With rents in the English capital soaring (£1,251 a month) and the cost of home ownership a whopping £416,163, British tabloid the Daily Mirror is offering Londoners a somewhat drastic cost-cutting solution: commute from Prague.
An article published last week compared rental costs, commuting time and distance, and airfare from London to a range of European cities, including Prague which was deemed “the city where rent costs less than a travelcard.”
With monthly rent in Prague an estimated £234 (8,668 CZK) “for a 70 sq metre 2-bedroom apartment with wrap-around balcony and hardwood floors near the centre” and return airfare to London a mere £42 (a monthly travelcard for the Tube is £246.60), the article suggests one might be better off renting in Prague – and taking a 2-hour flight to the British capital 5 days a week – than actually living in London.
While Prague came in first as the cheapest place to rent ahead of Budapest, Zagreb, and Warsaw, it was ranked as the fifth cheapest place to commute from (after Warsaw, Barcelona, Berlin, and Milan).
In an informal reader poll asking Londoners where they would prefer to live given all of the above, Prague ranked third, behind Barcelona (#1) and, go figure, London (#2).