London areas - where to buy? 7 February 2005 at 11:46AM edited 5 February 2014 at 5:52PM in House Buying, Renting & Selling 115 replies 168.5K views

Markv844

hi

apologies if this is digging up an old thread though i didn't see the point of creating a new one!

i have recently got a job in london near brixton / stockwell (i will be moving down in a few months) and ideally i would like to buy a property after i have been in london 6+ months - now the question is - is there anywhere in london - that is nice(ish) - where i can buy for a 100k or less (as this is about the max i can mortgage)? now i am not a dreamer and i realise i am probably looking at getting a studio the size of shoebox, though this ok i just want to be on the property ladder and not flooding money into rent!

i was thinking around the area of the new olympics site - woolwich / stratford etc - though does anyone know anywhere else with investment potential?

i don't mind a commute of 30mins to an hour hence why i thought the above....

ideally i would like to rent in the area and then buy when the time is right...

also does anyone have any good sites for finding property especially aound this area other than rightmove.co.uk, hotproperty.co.uk and findaproperty.co.uk - and also that don't list retirement developments!

thankyou

Doozergirl

Well, I put 'London' into the search box on rightmove and it brought me back 48 'things'.

Most commercial leases, freehold investments, retirement properties, a couple of houseboats and about 5 studio flats. I don't hold out much hope for you on that one, though if you want to check out those studio flats

I do know the Brixton area well and really, you won't get anything, not even further out. The one studio flat featured south of the river is a pretty run down area too. I'd much rather rent somewhere and have decent links into town and maybe just a walk into work.

Rent and start saving for the day you move out of London

Generali

You could probably get a houseboat for £100k or a small studio in a dodgy area.

The last time there was a fall in house prices, the rougher parts of London were worst hit, from memory at least. In fact I think one bedroom flats in Streatham (Saint Reatham) were the worst hit of all. At least that was where most of the sob-stories came from.

Doozergirl

Why does everyone call it St Reathem? The only peple that do that are people that don't live there I lived there for 12 years and every time I said I lived in Streatham, I'd hear 'oh, St Reatham!' :wall:

Anyone that lives there would know it's pronounced "Strehm"

Generali

Because middle class people with pretentions that bought there in the late 80s that were stuck there with negative equity used to bang on about it. Other similar affectations were 'Ile des Chiens' (French for Isle of Dogs) and 'South Chelsea' of Battersea (as in South Chelsea Dogs Home presumably).

I know Streatham pretty well having lived in West Norwood for a few years.

Doozergirl

Sorry, but 'St Reatham' really rubs me up the wrong way!

I lived in the nice bit of West Norwood for 6 years. I think it's one road!

Bargain_Rzl

Markv844

Streatham (and there are some nice parts) is, I'm afraid, out of your price range. So is Stratford which was one of the areas you suggested in your post.

For Brixton/Stockwell you probably want to be living in South rather than South-East London (somewhere with a train line into Clapham Junction and/or Victoria), which is tricky as the SE postcodes are where most of the cheaper properties are, and even the enormous majority of these are over £100k.

As for SE London - from where your journey to work would probably involve an overground train to London Bridge followed by a trip on the Northern Line - I do have some ideas although I would be very reluctant to consider them myself. You mentioned Woolwich, and indeed you might just find somewhere round there in your price range (the trains are good into London, and the new DLR extension helps too.) That is NOT to say it would be a wise decision to do so, because a lot of the Woolwich/Plumstead area is dead rough! However, here's one I found for you (I have NO idea what the neighbourhood is like):

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-13561222.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

In some parts of the London end of North Kent, further down the Woolwich train line, are Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith, Slade Green and Dartford. You can get a really nice newbuild studio or 1-bed flat round here for within your budget (I've househunted in this area in the past) but it's a very "bleak" area (IMHO) and the neighbourhoods I would be prepared to live in are very limited. If you feel like you MUST buy, make sure you have done your homework!

Verbatim

Might get a studio near Walthamstow for a touch over £100k. Good for Brixton as it's on the same (fast) tube line, Victoria.

Generali

Doozergirl wrote:

Sorry, but 'St Reatham' really rubs me up the wrong way!QUOTE]

I'd worked that out for myself!!!

West Norwood is a horrible place. I lived there with The Wife when we first got married and were completely broke. In less than a year, 3 people were murdered - each time about drugs. One was beaten to death with a hammer outside a pub on the WN side of Gispsy Hill. Nice.

Places like these lead to a high reading on Generali's Patented Bubble-O-Meter. A 2 flat in one of the nastier bits of Saaarf Lunnun for the best part of £300k! At 'normal' mortgage multiples you should be on about £80k to be able to afford that - a pretty chunky wage to want to risk life and limb each time you set foot out of the door.

Generali

P.S. To OP I think you can take this as being other than a recommendation to live in West Norwood. Tulse Hill (next door) is also a dump but is getting a tube line I think so might go up in price. Just don't blame me if you get mugged during a viewing.