Moving to London.. but where should I think about living?

Gingernutmeg

hethmar wrote: »

Re Orpington - I grew up there/Chislehurst and its a great place for families - but for young/single people there is really very little.

Chislehurst is EXTREMELY expensive compared to the surrounding areas, and not because it's that nice, just because it's 'nice' compared to Eltham, Sidcup, Welling et al. Really, really not worth the price you'll have to pay to live there.

Bf109

hethmar wrote: »

Blimey, so who are buying all the 400k flats in Royal Arsenal then? Do they all have white sticks and dogs?

There are two groups of people

1. Idiots
2. Nobody

neverdespairgirl

hethmar wrote: »

Blimey, so who are buying all the 400k flats in Royal Arsenal then? Do they all have white sticks and dogs?

The same muppets who shelled out for incredibly expensive "executive apartments" in Thamesmead, and were then surprised they crashed in value and that the neighbours were iffy.

hethmar

Well its a lot of money they have shelled out. Beautiful buildings mind you but I believe the service charge for the gym and so on is about £3k a year in there. :eek: Oh and you do get views of the Thames

Austin_Allegro

hethmar wrote: »

Blimey, so who are buying all the 400k flats in Royal Arsenal then? Do they all have white sticks and dogs?

But again, remember - who would have thought east London would be so expensive and trendy? Or Bermondsey?

These areas only became expensive because of hyperinflative speculation in property prices and the mania for 'getting on the ladder' at all costs. East London also benefitted from overpaid financial services workers who needed property close to Docklands because their long hours precluded long commutes.

Now that the financial services/city economy is in decline, it is likely that these areas will crash hard; apparently there is already considerable oversupply in rental properties in the Docklands area.

I'm sure there are some nice properties there with river views etc, but these were built for workaholic single professionals in mind - there is very little in the way of local facilities or community, unless you count pubs with meat raffles and lunchtime strippers...

evelio

If you don't mind a certain 'edge' to your surroundings, Deptford would be a good option. DLR links to the city, next to Greenwich, lively artscene, nice market.

smaysey

There are a number of places in SE London other than Beckenham, Dulwich and Greenwich which are OK to live in. Certainly somewhere like Forest Hill, Honor Oak, even Brockley (which is zone 2) are fine. Lots of green spaces, bars, and if you spend a bit of time looking you can find a nice 2 bed flat with garden for £800pcm (but you will need to look). Deptford is a bit dodgy, as are Sydenham and Lewisham and New Cross is horrendous - yes, there are nice parts, but the high street is awful - ditto Catford.

Further out, Bromley and Penge are OK.

davsidipp

chislehurst is only slightly dearer in certain parts.i live of green lane in new eltham so no the area very well.big houses go for a premium due to nice greenery but in no way is it fine for young people.schools are pretty poor unless you send them to private.few decent pubs but generally for middle age people.saftey is not that great anymore.if i was young and moving to london it would be blackheath,greenwich or west london.if you share with others it makes it more afforable.as for woolwich complete and utter dump even though the arsenal is history the area surrounding it is dire.

OrangeProse

I'm with the majority on Woolwich and the surrounding area. I've been renting in Thamesmead for the last year (I wasn't sensible enough to find out much about areas before I moved from the north, and it was cheap, natch) and it's not lovely, to be honest.

To be fair, in a year of living there I've only ever had two bits of 'action' - one time two lads on bikes tried to bag-snatch my laptop (failed, haha) and another time I was steamed on a train (not so lucky that time, bye bye laptop). It's more the general feel of the place. It just isn't nice. You don't feel like going out for a walk in the evening, for example, as it just feels a bit deserted and threatening.

Woolwich Arsenal, by the way, is one of the greatest Emporer's new clothes deals going. The apartments - particularly the ones in the converted old buildings - are genuinely lovely, but as soon as you step outside the gates you have to deal with Woolwich. A lot of the Woolwich Arsenal apartments are being offered on shared ownership now, too. I think as a development it tried a bit too hard to be all things to all people - shared ownership and cheap rentals for the locals, plus half million apartments for the city boys (that's why the DLR's going to Woolwich). Ultimately, the town will smarten up but it'll take 8-10 years and a population transplant to do it.

The trouble with London - and this is a cliche but it's true - is that for every 'nice' area there's a 'not so nice' area jammed right next to it. Even properly posh parts like Hampstead, Highgate, Blackheath and Putney have less fancy parts right next door like Kilburn, Archway, Kidbrooke and Roehampton respectively.

The thing is though, London takes some getting used to. And you have to live here to do it. The best thing to do is take a punt. Get something for 6 months and see how it fits. If you don't like it, move somewhere else - the rental market is MASSIVE. Sadly, living right in the centre (i.e. Soho, Covent Garden, the City, anywhere in Zone 1 really) is now out of range of most people and is the preserve of the million- and billionaires, plus the odd handful who lucked out on a houseshare. So you pretty much have to live out and commute.

£800 for a two bedroom is possible, but east London (or further out) is likely to be your best bet. Won't be very convenient for your friend who has to get to White City, though. Sadly you won't get much for that out west, unless you head out (on the Central Line) as far as Northolt or Ruislip. Which, conversely, won't be very convenient for you to get to Bank.

You could try some of the nice little Essex villages on the end of the Central Line, like Chigwell, Buckhurst Hill or Loughton (known as the Golden Triangle - a bit footballers' wives in places but certainly some nice properties at reasonable rents) but you're a long way out of London there - probably a 45 minute commute for you and up to an hour for your friend.

The other place you could try is somewhere like Putney, Fulham, Richmond or Barnes. You won't get much for your £800 here though - if you can stretch to £1000 - £1200 a month you'd have better luck. Location wise these would be OK for both of you however.

As you can see, it all gets very confusing with loads and loads of areas being named, probably none of which mean much. The best thing you can do is book yourself a fact-finding week. Try and get a cheap hotel for 5 days, come down and do some exploring. Find out where 'feels' good. Then, when you've picked an area or two to focus on, start hitting Gumtree, Craigslist, etc for the private landlords, and the local high street rental agents.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a ramble.

Good luck!

Gingernutmeg

OrangeProse wrote: »

The trouble with London - and this is a cliche but it's true - is that for every 'nice' area there's a 'not so nice' area jammed right next to it. Even properly posh parts like Hampstead, Highgate, Blackheath and Putney have less fancy parts right next door like Kilburn, Archway, Kidbrooke and Roehampton respectively.

Very true. But just speaking from personal experience (I'm currently in SE London, not far from Shooter's Hill, and I moved there from SW London, having spent two years before that living in Roehampton for uni) I'd definitely say that Roehampton really isn't that bad an area - the estates are a bit rougher (but nothing like the estates out here ...), and it's definitely not as posh as Putney, but if you compare that to the difference between somewhere Blackheath and Kidbrooke then there's a world of difference. I *never* felt unsafe in Roehampton or even in the less salubrious bits of Kingston/Tooting/Clapham, yet there are definitely places round here where you don't even feel *that* safe in during the day - Erith, Plumstead, Thamesmead (we looked at flats there, didn't like it at all) and Eltham spring to mind. And the price you pay somewhere like Blackheath is more or less the same as what you'd pay to live in Putney or Richmond, and to me there's no comparison. Yes, SE London is cheap but in most of these places you get what you pay for ... Definitely regret moving out here and I'm so glad I'm leaving!