Yet another property advert has been doing the rounds on social media. This one is a bedroom in London’s Canonbury, costing £170 per week to rent.
By that description, you might think it’s a fair bet. Canonbury is quite a nice-ish area. Sort of. But when you look at the actual picture (and there’s really only one, there aren’t many angles to get of the room), you realise that the property is simply a bed lobbed into a kitchen. Yes, it’s a double bed, but as Buzzfeed pointed out, you could touch the cupboard, the kitchen sink and the front door all from that one bed.
It’s another sign that the face of youth accommodation in Britain’s cities has changed in the past 16 years. As average house prices in London havesoared by £146,000 in the last 30 years, it’s become a hard-nosed, oversubscribed rental market – and one that’s weighted in favour of landlords.
Add to that the fact that outside London the average wage for women aged between 22-29 is only £20,265 before tax and the average cost of renting a home is £819 a month – or about £10k a year - and is it any wonder none of us can afford to live alone.
The rise of shared houses – for longer – is having an impact on how we view – and treat – our living arrangements, too. When we did a survey of what the modern-day incarnation of Tracey Emin’s bed would look likeearlier this week, we discovered some startling changes in attitude. Namely, that we no longer see our rental accommodation as a part-time stopover before an eventual clamber onto the property ladder, because we can’t even see the lowliest of rungs within reach.
What does that mean? Well, for one, people dress their flats up nicely in removable decorations, because as much as we know renting is a long-term prospect, we have no idea at what time we might be priced out of an area. Ironically, it is young people like us who bring the excitement and the zeitgeist to areas that were previously too worn-down for property developers to give a crap about. Once we’re there, it’s got a vibrancy they can build on, package and sell to the highest bidder.
And not only that, but we’re totally prepared to turn our bedrooms, no matter how small, into our entire hubs – they become offices, meeting rooms, communication centres, libraries and cinemas – because in so many cases we have to share our living arrangements with friends.
Plus, for many, living spaces are a part of the past. Where others might see a living room, we see a potential bedroom to drive rental prices down. And for the majority of young people, those who don’t have inheritance or parents’ handouts to keep them afloat, the prospect of living alone is further off than driverless cars or holographic television, now that people are living in house shares into their forties.
The plus side? Is there one? Well how about this? Even though our privacy and personal space is impinged upon on a daily basis, at least we’ll never be lonely....
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.