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First Time Buyer - advice on location (london-cambridge)
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xuanxuan
Posts: 11 Forumite
Hi
Need some helps from all experts here
Our current situation is:
I works in London Paddington, my husband is going to start a job in Cambridge early next year, we have a one year old baby. Planing to buy our first house mid next year
Any suggestion about the area to buy?
For commute, I will use public transport and my husband will drive. So better to have somewhere within the walking distance to the station, and we need to consider the school nearby as well.
I start to look at some house in Stevenage and Cambridge, but seems the areas close to the station are not good enough.
Any comments about Stevenage?
Need some helps from all experts here
Our current situation is:
I works in London Paddington, my husband is going to start a job in Cambridge early next year, we have a one year old baby. Planing to buy our first house mid next year
Any suggestion about the area to buy?
For commute, I will use public transport and my husband will drive. So better to have somewhere within the walking distance to the station, and we need to consider the school nearby as well.
I start to look at some house in Stevenage and Cambridge, but seems the areas close to the station are not good enough.
Any comments about Stevenage?
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Comments
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I'm no fan of Stevenage - Its a concrete jungle and the town centre is the pits. The place has 1000's of newly built unsold apartments littering the main roads.
I live in Luton, been here all my life (old man at 22 ..) and recently bought my first house with my partner in the Bushmead area (completing a week today). Luton has good links for driving and trains. But admittedly has a soiled reputation, partly because our football team are awful and we have a large immigrant population. We've opted to stay here because my partner (who is older than me, I'm a toyboy) has a good local authority job.
If you opted for somewhere like St Albans or Harpenden you'll be paying for it. Although they are nice areas all with good links.
There are loads of small villages / towns in the middle of where you need to go, but not too many with train lines within walking distance going into London.
Milton Keynes? I don't like the lay out of the place, you need a car to go anywhere. It also suffers from congestion on the main routes (M1 for example), but what place doesn't?0 -
For Cambridge try Hitchin (lovely old market town), Letchworth, Baldock, villages around Ashwell (if you are rich) and Royston. All have train stations to Kings Cross (35-50 mins) and are drivable to Cambridge (30-50 mins depending on time of morning). Luton and Milton Keynes are a bit far from Cambridge (60-75 mins drive) in my opinion.
All the towns above also have trains to Cambridge if you OH is working near the train station.0 -
The commute from Cambridge to London is horrible though (all of the places above are on the same line) - I used to get the 6.45 and still would not always get a seat - by Royston you are going to be standing the whole way, it also costs about £4,000 a year for a season ticket and getting on the tube on Kings Cross is also nigh on impossible!
I agree with the places though - they are all fine except Stevenage which is nasty...
Just a thought what about the other line between cambs and london? So Bishop Stortford etc...its a bit slower train wise but not so busy...0 -
The commute from Cambridge to London is horrible though (all of the places above are on the same line) - I used to get the 6.45 and still would not always get a seat - by Royston you are going to be standing the whole way, it also costs about £4,000 a year for a season ticket and getting on the tube on Kings Cross is also nigh on impossible!
I agree with the places though - they are all fine except Stevenage which is nasty...
Just a thought what about the other line between cambs and london? So Bishop Stortford etc...its a bit slower train wise but not so busy...
I too am a former sufferer of the dreaded Kings Cross Cambridge commute (second most overcrowded service in the country runs on this route). The problem with the other line is I remember it takes well over the hour to get to London as opposed to 30-50 minutes. I never understood why it took so long!0 -
How about Waterbeach? It's just north of Cambridge, but the train goes to Cambridge and then non-stop to Kings Cross. This means you'd get a seat on the London train, although of course it will still be very expensive. However, I'm not sure why you didn't think the area around Cambridge station wasn't good enough? It's very expensive for what you get, but I enjoyed living there, and there are some very smart houses.0
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The commute from Cambridge to London is horrible though (all of the places above are on the same line) - I used to get the 6.45 and still would not always get a seat - by Royston you are going to be standing the whole way, it also costs about £4,000 a year for a season ticket and getting on the tube on Kings Cross is also nigh on impossible!
I agree with the places though - they are all fine except Stevenage which is nasty...
Just a thought what about the other line between cambs and london? So Bishop Stortford etc...its a bit slower train wise but not so busy...
My OH takes the 7.15 most days and gets a seat,if not he sits in the luggage rack, he gets there with little time to spare too. He pays £500 a month for his ticket, but I am not sure what that does and doesn't include.
Xuanxuan, I don't mind Stevenage. Welwyn and Knebworth, Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Ashwell, are all lovely. I like St Albans too. I am not so keen on the East side of Herts, we lived there for a while and I just never felt comfortable, but that it just my opinion.
Where will your husband be working in Cambridge? If it is central, then, driving from Herfordshire might be long and tedious but not so bad. If he is working in one of the North City science parks, then, I would imagine it would add another 20 minutes onto the drive. The traffic really builds up coming into Cambridge and if he is central and you are already living by the station, he might be better taking the train as well. In my opinion the areas around Cambridge Station (within a km radius) are perhaps the best places in the city to live. I can vouch first hand that the primary schools there are really fantastic, my children attend one, I could rave on and on about it, and I have not heard bad reports about any of the others in the central city.0 -
Yeah me too - I loved Devonshire Road...but the houses off Tension road are soooo lovely, pricey even by Cam standards though!
Mill Road is always a good bet though, and even rustat road (apart from those horrible flats) is fine...
OP where did you look in Cambs?
I hated sitting on the luggage rack!!! But its a cheerful group of peeps that get the 6.45 so at least that makes up for it0 -
Oh the Cam-KC route takes over an hour now too - because they insist on stopping it at loads of those stations on route now - no direct non-stop train in rush hour anymore - now which bright button thought of that, especially since the train is already full!0
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Yeah me too - I loved Devonshire Road...but the houses off Tension road are soooo lovely, pricey even by Cam standards though!
Mill Road is always a good bet though, and even rustat road (apart from those horrible flats) is fine...
I hated sitting on the luggage rack!!! But its a cheerful group of peeps that get the 6.45 so at least that makes up for it
I am waiting/ hoping that some of the bigger family houses by the station start to fall (25-30% off and we would buy), but there are so few on the market, and what is on, still seems to be selling. If not, I will be happy buying somewhere at the top of Mill Road. Rustat Road is nice, but we want a certain senior school catchment, so it's out for us. One of those flats has just been advertised at £275k, 275k!.
Husband has his train buddies tooand says the same, one of the reasons I love Cambridge is that we might all be totally different but everyone seems to be happy to get on with each other.
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