Alan2005

You can quote facts if you like, but you'll never get Bristol to agree when he's in Moncton mode.

el_richo

The 1000+ 2 or more bed houses for sale in Yorkshire and surrounding areas going for £50k and under (according to rightmove) would have them pretty much even stevens based on your assumption of affordability then. Here

~8x salary for the avge Canadian and ~6.5x salary for the avge Brit is certainly interesting to see.

xye

#

Well, I bought the DVD series, so I did not watch TV over the internet I've got the Only Fools and Horses DVD set and the Bear Grylls sets. Apart from that, I've got a huge library of books and I'm contented walking in the Dales. The cost of living here is my biggest gripe.

Where in the Dales did you live?

xye

Yorkshire houses for £50K? Those must be in the slums. To get anywhere decent in Menston for example, a 2 bed terraced house is £170-200K. Try looking at house prices in Harrogate, Scarcroft, Shadwell, Ilkley, Huby, Weeton and so forth. For a decent 3bed house in a middle class area, you are looking at £230K minimum. If you find one cheaper, then it's likely to be on the doorstep of a bad neighbourhood or they are desperate to sell.

For a house in the Yorkshire Dales, one is looking at £500K at a minimum (depending on the preferred location). I did see a house in Pateley Bridge for £230K, but it was very small and the village offers no employment for someone like myself.

BristolUK

Hence why I extended my search away from Moncton to include Winnipeg and a few places in Ontario as well as other cities of NB And my examples are factual too. Also 'real' as opposed to a misleading average.

I looked at a few of those places. They do seem to be in small towns and villages as opposed to the population centres of 100,000 and the attendant amenities/advantage that I mentioned.

Considering that my Canadian examples were detached and these UK ones appear to be terraced, neither the locations nor style seem to be similar, so not really like for like.
Dropping the requirements of bigger population centres and/or detached house in Canada finds properties for $25k-$30k, Many of them looking very nice.

I will concede, however, that there do seem to be UK properties at much less than I thought; although perhaps more localised than Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba.

Alan2005

The average isn't misleading. It's the average. Proving that there are things that are not average doesn't mean much as this is something which should be self evident to everyone.

I could say that the average roll on a dice is 3.5, and you'll roll a one and tell me I'm wrong. This is what I mean by "Moncton Mode".

iaink

Except didnt we agree that the "Average" in canada is probably heavily skewed by Vancouver and Toronto housing, as the UK average is skewed by London and the SE?

So for vast swathes of Canada the "Average" may not be terribly representative?

mrskadz

I can't wait to get out of the UK for many reasons but mainly because everything is way too expensive, can't afford to live here anymore. That and the crap weather!

Alan2005

Probably - but finding a couple of counter examples doesn't say anything. And when comparing countries you have to look at averages. You can't say it's misleading - it's only misleading if you know where in the UK you are coming from and where in Canada you are going to.

MikeUK

Take out the UK and replace with Canada, and that sounds just like one of my collegues who's is planning on retiring to Florida

Tangram

at the inevitable thread drift in the obvious direction.

iaink

Presumably anyone leaving the UK knows where they are coming from and is about to decide where they are going to? I dont get why you are hung up on the average.

There is another thread just started saying you cant find anywhere to live in TO for $400k. The average house price in Canada is about $200 or 250k if memory serves. So much for averages.

Steve_P

If the figures in the chart in this post from another thread are averages and I see no reason to think otherwise, then the national average is considerably more than what you state.

Alan2005

I'm not. I was just pointing out the logical error in bristols critique of el_richo's post above. I don't actually care one way or the other whether or not two incomes are required to buy a house in some godforsaken frozen tundra on the other side of Canada.

Steve_

In residential? I worked in the construction industry in the UK for many years and I don't see that enormous of a difference. Although when my house here was being built I think dragging the site agent out of his office and quoting building regs might have made an impact. Also I had a rather bemusing day showing him how to wire a house. I know a lot of my neighbours have had complaints that I haven't.

Building regs here aren't as tight as in the UK and the building inspections are laughable, however that doesn't necessarily mean if you get someone competent to do the work it's going to be worse, which is why I said there is a greater variation in new build quality here.

Lost count of the number of British people working in construction here (e.g. you) so I think it's bit of a tough sell to say they are markedly worse here!

The one thing that is shockingly worse though is health & safety, I've seen things done routinely here that would get a site closed down in the UK. Massive pits with no fencing, building materials all over the sidewalk and even in the street, not properly covered, unattended machinery not properly locked down, etc.