Oxford or London

becool

I'd like to hear your opinions about buying a house in Oxford or London.

Two things are very important.

Firstly House price, more likely future potential. I want to buy a house which the value will go up or remain in near future and can be sold easily with a reasonable price tag.

Secondly schooling. I have two kids and one will be in Secondary in two years time.

I know Oxford area a bit and my search is in North Oxford at the moment. However my husband is not very keen and his heart sets in London.

We used to live in Notting hill gate but as you know prices too high and with two kids we can't live in a one bed flat anymore and no clue about any other parts of London.

Commuting is not a problem from either places.

Where would you live in London with two kids? Our budget is around 650,000 (500,000 or 600,000 will be more comfortable though). I've seen a newly built 4 bed town house in Raynes park on Rightmove. Looks fine but schools? I don't want to send them to private schools. I'd rather pay off the mortgage but I want them safe and well taught too.

Any ideas and opinions will be greatly received.

Thanks.

ruggedtoast

Hmm, thats a pretty tight budget, maybe you should high tail it over to the Debtfree wannabee board and find out how to reduce your outgoings a bit.

bouicca21

Do you know what part of London you want to live in. For your budget you could get a very nice house in a nice part of south east London, where the newly royal borough of Greenwich has made an enormous investment in building new schools.

arbrighton

Does it have to be the city of Oxford itself, or are we talking around Oxford? Some of the villages and local towns are far more attractive, possibly more reasonably priced and better for parking etc.
We sold our house in Abingdon for 5.5% increase from 2006- 2012 if that helps?
However, if husband won't be happy in Oxfordshire, not a lot of point looking.

gazareth

Oxford is very expensive - there is a proper bubble in the city and in some of the more desirable surrounding towns and villages. North Oxford (Jericho, Wolvercote, Summertown) is particularly expensive and you may be surprised at how little your budget gets you in those parts of town.

princeofpounds

I think in either of those two places there is likely to be more than enough of an active real estate market to sell a property without too much trouble as long as the property doesn't have any unusual quirks, is priced correctly and is in a reasonable location for the area.

As for your question on house prices, the spread between London and the regions is very wide at the moment thanks to foreign buying in London and relative depression elsewhere. So I would imagine that you are more likely to preserve value in a regional market, but frankly Oxford is kind of somewhere between the two extremes anyway.

However, the overall market movements and anything property specific (such as a field next door being built on or a new transport link) are move likely to have an effect than inter-regional variations.

If you are considering Raynes Park then clearly you don't have to stick to North London. At that budget and with that geographical flexibility you actually have huge choice, particularly on the periphery.

London is many many many different towns and you will probably find that there is more variability between parts of London than 'average' outer London and Oxford. In fact it's quicker to get from Oxford to some parts of London that it is to cross London itself.

So I think the question isn't being framed quite correctly in your mind.

The good thing is that with such flexibility you should be able to access many good schools. I'm no expert on school so I'm hesitant about advising you on specific areas as this seems to be the #1 consideration.

jjlandlord

Considering the highly skilled economy of Oxford, and the affluence it creates, I'm expecting that there should be a few outstanding schools there and that the property market is and will remain strong.

chappers

Indeed I live in Oxford and the property market has held up pretty well, in fact it is currently pretty strong.
you won't have any problems with schools in any part of Oxford all are doing pretty well and there has been some major investment/shakeups in that area.
The top end of your budget might just about find you a 4 bed in North Oxford but at the lower end of your budget you will struggle however in most other areas you would probably be ok.
Apart from the estates I can safely say there are no dodgy areas in Oxford and nowhere is far from anywhere.
If I had the choice of brining up kids in either, then Oxford would win hands down, nice city, generally good schools, safe and five minutes sees you out in the country and as has been said some parts of London are easier to get to from Oxford than other parts of London.

princeofpounds

If I had the choice of brining up kids in either, then Oxford would win hands down, nice city, generally good schools, safe and five minutes sees you out in the country

There are towns on the outskirts of London that could say the same things, in balance, plus add the ease of access into central London for experiences you just can't get anywhere else (museums, theatre and so on).

Although I can totally understand why someone might want to bring up kids in an area that isn't connected to the capital, it depends on your view of how best to parent.

becool

Thanks for all the replies.

In Oxford I know I would get a 4 bed town house for £650,000 in new housing estate.

We are not bound to one area and that makes everything hard.

London is such a beautiful city (it may be just me) but nasty things going on too.

I am a city girl by heart and if I didn't have two kids I would be in the middle of it now.

I wish I was loaded so no need to worry about the house price and would send my kids off to the best private schools. :rotfl:

paddyrg

Oxford, Oxford no question. You get more for your cash, the city is beautiful and always a tourist/student destination, they protect the skyline jealously, so you're not going to get tower blocks in the neighbourhood, you can cycle everywhere easily, Port Meadow is almost in the centre of the city, easy access to the river, heaps of history.

Now in fairness, some of those points also apply to London of course - but not at a sensible price. If you're out in zone 4+ it will take money and time (40+ mins) to go out into town of an evening, you'll be surprised how little of London you actually see/enjoy. If you live in Oxford, the train into Paddington can be as quick as 40 minutes! And you have 2 competing coach services running 24h/day every few minutes to Gloucester Green (slower, but convenient). We used to visit friends from the outer zones, and get home at the same time as them when we lived in Oxford, and you can always easily pop in and out of London for the ballet, West End etc.

Oxford, no question.