manny1980

Crowded is subjective as many stated it all depends on where you like to live.

Expensive...YES! It is, from my experience, ridiculously expensive. I used to read about UK being referred to as "Rip-off Britain" but thought people were being mean and sarcastic but my wife and I have been looking to buy a 2 bedroom apartment in Glasgow and believe me...its impossible to get anything below 100K which can be considered as acceptable in a relatively safe neighbourhood. For this kind of money, its really very easy to buy a nice house in a good location in upstate NY. I am just stunned how people live in such expensive housing. Guess we could get a loan and buy a property for 150K GBP but because I don't feel comfortable being in debt hence refraining to do so and like to live within our means of affordability.

Moreover, after returning back to the UK after 10 years I notice that buildings are not really well maintained with mold noticed in just about every building (at least here in Glasgow). Sorry if I am sounding negative but it just stuns me how expensive housing market is as the prices are intentionally been kept artificially inflated.

quoll

My daughter in law was of the impression that Britain was wall to wall full (she'd been to Lindon once for a few days) but after driving around here with me for a while she said how she couldn't believe how much space there was here with few people. Centre of London - packed to the rafters, rural Cambridgeshire - lots of green.

Compared with Australia - very cheap

Hotscot

When we move back, from Los Angeles, we're generally aiming for an area about an hour north of Glasgow.

christmasoompa

Really crowded where I am. Out of my windows today I've seen loads of other living creatures, including ducks, geese, several pheasants, guinea fowl, partridge, cows and a herd of deer. Not a single other person though.

As has been said above, there are very crowded areas and there are very rural areas which aren't crowded in the slightest, you just have to pick where suits. The majority of people in the UK live in towns, cities or suburbs, if you want somewhere quieter then it's definitely there.

WhoFan63

I'd love to live somewhere with lots of green. But getting a job is priority so unfortunately will have to go somewhere with slightly less green (as in wide open spaces), but maybe lots of parks to go walking through

christmasoompa

Plenty of places surrounded by green with jobs within commuting distance. We only live a few miles from central Reading but couldn't be more rural, fields all around us. Hubby commutes in to London.

dunroving

Anywhere in particular? Killearn? Balfron? Drymen? Some lovely villages that way, and close to the Lomond National Park if that's what you are looking for.

dunroving

I think the house price sticker shock was probably the biggest aspect of culture shock when I came back in 2006. MY US house was worth about $110,000 (£55,000 at the time, about £70,000 at today's exchange rate). You can hardly get a flat in the UK for that price, whereas my US house was detached, 1,500 sq ft, 3 BR, 1.5 BA, big LR, additional lounge/office room, sizable garden, etc. Taking out a big mortgage once again to buy my current house (former council 3 BR semi, nothing special) was a real financial blow.

Glasgow is always damp, hence the mold and moss on everything!

vikingsail

I do think it depends on where your back coming from. From my perspective the SW of England is looking fairly manageable when I compare what 2 bed condo type 'rathole' you can buy in SD. For the same money I am looking in villages in England. Obviously, if I go town/city centre then the prices jump. Fortunately, for me I want the peace and quiet of country life, but in a small not big house in the country so its going to be a case of searching for the perfect gem for me.

Overall, I think it's the salaries that have not kept up with house prices. In the mid 80's I purchased a 2 bed in the home counties for 27K, fast forward is now probably running in the 160K range but salaries have not increased proportionality at all. For example I was earning about 18K then, same job today pays abt 24K - a bit of disproportion there I think!

manny1980

Thanks for your message. At least I know I am not the only one who was stunned with expensive housing market after returning back. Mind you Glasgow is damp but the mold on buildings never used to be this way here when I used to live here 10 years ago. Back then, the local council used to do their jobs very efficiently and city buildings used to look clean and beautiful...now its the opposite where all the council tax money goes in paying their handsome benefits and salaries and mold on just about every historical building.

Almo

I think these quotes very much show that as vikingsail says, it depends where you're coming back from. We came back from Melbourne, which is just like the rest of Australia in that prices are incredibly high, both to rent and own. So, to us, house prices are inexpensive to average, depending on where you look (i.e. even prices in London no longer shock me, although I can't afford to buy there! Prices in North Wales I sometimes wonder if they're missing a 0).

The same thing goes with what manny1980 says about maintenance or lack thereof. In our Australian house (that we owned) you could see daylight through the floorboards, and at one notably alarming stage, through one of the cracks in the walls (what can I say, it was a reno project). Our most recent rental was outwardly flash (and bloody expensive) but had all sorts of problems once you'd lived in it for a while. On a grander scale, the scandal of the Argus building in central Melbourne used to make me weep - this beautiful old building in a premium location just left to rot while people tried to figure out what to do with it. We found that happened a lot in Melbourne.

Given that you're coming back from Aus, I think you'll probably arrive back and find things cheap to fair. No doubt your perception may well change either way once you're earning and thinking in pounds (we are not quite there yet).

As for it being crowded, well, I don't think so but then I love cities so I might not be the best person to advise on that. My OH's dad has just bought a property in Wales in the absolute middle of nowhere, very remote, and living there would be my worst nightmare, as beautiful as it is

WhoFan63

I'm not familiar with the area, so just curious how long it takes to commute to London from there? I suppose the costs involved in commuting have to be taken into consideration too.

dunroving

I think a big difference between the US and UK is the ratio of expensive to inexpensive communities.

Property prices in cities like San Francisco, DC and New York are probably somewhat comparable to London. However, lower-rung cities in the US, and pleasant rural or semi-rural communities are much less expensive, compared to similar locations in the UK. I would guesstimate it is not difficult to find a very nice, sizeable property in a decent neighbourhood outside of cities like Raleigh, Atlanta (i.e., within an hour or so commute) for less than $200k (currently about £133k) - where I lived (less than 90 mins drive from Raleigh), you could get something very nice for even less. But that wouldn't buy you a detached 3BR, 2BA with large garden in most of the UK.

I think the very "bottom end" places (where most of us wouldn't want to live) are probably dirt cheap in both countries.

Pistolpete2

Let's forget the UK is crowded issue for a moment.

To my way of thinking, there is precious little point looking at two or more countries and comparing such things as property prices, based upon a current rate or rates of exchange unless you are going to have a finite income or capital stash in one particular currency and need to work out how far that income/capital is going to go based roughly upon today's exchange rates, after taxes.

Sure you can look at today's exchange rates and see that you might get a slightly nicer house in the UK for your AUD than you would in Australia but you have to compare realistic lifestyles for you in each country over an extended period as mostly provided by your ongoing income or capital if you are simply going to run it down.

What is more, as many British pensioner emigrants have found to their cost, your income currency can move against you and inflict sufficient hardship that you are then forced to abandon the whole escapade.

I'm definitely not saying that you could experience such an issue if your income source is AUD, for the foreseeable future, but in general terms these are relevant thought processes.

For myself, my income source is USD and six odd years ago I had to work out where I could afford to live, between the Uk and here, using an exchange rate of around GBP = 1.75USD.

UK and St Lucia house prices are roughly equal unless you are in the sticks as we are here, in which case St Lucia tends to win but the clincher always has to be general cost of living at an acceptable lifestyle in the long run. Any gain/more-bang-for-your-buck on initial property investment can very quickly disappear if the overall cost of living is not favourable. For us, that cost typically has to include rather expensive flights back to the Uk annually for vacations etc.

With hindsight, we would probably have been better off going to the UK right away as property prices here have completely stagnated to put it mildly while they have gone up substantially in the UK during our "investment" timeline so the opportunity cost* of buying here is substantial, even after recent severe declines in the value of Sterling. What is more, overall, bearing in mind perceived comparative quality of life, medical, access to travel, culture and educational opportunity, the UK would still have been a better bet. Certainly timing is part of the equation, as others will attest to, but my past experience outlined here needs to keep me alert for our impending return and serves as a good general example.

*it's not just the present cost of UK and AUS property that needs to be considered but the real potential for gain from here on in relative to the second choice if one is worried about the expensive issue. Of course many will say that this is irrelevant because if you are simply looking to return PERIOD it doesn't matter but to most money is an issue and there is always the possibility that in due course one just might want to make a further move, who knows.

If we have indeed determined that UK property is expensive today, and I'm not saying that we have, and we buy and then discover in ten years time that our property is now cheap, are we going to feel better for that fact - I think not, particularly if we need to do something like a reverse mortgage.

robin1234

I've got to agree with this. Torquay, Exeter.. two bedroom flats, from the slightly poky to the very nice, £100,000 to £220,000. Not too different from places I might look at over here; Cape Cod, Poughkeepsie, etc., nice places but not sky high, $150,000 to $350,000.