Ten Down ? To Go

Brighton: Still worth it?

I have now been to see 10 properties in 6 days - this flat hunt is proving harder than I thought! Brighton is now not worth the money in my opinion. It's a case of Emperors New Clothes and the price of the properties are outweighing the benefits of living here. Brighton has gotten too big for its boots and believes it's own hype.

I have seen some of the tiniest one-bedroom flats you could imagine and they cost £800 a month. And they are the cheap ones! What a disgrace. None of them would even fit my client's dining room table. And they wonder why people don't sit down to eat any more - because they can't even get a table in their bloody flats is why!

If I had to move again on my own I could not afford to live here any more. Yes it's a city, yes it's quite near to London, and yes it's by the sea, but we're an island for God's sake - there's a lot of bloody towns by the sea here! I have seen some ok places a bit further out but even they are expensive. And I can't imagine the prices going downwards in the future can you?

When I first started this blog I lived with a friend in her 2-bed house. I went to see her yesterday as she's expecting another baby and she told me they'd just accepted an offer and were moving out of town so they could have a proper garden (proper means grass not a tiny concrete space) she said that I was one of her few friends left in Brighton as the others had been priced out or moved to get a better life and a bigger home.

Another friend has moved 25 mins train journey away as she split up with her boyfriend and couldn't get anything in town she could afford. She now pays £700 per month for a lovely 2 bedroom flat where she works from home - but she had to move 15 miles away. The problem is that, as freelancers, agencies want you to pay 6 months rent up front so she had to cash in her savings bonds and now has nothing left. Who has that kind of money? It's ridiculous.

Nobody can get on the housing ladder in the UK without help and, because I'm a freelancer, I have to give 3 years financial records to prove to the banks (that I helped bail out) that I could afford their mortgage. So people here are being charged a fortune in rent which means they can't save the money to put down a deposit for a more permanent home. The flats here are all converted houses so you often have noisy neighbours. I personally have moved around 16 times in 20 years.

What a nightmare. I should be able to find somewhere for £800 out of town a bit to live in but I can only afford it as my client will be paying half. I'm going to use the opportunity to save like a sod so I can make sure I'm not ever left in this situation again. He might not be a client for ever so I need to make sure I'm ok. Ideally he'd buy a flat in the area and let me rent it haha! 

I'm not even sure if I can take Dillinger with me as most of the properties don't have access for him to get out and all the landlords say no pets anyway. They won't know that I'll be living in the flat let alone a cat as well. The whole thing is proving a bit stressful now and it's only been a week.