Should I Buy, Rent Or Commute To London

olly300

London is a big place you need to know it before buying anywhere.

You can buy a one bed flat but it may not be in an area you are comfortable in i.e. walking home at night so asking someone about new places is not a good idea.

I walk in areas at night some people are scared off and vice versa for example in one area I lived there are some teenage gangs who target men to mug but ignored women. In an area where my friend lives there are pubs you can go in as a group of women and be treated normally, but if you go in with one or some blokes trouble starts.

Rent until you know areas you want to buy in. You can get some cheap inclusive rents in nice flats sharing with only one person who doesn't mind if your partner is over every so often.

lynzpower

i just could not agree more with bargain

I will also tell you that in my humble opinion ( im selling a flat on an IO mortgage to rent) renting is cheaper by about 150 a month. then of course you dont have to pay maintainence, insurances , life policies etc, saving another 100 per month MINIMUM.

If you are looking for VFM interest only mortgages, and 30 year ones and buying in london just arnt it.

Sisyphus

Disregard anyone who suggests living sarf of the river. They're not real Londoners and obviously know nothing.:D

Bargain_Rzl

Oh ha ha Sisyphus

(I didn't ONLY suggest living sarf of the river, anyway!)

tazgirl

Also think about the realities of commuting - so the train is 'officially' an hour from Coventry. But you're probably not going to be living on top of the station, so add on a min of 5-10 minutes to get to the station. Then the train's running late, or sometimes cancelled. You get to London and two stops on the tube means you need to allow another 10-15 minutes... then the Northern line has problems (it's not known as the misery line for nothing), and unless your office is actually at the tube station another 5 mins to get in the door... suddenly that hour's commute is nearer an hour 1/2. On a good day. That's 3 hours a day, 5 days a week... 15 hours a week of your life spent just getting to and from work. This gets very tiring very quickly - trust me I do something approaching this on some days and it's got to work perfectly.

Are you planning to socialise with colleagues at all? Because after work drinks are no fun if you have to constantly work out how long you've got until the last train... then what if you miss it?

To be brutally honest, commuting every day from Coventry to London sounds like a complete nightmare - do-able if you had family/partner to consider, but if you're a free agent - don't do it!

Debt_Free_Chick

Just to add a different view on commuting .... very many people in the South East commute into London, for more than an hour e.g. from Hastings/Battle, Ashford, Margate etc.

For many working in London, an hour's commute "is nothing".

Although I don't commute any longer, my total journey from East Sussex into the City was about 1hr 50m.

olly300

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

Just to add a different view on commuting .... very many people in the South East commute into London, for more than an hour e.g. from Hastings/Battle, Ashford, Margate etc.

For many working in London, an hour's commute "is nothing".

Although I don't commute any longer, my total journey from East Sussex into the City was about 1hr 50m.

Debt Free Chick has a point.

For most of my jobs I've ended up commuting out of London up to an hour and a half each way.

If you go out in London or work in a place with commuters then going out for drinks is alright as people know certain people have to get home. Plus people can actually drink alcohol if they want, because they are taking the train.

Alan_M_2

That's fine if you live at the end of the line...the times I woke up sidings on a dark cold train an hour from home in my younger headier days....