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So I spend a lot of time just mindless browsing Google Earth. Mainly during meetings where I'm not really engaged and I'm just mucking around on the internet.
One of the things that I constantly end up asking myself is - where the hell do all these people work?
Take any random town in the South West outside the M25 - from Windsor to Wokingham down to Guildford or even further South - super affluent areas abound - you've only got to zoom in to one random town and you'll see hundreds/thousands of huge properties easily £1m plus. A lot of them are in the middle of nowhere too - not on any commuter line into London.
What do all these people do? Where do they all work? I struggle to believe all these people are commuting into London (Covid aside) - someone in Windlesham surely isn't doing that commute?
What do they all do?!
What do they all do?!
post on here about their retirement plans...
You assume they work.....
They work inside the hollowed out moon carrying out the nefarious orders of their reptilian overlords.
post on here
about their retirement plans…
🙂
Windsor resident here. I work in London. It's a big place though. Previously Uxbridge, but we've relocated to Brentford if that matters. I've been working from the spare bedroom since March. This morning I traveled as far as the dining room for the different scenery - with another monitor.
Ways of working are already changing prior to office return. The company has already offered formal remote working with options from 1-5 days in the office. I could move back home to Gods Own County (Devon of course) and carry on as I am.
You can't come on here and tease the mammals with talk of spare bedrooms, dining rooms and the like.
They'll get ideas above their station and, before you know it, they'll want their own hollowed out moon.
I struggle to believe all these people are commuting into London
Why would you? Just because people live in the south doesn't mean they work in London. A lot people who make good money own a small business (or partial own maybe a medium business) or above rather than work in a well paid job. This is where the lie that getting a good job is worth while. Its owning business even a small one that's more worthwhile.
On top of that there are lots of decent business employing people at good wedge outside London.
And if you want northerners to engage, it's that London
What do all these people do?
Drive to the station and commute into London.
I usually wonder what people do when I am in places I go on holiday, like part of Cornwall, the Lake District or out in the French country side or up in the Alps where there isn't any obvious signs of big industry anywhere near close. Would love to live in a beauty spot like that, and who knows with working from home it might be possible to do it within my current job, though WFH revolution is driving up house prices in more rural and remote areas so I suspect I'll be priced out of the market.
I often look at rightmove for say Esher Cobham etc, I know the latter is footballer territory now, and wonder who owns these 5m houses.
My first job was in the head office of a national company, md was a serial entrepreneur. Office was near epsom.
Anyway, bored last year I looked up where the directors lived, omg, crown estate oxshott, Esher, ashtead...3-4mn each easy. These houses were 500k is the early 90s.
Money finds money, a zone 6 London flat has quadrupled in 25 years, a mansion has gone up 10x.
All the people seem to be on the motorway on my way to work, WFH my arse
There are lots of big employers on the edges of that London too, but in locations where it's almost expected that you drive rather than traditional commute-by-train.
It's still surprises me just how many people are in the corporate centres. (If you anthropomorphise covid, it's rubbing it's sticky little hands together at the prospect!)
Off the top of my head, thinking of SW London and a little further out...
BP in BP Village near Sunbury - about 4000 employees?
British Gas/Centrica, again thousands of staff in the big offices around Staines Campus, and Millstream Windsor.
SKY Tv, again thousands of staff at Isleworth
Glaxo/GSK, again thousands of staff at Brentford/Isleworth.
Bound to be loads more,
They’ll get ideas above their station and, before you know it, they’ll want their own hollowed out moon.
They can stay in the loft conversion - Son2 is locked inside a hall of residence in Ireland so it's going begging.
I usually wonder what people do when I am in places I go on holiday, like part of Cornwall, the Lake District or out in the French country side or up in the Alps where there isn’t any obvious signs of big industry anywhere near close.
In quite a lot of areas, they work in tourism as an alternative to farming. But as a tourist, you won't have noticed that 😉
I usually wonder what people do when I am in places I go on holiday, like part of Cornwall, the Lake District or out in the French country side or up in the Alps where there isn’t any obvious signs of big industry anywhere near close
We went over to see a friend in Northern Italy. Her dad had a gorgeous villa on the hillside overlooking Lake Como. He was a self-employed plumber.
I've often wondered the same thing tbh.
He was a self-employed plumber.
That's just what he told you...
Really the Godfather of the local plumbing mafia...
Maybe they stay in the London flat during the week?
I'm on what most people would consider good money, and have a nice 4 bed house (in an unfashionable part of the borough so cheap), to be able to afford the luxury properties in South Manchester would be lottery money but there's enough people on that sort of money.
Also don't forget those at the top don't have to commute into the office at the same time every day, and ironically may have the company pay for them to stay in a nice hotel for a couple nights.
Used to have an arse of an MD who would work from home Mon to Wed (London based) fly up to Manchester to be in the factory Thursday morning, stay over Thursday night and fly home Friday afternoon. All at the company expense and we paid to have his home office set up.
'Signor, we have that problem with the Camorra.'
'Eh, call The Plumber.'
I'm North East of London in Essex but still commuter belt.
15 houses in road
9 retired (one semi-retired company secretary, works from home occasionally London)
1 taxi driver
1 builder
1 IT project manager
1 non-IT project manager
1 ops manager
1 random household in their 20s who appear to do nothing
My mum is in a road near a major station and if anything has a higher % of retired residents (notwithstanding 70+ flats that are going up soon).
A friend is in the nearest big estate where it's £1m to get anything on there, they have 10+ in their road and every single one is retired bar one which is an MP (and he rents that out to live in his constituency)
Maybe they stay in the London flat during the week?
I guess the slice of people I'm most interested in isn't the level of those who can afford to do this (or have the company pay) but those who have all these 4 bed family houses, Volvo (or X Brand). Probably bought their houses in the 90s for £400k or something, but now its sky rocketed to the 700-800k or so.
They're probably not millionaire-rich, but have enough to pay for the 70k vehicle. One assumes they'd need a job/family income to facilitate that.
That’s just what he told you…
Really the Godfather of the local plumbing mafia…
To be honest, we stayed there for a week and none of the sums seemed to add up. Nobody seemed to do anything apart from sit around drinking coffee and eating amazing food all day, while living in the middle of one of the most beautiful places in the world
I usually wonder what people do when I am in places I go on holiday, like part of Cornwall, the Lake District or out in the French country side or up in the Alps where there isn’t any obvious signs of big industry anywhere near close. Would love to live in a beauty spot like that, and who knows with working from home it might be possible to do it within my current job, though WFH revolution is driving up house prices in more rural and remote areas so I suspect I’ll be priced out of the market.
Devon here. Out in the sticks 25-30% retirees and the largest employers are the public sector eg NHS then the tourist industry. Fishing and farming don’t employ huge numbers. Very little manufacturing industry but similar small businesses to most places. Lots of old money about with large houses, estates and second homes (driving up prices). It’s an amazingly beautiful place to live and quality of life is fantastic but it’s pretty limiting in terms of career choices and my 3 children who grew up here now live and work in that London as a result. In fact I’ll be heading there as soon as the pandemic wanes as want a change for a couple of years after 20 years of walking over the hill to the beach 😉
I live in Sw London near some the places described. Lots of multi £M houses round here. Plenty of people around here work in the city, are in highly paid professions or have family money. Although they are a minority, The majority are normal people in normal size house but they don't get our attention.
To be honest, we stayed there for a week and none of the sums seemed to add up. Nobody seemed to do anything apart from sit around drinking coffee and eating amazing food all day, while living in the middle of one of the most beautiful places in the world
Classic mafiosa, did you miss the tell tail signs like drinking Chianti from the skulls of his enemies?
The armed guards patrolling the estate?
The basement you were never allowed to visit?
Off topic, but https://www.geoguessr.com/ sounds right up your street OP
So I spend a lot of time just mindless browsing Google Earth
What a time to be alive btw, for the nosy bastards! google earth, online planning applications, faceboak, rightmove house sold prices, it's like hardcore porn for yer average blind twitcher!
I guess the slice of people I’m most interested in isn’t the level of those who can afford to do this (or have the company pay) but those who have all these 4 bed family houses, Volvo (or X Brand). Probably bought their houses in the 90s for £400k or something, but now its sky rocketed to the 700-800k or so.
They’re probably not millionaire-rich, but have enough to pay for the 70k vehicle. One assumes they’d need a job/family income to facilitate that.
What sort of income are you imagining is required to support the lifestyle you describe?
Off topic, but https://www.geoguessr.com/ sounds right up your street OP
Exactly what I was going to say - a brilliant way to spend a few hours
I live just outside Guildford in the Surrey Hills near Shere. Not the middle of nowhere but certainly not built up - a small village location. I usually work in Richmond where our offices are (I commute by motorbike), but haven’t stepped foot in the office for nearly a year. I work for a large US consumer goods company heading up the commercial function.
My job covers Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australia/New Zealand, so usually I would mix office time with travel. Obviously haven’t been on a plane for a year either and have been working from home for the duration.
Our office is split between townie commuters who live in London and country commuters who live out this way. During the last year I would say that half of the townies have moved out.
Can’t see me going back to commuting to Richmond 5 days a week after this, but definitely want to get back to overseas travel.
They’re probably not millionaire-rich, but have enough to pay for the 70k vehicle. One assumes they’d need a job/family income to facilitate that.
I assume all those cars are just rented, something like 95% of car sales now are on a finance package. Probably costs £500/£600 month, might even be a company car.
Car ownership is no longer a measure of wealth. In fact it’s kind of an inverse relationship.
‘New money’ = flash car (usually leased)
‘Old money’ = old dog stained estate car (usually owned, but they have better things to spend money on such as education and maintaining their old money).
‘No money’ = can sometimes also mean flash car but not much else given how cheap leases are.
Gross generalisation I know, but wealth, just like class is increasingly difficult to measure by material appearance. Look at the likes of Jeff Bezos. No flash watch, jeans and a shirt. How would you know if you didn’t recognise him?
hundreds/thousands of huge properties easily £1m plus.
Sadly with average house prices in London having reached £0.5m, £1m houses in the south east isn't much to brag about & could have been relatively easily achieved though a combination of luck, age and financial acumen.
I've often wondered this when in Scotland in the middle of nowhere, but quite a few houses dotted around in the distance (Kinloch Hourn springs to mind, 50+ miles from fort bill). What the hell do these people do to earn a living?
someone in Windlesham surely isn’t doing that commute?
Windlesham is practically Suburban London. At certain times of the day trains from the South West are standing room only by the time they get to Basingstoke.
Some of my colleagues commute in from Brighton (which apparently is a REALLY shit journey)
North of Reading there is area of maybe a good few hundred houses all well over £1m. I once heard that a lot of them were from people who owned shops in the town and long since sold up.
Also, house price to income 50 years ago are now completely disjointed. A terrace house bought for 500 in 1963 sold last year for 365k.
Nobody really works in the South East.
We just sit in our lovely big houses and leafy gardens, counting our piles of money and bathing in milk and honey, whilst we exploit the grafters in the North who do all the work for us.
The areas you are looking at are basically known as stockbroker belt.
Despite what it may look from Google Earth the commutes can be faster than places much closer the the centre of town.
Loads of people in banking jump straight into property in zones 1/2 at start of career, then move when they have family after property value soars.
In addition to the usual you also have footballers. E.g Chelsea training ground is around that area.
You would also be surprised at the amount of science and tech. From gaming to recently IPO’d US startups in the dead zones you are looking at.
Isn't it something like 1 in 5 of the UK population that's retired?
That's got to part of the conundrum... especially in certain areas of Surrey, Kent, Cumbria, Devon, Cornwall, Cotswolds... just look for nice areas to live in that return Conservative MP after Conservative MP...
Bound to be loads more,
Indeed, and then there's the other companies that you've not heard of. e.g. what used to be Foster Wheeler (then AMEC, then Wood) in Reading was 3000+ employees across three office buildings pre-crash. Similarly, BG Group (the offshore part of the old company, not the BG that sells you gas and services your boiler) was based locally before merging with Shell and closing down. I don't actually know anyone that commutes into London.
Also, I suspect a lot is down to the growth in population and massively above inflationary rises in housing prices. A detached house on the outskirts of Reading is now £500k. So that's probably the ceiling for most professionals, you pick the suburb/village with the compromise you want and that's the best you'll do. 40 years ago in the '80s older YUPPIES and younger Boomers were probably buying those £10million farmhouses in the Chilterns for the equivalent of £500k thinking they were making a compromise having to stretch themselves to such a big mortgage (when everyone else was buying much cheaper suburban detached houses) but also having to live outside of town.
We keep looking at North Yorkshire, which is probably at a similar house price level to Berkshire 30 years ago. Loads of housing around £30k-£50k, some new suburbs, and the nicer villages around 3-4x that. Then a big jump to a handful of £500k-£1m properties. I worked with people who were on the same rates in the office there as Reading. They just didn't spend even half as much on their houses because they didn't have to. Except for the odd one or two that decided to have 1h commutes to big farms houses up on the moors.
Nobody really works in the South East.
We just sit in our lovely big houses and leafy gardens, counting our piles of money and bathing in milk and honey, whilst we exploit the grafters in the North who do all the work for us.
Well if they would actually graft. We had our last Northerner flogged to death by his Polish replacement. They work so much harder and don't complain about 47 hour days.
Not just London suburbs but some London areas have done really well. Hackney for e.g., I knew a few people there in the 90s they were almost ashamed to admit they lived there. My mate inherited a 3 bed terrace there, probably 150k mid 90s, 1mn plus now.
Ditto Hackney, kennington, Clapham, balham. All neighbouring fashionble areas with hindsight it was bound to happen.