Croydon isn't fashionable, I get that. So you need to be happy paying a premium for a fashionable brand. That's all this piece is about, places where there is very high demand and a limited supply are very very expensive.

I have my own 2 bedroom flat in a professional neighbourhood, no through road, so it's pretty much a private community. Paying under £700 a month on a standard variable rate mortgage (I could push it even lower switching mortgage providers).

Looking out my living room window I see trees. In winter, I have views of Caterham valley. It's quiet and peaceful. This morning just the rustle of leaves and my clock ticking away. I'm surrounded by green, rarely hear traffic, a rumble of a train every now and again down the East Grinstead line. It's everything that London is not.

So it's part of Croydon, zone 6. A choice of two train lines, decent access to London. The 40 minute commute each way is good for hacking away at a personal project, laying down foundations for next steps, bolstering/improving unit-test coverage.

Granted, front-door-to-front-door, it costs me 11 hours to do an 8 hour day, but the time outside of that is all mine, in an environment conducive to lots of thinking and reflection, and coding zones.

And earning less than colleagues doing the same role, I have a lot more disposable income as a single tech-guy working in London.

Snub Croydon if you want, but you also chose to justify market prices of North London rent. That's why London has a series of commuter belts running parallel to the train lines. There's a tradeoff of cost, time and quality of life to be made.

I quite like the southern parts of Croydon: South Croydon, Purley, Kenley, Warlingham, Caterham. Croydon has good parts and bad, both can change over time, as people living there slowly change. I'm in a once-family area that's mostly professional couples now. On the commuter belt into London.

Croydon is really improving and there's actually a pretty cool surging tech scene there. As they have a lot of fibre, cheap commercial property, support from council and transport links. Not that I'm saying people should work in Croydon just yet as there aren't enough tech companies but there are quite a few medium sized ones and some startups.

... is something pretty much only people who haven't actually spent time living in the nicer parts of Croydon says, and presumably a large part of the reason why it's so cheap.

(and for the record, the prices I cited are for some of the nicer parts of Croydon - in the (few) shit holes you'd pay much less)

Frankly, I'm not moving anywhere else in London again. If I ever strike it rich, I'll still stay here, because what you get for your money here is insane compared to elsewhere in London.

Up to and including huge mansions off private roads (Croydon is home to one of the wealthiest areas in the UK, in parts of Purley) of a size and with gardens that require "staff", that go for less than what many people pay for tiny flats in Central London.

If it's worth thousands a year to avoid having a Croydon post code, I have no sympathy.

This sort of attitude (which is general and by no means limited to you ;-)) is part of why living costs in London are so high. A lot of people in London, even the relatively poor, are so psychologically locked to living there that living anywhere else simply isn't an option they'll entertain.