Grand Union Village

rakeshunni

friends...

i'm a big fan of canal side living and recently found a great deal from grand union village from bryant homes for a 2 bed appartmnt for 187500. they offered me 5% interest free loan as a FTB. this is located in london zone 6 and very close to both tube and rail stations.. what do you think about this deal? I also got free stamp duty and legal fees which is near £2500.

cheers for your thoughts!

lynzpower

free stamp duty and legal fees and the 5% interest free loan should all be discounted. they are about to be outlawed by the government anyway as scams that over infolat the purchase price.

Not only that but the price is fixed, this isnt a "deal" its the bog standard first price.

The size of this development worries me greatly.

The area worries me greatly. I work for a commercial property company and we look after a commercial property in Yeading/ W Drayton, which is canal side and this "canal side" paradise is filled with people sleeping under cardboard boxes and plenty of street drinkers. Do you know this area well?

I woud have very serious reservations about living on this development. Are you going to be raising your family here? it is very likely IMHO to have a large amount of social housing given the facilities due to be on site. and the sheer size of it.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-22583057.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy
http://www.bryant.co.uk/grandunionvillage/theDevelopment.html

put it this way, heres a 2 bed maisioette with a garden for 169, yes its not canal side, but it will have more appeal to buyers later as it has a garden .I expect the vendor will take a further hit on it, all vendors are at the moment.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-21869546.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy

The flat you are looking at is overpriced, and has many many risks.

rakeshunni

hi

thanks for your open views on this. I really appreciate it. But just wanted to clarify that the property that I am referring to is in Northolt and not West Drayton. I know West Drayton is definitely not a safe environment to stay. I was once working in the same area. The property that I am looking at is the Canal View development at Northolt. Its a 4th floor apartment wtih a side view of the canal, and I was honestly under the impression that the price is quite reasonable considering that this is a brand new home. But I would also like to get more opinions on this, as am a first time buyer and would not want to be carried away with this before giving this a good thought. You also mentioned about some risks in ur last comment, could you tell me what some of them are? I am still making up my mind and i would like to understand different views/opinions on this.

Thanks again!

GDB2222

Risks:
1. House prices generally are expected to fall another 20% +.
2. New-builds sell at a premium, which you lose when you come to sell.
3. This is a regeneration site (described as such on the Bryant website). That means lots of social housing, and some of the tenants there may not be as sociable as you would like. Indeed, some of them may be the same people that let the place get into such a mess that it needed regenerating in the first place.


My advice is not to buy now, and not to buy new-build.

sooz

Has a strong smell of spam to me.

Are the housebuilders getting THAT desperate?

lynzpower

sooz - i thought that too! but there was no link, so I thought it was probably genuine.

Also rather interested in the OPs desire for "canal side living " i fear she may have swallowed a brochure. I have lived on the waterside, the old docks in a NB house in SE16 surrey quays, many years ago. the docks bursting thier banks happened a few times in the year I lived there, and it causes a bloody nightmare- some times it was shin deep!

I wouldnt buy anywhere in london on the waterside, with all the panic about londons floods that was in the press last week, I would have serious reservations about this sort of "lifestyle"

rakeshunni

thanks for the thoughts guys!

however i didn't get the real understanding of what a regeneration site is.. Does it related to people who live there? where can i find more info about it?

cheers!

oramgepekoe

rakeshunni wrote: »

friends...

this is located in london zone 6 and very close to both tube and rail stations.. !

It doesn't look 'very close' to tube and rail on this map.
http://www.bryant.co.uk/grandunionvillage/whereWeAre.html

GDB2222

rakeshunni wrote: »

thanks for the thoughts guys!

however i didn't get the real understanding of what a regeneration site is.. Does it related to people who live there? where can i find more info about it?

cheers!

Regeneration sites are usually large old council estates. The old ones were built at fairly low density, ie not many people per acre. The council gives the estate to a developer, who is now allowed to build at much higher density. In return, the developer demolishes the existing buildings and has to provide a large amount of 'social housing'. To pay for that, they also build houses that they sell off to people like you. Some of the social housing tenants are quite 'deprived', but the theory is that having you nice people living on the same estate will make life better for them.

Whether it also makes life better for you remains to be seen. However, you will have the benefit of knowing that you are taking part in a great social experiment, and we'll all come back in 10 or 20 years to see how it's gone.

meester

this looks like Yeading to me.

Zero redeeming features. A very small part of Northolt around the church is quite pretty but even there Northolt is basically a strip of cruddy shops adjoining the A40 dominated by McDonalds.

You're going to be dependent on buses if you live here, because the tube is MILES AWAY!

meester

btw, if you want canal-side would suggest uxbridge, you can be near the canal, and less than 1/2 mile from tube station.

Denham Lodge is a very appealing apartment block with its own 'lake', no more than 200 yards from the Grand Union canal

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-17868055.rsp?pa_n=2&tr_t=buy