[QUOTE=ultrafilter]
I wouldn’t say that, and it would strike me as pretty odd if someone did.
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‘In property’ does sound odd to my American ears but ‘made his fortune in real estate’ sounds fine.
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Isn’t timber framing more environmentally friendly than brick or block construction?
[/QUOTE]
Depends how many centuries you want the house to last, I guess. The environmental cost (energy, CO[sub]2[/sub], pollution, ecological impact of materials extract, etc) of firing all those bricks is almost certainly greater than that of preparing the timber for a similar-sized building, but the brick building may last upward of five times longer than the timber one - so it might be a wash.
[QUOTE=Colophon]
In my town, about 35 miles from London, this is a random example of what £250,000 will buy you. The room sizes are there on the link. My own house (well, my parents’ - I rent from them) is not hugely dissimilar to this. (In size, at least - we have at least made some effort to make it less ugly than this one!)
[/QUOTE]
Bloody hell Colophon we’re nearly neighbours! Here’s one in the same price range on my street. Mine is a mid-terrace 3 bed with around 850 sq ft. so would probably go on the market at around £210k
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
How about in Germany of France?
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Alsace-Lorraine? 
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
How about in Germany of France? Here in the U.S., watching the Travel Channel, we wince when Samantha Brown tells us her hotel costs 350 EUR per night. Of course it’s worse for us, with our currency weak as it is, but it sounds like it would be prohibitive to most EC citizens as well. Is it? Do Europeans tend to go abroad on vacation where their money buys more, instead of staying in Europe? There’s some evidence that’s still true in America; it’s why Mexico remains a popular vacation destination for us.
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The two star hotel in Bilbao where I’m staying now is 55€/night (+7% VAT) for single-person occupancy; I found them on bookings.com and now deal with the hotel directly for further bookings. Breakfast not included: access to a small buffet is 3€ more. Internet is included (although if you want to use it, it’s better to mention it early, since signal in the 4th floor is weak). There is a tiny parking lot, included. There’s a gym but I haven’t used it. The price for two-adults occupancy or for two-adults plus small child is the same, 70€+VAT. There’s no room service but there’s two bars a few yards away, a supermarket on the next block, and it’s about 150yd to Old Town, where you have enough bars and restaurants to satisfy anybody. The table is small, as usual, but wide enough to prop my elbows on it if I push the laptop all the way in. The TV is small, but all its channels are clear.
The previous hotel (company-chosen) was 4 stars, 120€/night+VAT. Breakfast would have been 20€ (you’re kidding, right?). Internet, 29€/day (Telefonica charges that for one month of ADSL). Parking, 12€/day. No gym. No restaurant, but room service. A plate of spaghetti bolognese: 15€. Huge-ass TV; 30 channels which are actually 4 (they had Canal 6 so many times it was more like Canal 48), of which none could be seen clearly. Small table, as usual, not wide enough to prop my elbows on with the laptop pushed all the way to the wall.
As a popular ad says: “search, compare, and if you find a better deal… buy it.”
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Isn’t timber framing more environmentally friendly than brick or block construction?
The Huf Haus timber frame houses are stunning. And this timber framed house is amazing.
[/QUOTE]
I agree those are great. My family used to have a similar place at Lake Tahoe. But most new suburban US homes are built from 2x4 and drywall which is much less durable than brick/block used here in Europe.
We have both a washer and dryer (stackable unit), but in summer we don’t use the dryer much. We have a folding rack that we set up in the bedroom to air dry.
One thing I really like here that is rare in the US (I am sure they must exist but I’ve never seen one) are the windows. Ours are made in Austria and are like double doors… when closed the handle points down. Rotating it 90 degrees so that it is horizontal allows you to open the window like a door. Rotating it a further 90 degrees so it points up allows you to pitch-in the top of the window by about 10 degrees, so that the window is mostly closed, but air can still circulate.
Now if we could only get window screens we’d have the perfect windows.
If we’re comparing properties, here’s one in my town for 260k.
[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
If we’re comparing properties, here’s one in my town for 260k.
[/QUOTE]
Grade II listed aka no SKY dish for you!
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Grade II listed aka no SKY dish for you!
[/QUOTE]
Only on the front. That house faces north, so it’s not a problem.
[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
If we’re comparing properties, here’s one in my town for 260k.
[/QUOTE]
260k for a terraced house?
Ecky thump lad, you could buy a whole street in Wigan for that
[QUOTE=chowder]
Ecky thump lad, you could buy a whole street in Wigan for that
[/QUOTE]
Hmmmmm, let me contemplate living in Wigan for, ooh, about three seconds 
Oi!
Tee hee 
I was hoping you’d notice that, but nine minutes? I’m impressed!
Note the size of the bedrooms in **Colophon’s ** original link . 7’2" (max) x 7’ (max) - I wonder just how much of this room is the “max” width of 7 foot? :dubious:
So would I ! That’s 5 Star prices with no discounts. Nava’s “4 stars, 120€/night+VAT” is more the sort of price I’d expect (and I’ve been to hotels like he one he describes where everything is an extra!) Last time I was in Barcelona I paid 105€/night+VAT, breakfast included, for a 3 star hotel and I’ve paid the same sort of price in Germany (just outside Munich) and France (Aix-en-Provence).
Caveat - you can read the facts somewhere else, most of what I’m going to say is anecdotal experience from an American who lives in the UK for the past 6.5 years and makes frequent trips back to the US.
Caveat 2 - I have a US keyboard, so the bloody GBP sign isn’t available. Sorry for that.
Caveat 3 - I’ve only ever lived in London and the SE; things are different the further away from London you get, with prices generally going down fast.
- Cost of living is higher here, especially property prices, but it’s offset by several things:
- People can afford the higher property prices because they’re already on the property ladder. Those who bought their homes 5-10 years ago are laughing now because nearly everywhere in the UK property values have increased dramatically. My girlfriend bought a small 2br house near Ashford in Kent about 6 years ago; she kept it for 2 years before selling it. She made 80k pounds profit in doing so. That’s one major offset for the higher cost of living. It’s usually the first time buyers, especially in London but in other areas as well, who are finding buying a house hugely difficult.
- As stated before, people get paid a bit higher here than in the US. But not dramatically so.
- Lots of people, who would normally have their own house or flat in the US, share accommodation to offset the huge cost of renting or buying, again especially in London. Until I moved in with my girlfriend, I shared a flat with someone or shared a house before that with 3 other people. Almost everyone I know in the same age bracket and roughly the same income bracket (well above average, 30-40 yrs old) also share accomodation unless they’re married or live out of London
- Space is definitely at a premium, which means people buy less stuff - they just simply don’t have room to put it all. I also go through regular culls of things I don’t wear or things I don’t use anymore just to have enough room in my house for the things I do need.
- Commercial / product availability and cost
- like housing, most consumer items are slightly higher priced than in the US. Clothes are generally more expensive unless you go to knock-off places like Asda or Primark; it’s usually the same price in pounds as dollars for things like Levi Jeans - about 50gbp, yet when I was in the US two weeks ago the same jeans were $50, so with the exchange rate about twice as much over here as over there.
- availability of various brands of similar products is a bit sketchy. You can’t go to a main supermarket and be able to choose from dozens of different brands of the same basic product; you’ll get 1 or 2 choices. This goes for pretty much every store. Again, it’s down to space issues - there simply isn’t room, even in super stores, to stock 15 different brands of fabric softener.
- But that said, all the main things - electronics, etc… - are all available at fairly good / comparable prices (although higher than US prices). You may have to go to a specialist shop to get certain brands, but it’s usually available somewhere in the local area. The one-stop-shop is not too common, although department stores like John Lewis probably come the closest.
- Cars
- Fuel (either gas or diesel) is hugely expensive. Hugely so. A litre of petrol goes for about 1.39gbp. 1.39gbp per litre * 2.2 litres per gallon * 1.9 $ per GBP = $5.79 per gallon. Diesel is the same price but more fuel efficient, so lots more people have diesel cars here than in the US and every petrol station I’ve ever seen sells diesel
- insurance is expensive, but not prohibitively so; if you’ve not had an accident for 3+ years and / or are over 25, the price goes down dramatically.
- road tax is expensive and getting more so - it’s set to raise somewhere between 10-20% in the next year. This is the tax people pay per year to register and drive their cars
- Driving into central London and some other UK cities costs a ‘congestion charge’ per day; residents of the congestion zone pay almost nothing, but non-residents pay upwards of 8 quid per day just to drive into the zone; parking is an absolute nightmare as well and very expensive
All of that said, outside of London most people still own cars - my brother and his wife own 2. Most Londoners might own 1 car per family, but that’s largely down to the availability of parking rather than the cost of running a car. London transport is hugely expensive, as already stated - I pay 172GBP for a zone 1-6 travel card per month - that gives me access to all the trains, buses, and tubes in the greater London area. But I don’t own a car; lots of people who live in London don’t. And there are lots of ways to offset this cost - 60+ and kids under 15 ride London transport for free, and there are ways to offset the cost even more. You can also travel cheaper by getting a bus-only travelcard (which is slower but will still get you there) or other tricks.
So I guess my anecdotal summary is that things are cheaper in the US, but the standards of living are very close to being equal.
[QUOTE=Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party]
Oi!
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MarcusF]
Note the size of the bedrooms in **Colophon’s ** original link . 7’2" (max) x 7’ (max) - I wonder just how much of this room is the “max” width of 7 foot? :dubious:
[/QUOTE]
If you’re a basketball player, you have to sleep diagonally across the room.
[QUOTE=GomiBoy]
- availability of various brands of similar products is a bit sketchy. You can’t go to a main supermarket and be able to choose from dozens of different brands of the same basic product; you’ll get 1 or 2 choices. This goes for pretty much every store. Again, it’s down to space issues - there simply isn’t room, even in super stores, to stock 15 different brands of fabric softener.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure that’s true any more in a lot of places. Thanks to the ubiquitous out-of-town Tesco, much of the population has a huge superstore within easy reach that happily stocks 50 types of breakfast cereal and a dozen types of toilet cleaner. My local big Tesco just has far too much of everything and is too bloody big - unless you plan your shop with military precisionn, you end up having to walk a quarter of a mile to the other end of the shop and back because you forgot something from the veg section.