And I don't think the adverted price are representative of how much you'd end up paying in just rent. My current place went up £200/mo from £1800/mo advertised, because the agent went back to us (and the other applicants), telling us other people's offers, and goading us into increasing our offer.
Anecdata: I share a 2 bed in Ealing, £2000/mo in just rent, council tax band D which adds about another month's rent a year. If I weren't working in finance and paying more to make up for my housemate's lower salary (my ~70k/yr to his ~£30k/yr) there's no way we'd be able to afford this place. We'd have to find somewhere in a worse location, with poorer quality, or both.
The point, though, was that lower prices are available. If you choose not to take advantage because it's not as convenient as you like, that's a valid choice (though if you opt for several hundred pounds difference a month to avoid calling a removals firm once every few years, I question that choice; been there, done that, it's not that much effort)
To be clear, housing prices in the UK are atrocious, even if it's possible to do better than the person above stated.
Personally I'd favour the government basically forcing prices down by guaranteeing to pour money into added construction until the market crashes. I'm saying that as a homeowner because for most people, me included, it'd be better if the prices come down so we can afford to trade up, and it'd be cheaper to provide for some limited bailouts for people left with mortgages under water, than to continue having this massive drag on the economy because it's now advantageous for developers to sit on land and wait for it to appreciate before building as an exit (e.g. one of the plots near my local station that is finally being built on now was standing empty for over a decade before the owner of the land started doing anything).
The 1100/month flats I saw were in calm, green, solidly middle class areas with walking distance to several large parks, shops, and great transport links.
This [1] and this [2] suggests Croydon is about halfway down the borough list per capita, with matched better what I remember from looking at Met numbers in the past. Croydon is the second most populous London borough, so in absolute number of crimes it is usually high up the list, but per capita it's for a long time been pretty much middle of the road, again pulled up by the poorer parts of the borough (particularly, as far as I remember, the Northernmost parts most urban parts, and estates like Addington and Fieldway.
[1] https://www.finder.com/uk/london-crime-statistics#london-cri...
[2] https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/most-violent...
I do have to say, though, the process of finding them was quite stressful.
Literally the first search for a 1 bed property to rent in zone 5 (Croydon, specifically), showed up several around 1100/month. The furnished ones in the more expensive new-builds certainly are around the 1500/month range. Those are in band A, while my house is in band D, so even lower council tax, before taking into account the single person deduction.
E.g. a single person in a band A property in Croydon will pay around 1200/year in council tax. Varies by borough, of course.