Your thoughts please

debrag

la_farfallina wrote: »

Let's just say it isn't Richmond upon Thames.
And that we have shops that sell c o c k soup and fufu flour:D

Never heard of either and I've lived SW, N, E and SW London, I'd never live NE. Though without you mentioning those I have an idea

lessonlearned

Agree with other posters - sell up and get out of London. I live in Derbyshire, like Yorkshire it is beautiful, property is affordable and generally a lower cost of living - ie food, petrol etc all much cheaper than London.

Re the hands. I cannot tolerate Lanolin. Have you tried creams containing either cocoa butter or olive oil.

When mine are bad I just slap on some vegetable or olive oil andc let it soak in. A bit messy so I do it whilst watching TV. Vaseline is good too.

Lizling

la_farfallina wrote: »

Let's just say it isn't Richmond upon Thames.
And that we have shops that sell c o c k soup and fufu flour:D

Hmm. You've got me intrigued too now. Sounds like a West African/Caribbean area, so maybe either Peckham or Tottenham?

Could be whole swathes of south London especially though really.

breadlinebetty

la_farfallina wrote: »

I live in a London borough that over the last five years or so has become a horrible place to live.

We have the second highest level of knife and gun crime in London and gangs are rife and very visible.

I recently got hurt whilst trying to flee a fight between two gangs in the middle of the afternoon in the shopping centre.

It has become a town full of betting shops and fried chicken outlets. There is nothing wrong with betting shops but there are eight of them within the space of a four minute walk.
Each shop seems to have their own gang standing guard outside.

It has become full of people whose staffie dogs are ashamed of their owners.

I am desperate to move but can't afford another mortgage. I have to work part time now because I have contact dermatitis with the constant hand washing that my work involves. I have been a nurse for over 20 years and work for an agency.

My mortgage has around £20,000 outstanding. I want to sell and rent somewhere nice but my friends tell me I would be a fool if I got off the "property ladder". If I was lucky I should end up with around £75,000 after expenses.
It is a leasehold flat and to be honest as long as I got my mortgage paid off I would be happy.

Of course if I rented I would have no security of tenure, but I certainly am not feeling very secure here. I a,m single and am starting to feel very isolated.

Would you sell and rent elsewhere? My income is not enough to qualify for another mortgage.

Thanks for reading.

Farf x

Wow, even in the ghettos of London it would be hard to find a flat for £95k! I'm assuming you think it's around that mark by the figures you give?

First thing you should do is get a valuation - it's possibly much more than you think it is.

The area may be rough (all cities have their ghettos) but believe it or not some people like to live in edgy places like that. Incredible but true!:D

As you've only got £20k outstanding on your mortgage your repayments must be very low - in which case you'd be better off renting the flat out and buying another place up north with the income you get from your rental! You'd have money over too - you know how expensive rents are in London - even in the slummy parts!

And your property will go up in value - in fact - the area may improve and you could find it's a little goldmine!

breadlinebetty

Lizling wrote: »

Hmm. You've got me intrigued too now. Sounds like a West African/Caribbean area, so maybe either Peckham or Tottenham?

Could be whole swathes of south London especially though really.

Battersea, Chelsea, Wandsworth, Balham, Clapham, Wimbledon, Putney, Fulham, Dulwich, Shirley, Purley, South Croydon..........................they're all in south London and people pay millions to live in those areas!

Yes, some parts of south London are horrible (Peckham, West Croydon, Clapham North, Streatham...) but most of south London is actually very nice!

Incidentally, at one time Streatham was a very upmarket and desirable place to live, while Balham was a dump. It's all changed now....

namecheck

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Just to echo what pmlindyloo said about not rushing into buying in a new area - we did just that when we downsized in 2007. DH hated everything that went with living in a big city on the South Coast and with our DS just heading off to uni we decided to up-sticks and move somewhere new and a bit quieter. It was a terrible decision - the only good thing being that we became mortgage free

As DH was going to become self-employed we had virtually the whole country to choose from, but instead of doing our research thoroughly we found what looked like the perfect house (and it would have been, had it been almost anywhere else ) and leapt straight in. The area, although in theory much quieter, had far more crime and the people were awful. Suffice to say we spent the most unhappy three years of our lives till we sold up and moved again last year......

The idea of a mini-tour around England sounds like an excellent idea - good luck OP, hope you find happiness and a fresh start in a lovely part of the country

I think this is the potential danger with moving to something entirely new and "unknown".

There are also other factors such as the local hospital (not for work - in case you ever needed it for your own health care). Some hospitals are really not good at all. I know people in relatively affluent areas who do their best to avoid their "local" hospitals because they have such a poor reputation.

As phoebe1989seb has said, an area can appear to be great but may not be what you thought once you are living there. So I agree with other posters that renting is probably the way to go, initially at least.

tabby_cats_mum

How about Newcastle upon Tyne, plenty of bank work for nurses, you could easily buy somewhere outright as well.

Can I just say as to research I somewhere which is classed as one of the most deprieved(sp) in England and if you didn't know the area you would rule it out, however it is only small pockets with problems, most people have lived here forever, I live in a lovely street, a mixture of council and ex council and houses sell really quickly.

Once you find somewhere you think you'd like get back on here then you'll get loads of advice.

Good luck.

GDB2222

la_farfallina wrote: »

Let's just say it isn't Richmond upon Thames.
And that we have shops that sell c o c k soup and fufu flour:D

I'd never heard of fufu, but apparently it's from sub-Saharan Africa. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fufu

With prices as they are, you are not going to find a decent flat to buy in London for the price of your flat (£95,000 if I have understood correctly).

You could consider letting it out, as the potential rent is very high compared to the value. If the flat has two rooms (ie bedroom and living room) housing benefit will pay £10-12k a year if you are in inner London. It's a big hassle, particularly as you won't necessarily get the best tenants, but it's worth a thought. Bear in mind that, if you sell, you'll quite possibly be selling to an investor who is going to rent it out.

You can get an idea of local reference rents here:
http://www.voa.gov.uk/corporate/publications/LocalRefRents/lrr120704.html

Lizling

breadlinebetty wrote: »

Battersea, Chelsea, Wandsworth, Balham, Clapham, Wimbledon, Putney, Fulham, Dulwich, Shirley, Purley, South Croydon..........................they're all in south London and people pay millions to live in those areas!

Yes, some parts of south London are horrible (Peckham, West Croydon, Clapham North, Streatham...) but most of south London is actually very nice!

Incidentally, at one time Streatham was a very upmarket and desirable place to live, while Balham was a dump. It's all changed now....

Lol, I know (except that I think most of Streatham is fine, it just has a grubby-looking high street). I'm a South London girl myself and I love it here. What I meant was that there are vast areas of south London where fufu flour (and presumably co ck soup) can be bought.

Edit: probably true of the north too, but I don't know it so well.

breadlinebetty

Lizling wrote: »

Lol, I know (except that I think most of Streatham is fine, it just has a grubby-looking high street). I'm a South London girl myself and I love it here. What I meant was that there are vast areas of south London where fufu flour (and presumably co ck soup) can be bought.

Edit: probably true of the north too, but I don't know it so well.

Yes Streatham was once very posh indeed. It had the John Lewis store, Pratts , along with some lovely other shops, Royal's the butchers, a great fishmongers, ..Cordeau's was one where they had all the signed photographs of celebs who'd lived round that way throughout the years....Roger Moore was one ...Cordeaus always had a whole dressed fresh salmon in the window and did beautiful cooked beef and pastries.....then there was the coffee bean shop where they used to grind the coffee, oh the smell....they even had a hat shop down there!

It's a total dump now!

Makes me weep to think of it.......

So can you give us a clue which area you live in? Initial? Or how many letters? Go on - you know you want to!:p