(It's unclear why you'd want such a long commute, versus living in far-away
green suburbs by the train.)

~~~
xxpor
From the description:

"Men Only / No Females"

What the hell? How is that legal?

~~~
adaml_623
Technically a landlord is allowed to be very particular (e.g. discriminate) if
they are also a resident in a dwelling.

~~~
klipt
I've seen tons of Craigslist ads for roommates that say "females only".

The irritating thing is that they usually say it at the bottom of the advert
instead of in the title, so you waste time clicking on the link and reading
it.

------
Continuous
It's a 4 hour commute!

Why would you live in Central London? You can commute for an hour into
Liverpool St and get much cheaper rents.

~~~
smikhanov
There isn't a single house or flat (for any price whatsoever) within 4 hour by
train radius from Liverpool St that compares to a three bedroom in Barcelona.

~~~
notahacker
Well sure, the selection of tapas in England is rather limited, it's colder
and rains more, the local football teams aren't as good and you have to speak
English all the time because Catalan and Spanish aren't very widely
understood. But if you can't beat Barcelona for living, you'd probably want to
work there too. You can definitely get similar space for your money to the
Barcelona flat highlighted in the blog post in a perfectly adequate dormitory
town a short commute from Liverpool Street, if Southeast England is more your
thing.

------
yetanotherphd
I'm not convinced that house prices area actually a big deal, except as an
indicator that more housing should be permitted (by zoning laws).

There are two arguments that are typically given.

Firstly, you want to encourage people of different incomes to live together. I
don't believe that this is a worthy goal. It's not clear that the benefit to
people on low incomes outweighs the loss to their high income neighbors. And
the richest 1% always find ways to isolate themselves anyway.

The second argument is that welfare should taken into account the cost of
living. I also believe this within reason, but the welfare system already does
this in many ways. In fact, London's "one bedroom rule" is a clunky way to do
precisely this: it lets people live where they like, but prevents people from
purchasing an excessive "quantity" of housing.

------
merraksh
Or you could live in Birmingham, in a £650/month one-bedroom apartment 10
minutes away from New Street station, where you can take a 70 minute train to
London Euston.

Sure, Birmingham is not Barcelona or London, but I'm not sure how you'd enjoy
them by living most of your off-work time in a Ryanair flight.

~~~
switch007
A yearly season ticket from Birmingham to London incl the tube is £7,252 (or
£5,240 without the travelcard).

A peak return ticket is £158 (this Tuesday, trains arriving before 9am)

------
sprizzle
I like this article as a thought experiment, but I think in practicality, it
would probably be miserable to fly to-and-fro 4 days a week.

The main cost that was ommitted that would give us an idea whether the commute
is worth it is the opportunity cost
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost)).
While it'd be difficult to estimate how much the author's time is worth, if we
assume that he/she gets paid an hourly wage of W, and it takes H hours to
commute to and from London, then the opportunity cost would be something like
W x H. If that opportunity cost is greater than the 387€ in savings, then it
would not be cheaper to commute from an economist's perspective.

------
krmmalik
I just moved to North-West London Two weeks ago and can confirm these numbers.
It's an interesting write-up and I can see that it's been written for the
mathematical demonstration rather than the practicality but it does give food
for thought.

------
officemonkey
So he can live in Barcelona and get home at 10 PM and leave for the airport at
5 AM.

Who cares if you live in Barcelona if you're asleep all the time?

~~~
twic
Hey, in Barcelona, that means he's getting home just in time to go out for
dinner.

------
yeureka
I left Barcelona in 2007 to come to London and although the cost of living is
higher here ( I live in West Hampstead ), salaries and opportunities are also
much better. Granted, I spend more money per month in fixed costs than my
entire salary in Barcelona, but I still save more than I spend.

Also, from this article it seems that rents have actually fallen, because in
2007 I could not find that kind of accomodation for that price and I was
strugling to save any money compared to now.

I guess the housing market collapse in Spain has actually impacted the crazy
Barcelona prices of mid 2007.

~~~
collyw
I moved in 2008, and the rents have gradually been going down. Usually
involves a bit of negotiation with the landlord, as legally they are allowed
to raise it in line with inflation each year. Or moving out, which is a
hassle, and ends up costing. So fine if you are moving anyway, but otherwise
it depends.

------
gcb0
Had a friend on UCSD that rented at Tijuana and crossed the border everyday to
San Diego.

~~~
_delirium
Was this recently? The hassle/delay of crossing the border has really gone up
in the past 10 years. Both the Mexican and Canadian borders, actually.

~~~
gcb0
5~7 yrs ago. I asked the same thing. She said she had a "pass" that allowed
for faster crossing, and it was pretty common.

------
valdiorn
I just moved to London, less than a month ago.

I decided that I was willing to pay a premium for my <25 minute commute to
work (close to Tottenham Court Road). And as long as other people think the
same, rent will go up. Pretty standard supply and demand. Everyone works in
the center, and nobody likes to waste 2 hours of their day hopping trains and
buses.

So this is what you get, take it or leave it, I guess...

~~~
osks
Where do you live (and what did you get, and what does it cost), if I may ask?

------
meerita
This post is also a great idea to start a HN Barcelona meeting :).

------
tluyben2
It's not the point of the article, but 4 hours wouldn't be that bad per se. I
would hate to be on an airport every day and being with ryan air every day (I
rather pay a lot more than fly ryan air personally; I am almost 2 meters in
length and quite bulky in width due to food and daily gym; ryan air is cruel
punishment, no matter the cost), but when I still worked in an office in the
Netherlands (granted, that's over 10 years ago), I would spend 2.5-3 hours at
least in traffic jams. At least in a plane you can read a book or do some
work. Sitting in a car, usually in the rain/cold, foot on the break ready to
move yet another 30 cm I might even consider worse than ryan air...

------
zobzu
so 1500 GBP is about 2420 USD 1 bedroom in the good part of SF, USA cost about
2500/month.

Sure, there's no council tax and utilities are cheaper. Still, its pretty
close.

I bet Paris ain't so far from that either, and let's not talk about NYC.

Basically, all of the large tech cities prices are "batshit insane".

The only hope I see, barred 1h30/2H by plane travel time, as the author
suggests.. is remote work whenever possible. You can then live 3-4h away from
big cities (so you can still get together if needed), and prices are slashed
by 10.

------
JamesSouthworth
How exactly does one qualify x as cheaper than y when the comparison requires
y to omit a massive economic component: the opportunity cost or value of one's
time?

Additionally, why propose such an intrinsically inefficient model? What about
using a hostel on M, Tu, W, and only fly in M AM and out Th PM? Monthly
commute ~28 hours, quality of living benefits, and probably save even more $.

Can someone from the EU comment on the potential tax benefits of an
international live/work arrangement?

------
mikhailfranco
Ryanair lies about flying to 'Barcelona' \- it actually flies to Gerona, about
95km away (1hr by ground transportation):

[http://gospain.about.com/od/ryanair/qt/ryan_barcelona.htm](http://gospain.about.com/od/ryanair/qt/ryan_barcelona.htm)

Although, Gerona is itself a beautiful city and would be a nice place to live.

~~~
pedramg
Actually, your link says:

"However, Ryanair have recently decided to start flying to Barcelona from
around Spain and a few other airports in Europe."

------
lnanek2
Now how much does he earn per hour? How much time does he waste on a long
commute each of those four days a week?

------
RafiqM
Funnily enough, I came to the exact same conclusion last week while visiting
London, from Dublin.

€30 return flights and it's faster than Barcelona, 1hr flights (and you can
show up 45 mins before flight leaves for IE->UK).

Even using Hotel Tonight while I was in London, accommodation was €200+ on a
Tuesday night.

------
daemon13
To Barcelona hackers - which districts are the best to rent a nice modern-
built loft/apartment:

\- from quality angle?

\- from price angle?

Edit: formatting

~~~
soci
quality: sarria-sant gervasi, eixample. price (without being bad areas): nou
barris, sants.

------
judk
It is well established that prices RyanAir advertises are not prices
passengers pay.

Given the option of the hassle and commute, people would prefer to just live
in London. Which is the whole point- real estate pricing is efficient in this
case.

~~~
radio4fan
> It is well established that prices RyanAir advertises are not prices
> passengers pay.

The prices on the website are exactly what you pay, as long as you pay by
debit card and don't check luggage.

Source: I live in Barcelona, and travel monthly to London.

~~~
lucaspiller
People sure seem to hate a lot about Ryanair. I also flew with them regularly
back to the UK when I was living in Ireland. I tried a few other airlines
(FlyBe, Air France, BA and Aer Lingus) but found Ryanair to be the easiest and
most reliable.

------
farresito
Just wanted to add that the apartment that the article refers to is located in
a really nice place of Barcelona. Definitely not the center, but relatively
close to FC Barcelona stadium, and close to the rich part of the city.

------
marban
It might at least get you a HON circle membership if you take Star Alliance
flights but daily use of Ryan Air can't be beneficial for your mental
stability.

------
qwerta
My friend works for one the City. He is permanently renting hotel room nearby.
He says it is actually cheaper compared to normal rent.

------
alexchamberlain
East London is where it's at! It is cheaper to buy than rent though!

------
avty
Time to move to Texas!

