buying a London flat- doing the right thing?

GracieP

pickledpink wrote: »

Brixton's a hole - that's true. But not as bad as HARINGEY where you lived!!!!!:eek:

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I had a feeling you were off checking every post I'd ever written to see if you could discredit me.
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1. Yup I lived in Haringey, not only Haringey but Tottenham. A !!!! area all right, but one where house prices rose 30% from 2006 to 2007. But no, it's not as bad as Brixton. I worked there for a couple of months and it made 'Nam seem like Chelsea.

2. Haringey is a borough. The borough which includes Highgate and Muswell Hill, two areas which are vastly superior to, and far more expensive than, Balham/Clapham. I wasn't fortunate enough to live in either of those areas. If I was I'd still be there.;)

I lived in an area which I grew to hate, and it is this experience which is I why I will never buy in Balham/Clapham. The things that make Tottenham horrid aren't it's lack of trendy shops/eateries. It's a percentage of the population that live in an incredibly anti-social manner. It's not even the crime rate that is the problem, it's the general anti-social atmosphere. I suspect that when the recession is full-swing and lifestyle businesses shut, this atmosphere will once again prevail in areas that have gentrified in the last decade. I'd imagine that Clapham is a better bet in that regard than Balham as Clapham was better to start, and became desirable less recently.

However a concern that I'd have about Clapham, is the state of the Thames barrier. I wouldn't want to own property that close to the river. Something which many will dismiss as overly paranoid. (And I would prefer that I was proved paranoid rather than the barrier be breached.) But nobody listened to those who had concern over New Orlean's levy's 40 months ago either.

chewmylegoff

GracieP wrote: »

However a concern that I'd have about Clapham, is the state of the Thames barrier. I wouldn't want to own property that close to the river. Something which many will dismiss as overly paranoid. (And I would prefer that I was proved paranoid rather than the barrier be breached.) But nobody listened to those who had concern over New Orlean's levy's 40 months ago either.

i considered this myself as i have been looking at buying close to clapham south tube in the last couple of months. elevation above sea level is about 30m there, seems safe enough to me, at least from the direct consequences of flooding from the thames.

my 2 pence on the area is that if you've lived here and like it then that's good enough really. i know the area well enough to know where will be nice to live and where wont, and i suppose the OP does too. for me i wouldn't go east of balham high road unless it's one of the streets right opposite clapham south tube. i'd be pretty choosy about which streets i went for on the other side as well.

the market for flats in the sw12/sw4 borders seems to still have some activity and as long as the place is nice there seems to be at least some competition from other prospective buyers although people are pulling out of sales.

but there's definitely a lot of 2 beds on the market and quite a lot of them are pretty shabby 2 beds which were bought quite recently being dumped back onto the market as people try to get out to avoid making losses, there are also a lot of new "pretend" 2 beds (i.e. living room and kitchen combined to make a 2 bed out of a 1 bed) from developers who have been splitting up 3 story houses coming on to the market, i expect these used to be snapped up but now people would rather have a proper kitchen and they can get it instead of having to buy whatever is available just to get on the ladder.

personally i'm in a comparable position to the OP but with three times the deposit. I have put a few cheeky bids in but seen them rejected. i'm just going to monitor the market and see what happens over the next six months. i've been concentrating on one beds but given the number of 2 beds on the market and that none of them seem to be shifting i think that 2 beds are going to drop quite a bit more in price and there is a real prospect of being able to pick up a good 2 bed for under £300k in the new year.

even if there isn't, they won't be more expensive than they are now, and there will still be plenty of choice on the market, with the rubbish stock pulling everything else down in price through oversupply. my advice to the OP would be to not rush into it, if the seller accepted a price cut of £410 to £350 inside 2 weeks they must need to sell pretty quickly. if there aren't other buyers sniffing around it then the seller may need to reduce again.

chewmylegoff

GracieP wrote: »

1. Yup I lived in Haringey, not only Haringey but Tottenham. A !!!! area all right, but one where house prices rose 30% from 2006 to 2007. But no, it's not as bad as Brixton. I worked there for a couple of months and it made 'Nam seem like Chelsea.

brixton prices supposedly rose 35% last year, although it was an estate agent saying that! maybe the worse the place, the higher the price rise...

lynzpower

pickledpink wrote: »

Brixton's a hole - that's true. But not as bad as HARINGEY where you lived!!!!!:eek:

Without adding yet more pedantics to this discussion

HARINGEY is both a place and a borough.

Little place called highgate.Also full of celebrities :rolleyes:

Incidentally OP should also remember to put a sliding amaount away to compensate for extending the lease, should it not be SOF when she sells.

ixwood

Pickled appear to be a sad troll (who's 15 by the sounds of it). I'm not sure whether to add her to to my ignore list or leave her for comic entertainment...

ixwood

having a look at her threads started has confirmed she's a clueless "prices only go up" troll. The last 6 threads started include:-

The Times Newspaper Reports Property Will Not Drop Any Lower



Times Newspaper Report Advises To Buy Property Now!

House Prices Set To Soar Next Year - Daily Mail Today!

Times Newspaper Report Advises To Buy Property Now!

Vultures will buy ANYTHING as long as it's CHEAP!!

Clueless. And obviously has some VI. What's up pickled, did you spend all your money on some cardboard dive in a dodgy overvalued part of London thinking it'd make you rich?

Or are you just 15 and attention seeking?

ixwood

OP, take the crazy womans/girls advice with a pinch of salt. Virtually everybody else has said bide your time and be patient.

morg_monster

The areas around Brixton town centre are really pretty crap; as is common knowledge, but as anywhere in london, walk for 10 minutes and you find yourself in roads with terraced houses on which look very much like those in Clapham and have similar type of people living there, but are still classed as Brixton.

Oh also just wanted to add my 2p worth - for 2 years I have been coming in and out of tube stations from clapham north down to balham and have never felt scared once, even after midnight, as a lone girl. There are youths about on bikes, and yes they wear hoodies, but I've never felt threatened by them - seriously, I think they may not all be gangsters! At any rate they seem much politer on the buses than the posh rich teenagers who live "between the commons", cossetted in their small world of big houses, private schools, and Kensington High Street, and ferried between the three in shiny 4x4s by mater and pater, and stick their noses up at all and sundry when they are forced out in public or god forbid on public transport. No need for this to continue the argument but I just wanted to put forward my own personal opinion about the place.

Also in terms of council provided service wandsworth "the brighter borough" (!) is pretty superior to Lambeth (again, in my opinion) - I live in W and my bro in one of the roads near clapham south (in L) and almost every time i see him he has something to complain about re the council! Bins, temporary parking passes, council tax ...

Oh before I moved to Balham I lived right on Camden High Road ... now that may have biased me in my affectionate view of Balham! WHAT A POO HOLE!!! But again, walk for 10-15 minutes and you are in Primrose Hill, Hampstead, etc etc - some of the most desirable parts of north London. There are crappy and nice bits of balham and clapham just as there are everywhere. (But the crappy bits of camden, are REALLY crappy...)

chewmylegoff

morg_monster wrote: »

Also in terms of council provided service wandsworth "the brighter borough" (!) is pretty superior to Lambeth (again, in my opinion) - I live in W and my bro in one of the roads near clapham south (in L) and almost every time i see him he has something to complain about re the council! Bins, temporary parking passes, council tax ...

too right, you pay twice as much council tax in lambeth for the privilege of just about the worst council imaginable. the only good thing they have is that truck which goes around lambeth picking up all the rubbish people dump on street corners! six fridges in as many days at the end of my street!

morg_monster

I heard it is because all the tory MPs used to live in Wandsworth borough in the 80s and so they did all kinds of clever tricks to get loads of extra money, so they could have a fab council for half the price!