Choosing a city to buy property in

thelem

Bristol is certainly within your budget - I did a search for 2+ bed at £190k and most of the properties that came back were three bed.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Bristol.html?maxPrice=190000&minBedrooms=2&retirement=false&newHome=false&partBuyPartRent=false&index=10

Two that seem to meet your criteria are
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36217588.html
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-23716173.html
which are both in good areas too.

Or how about a 2 bed flat in a country house for £160k?
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-24102105.html

Where are you typically going to be working? If it's all over the country, would somewhere in the midlands be best, to minimise your maximum commute?

ccbrowning

Thanks again, everyone. Generally speaking all cities have good and bad areas...

Company is flexible as your working location depends on the client. Length of time at a client can vary quite a bit so you never know. My closeness to one of our offices mainly ends up reducing my expenses since you are responsible for travel costs to your base location.

The Midlands is fairly central (I live 45 min west of Birmingham at the moment) due to being sort of equally far from everything. Quite a few towns in that part have a preponderance of horrible new builds, I've seen. Some small garden or at least proximity to greenery would be nice due to a dog.

True on Bristol costs - I spend some more time looking and there are quite a few 3 bedroom semi or end terraces.

V_Chic_Chick

If transport is important to you, then Sale is well served by Metrolink (trams). It's about 15 minutes into the city centre by tram (something like £3.40 rtn though from fuzzy memory?) but the best part of an hour by bus. Despite visiting Sale very regularly, I've never quite worked out how nice it is as an area. The town centre seems quite mid-market, but the locals don't half use and abuse (i.e. litter) public amenities like the canal and walking around drinking at 10am seems to be entirely acceptable in some quarters.

If you can afford it, then Chorlton-!!!-Hardy (known locally as Chorlton) is a very nice, nearby option.

Bristol is a nice place to live (I grew up there) but public transport and congestion is shocking, alongside secondary school provision. You might like to have a look in the Bedminster / Totterdown / Southville areas - lots of Victorian terraces in an up-and-coming, increasingly gentrified, area.

Rotherham, from what I gather from friends who have lived there, is a pit that is best avoided if you have options.

hazyjo

There was a good thread on Bristol here a while back - someone was asking about areas within it. Might be worth a system search.

My first choice from that selection would be Bristol too.

Jx

rozeepozee

If you may let the property out at some stage, think about your market/potential tenants. We have properties near universities and hospitals and we never have any problems letting out to quality tenants who are doctors, academics or those connected with these industries.

zagubov

A bit of a blue-sky choice but as a compromise what about Nottingham for ease of travel to the North, Midlands, Bristol/SWales areas Scotland.

Don't dismiss Glasgow/Edinburgh. Houses are a good size, and if you have kids the education standards are good (plus uni is free).


Don't know Briistol and nothing againat it. Know Liverpool a bit and you can get a lot for your money. Edinburgh, Glasgow Birmingham and Manchester have got about four universities each if you're considering renting out.

ccbrowning

Thanks - it does seem convenient enough. However, I know this city even less than others! House prices are very cheap there...

zagubov wrote: »

A bit of a blue-sky choice but as a compromise what about Nottingham for ease of travel to the North, Midlands, Bristol/SWales areas Scotland.

Don't dismiss Glasgow/Edinburgh. Houses are a good size, and if you have kids the education standards are good (plus uni is free).


Don't know Briistol and nothing againts it. Know Liverpool a bit and you can get a lot for your money. Edinburgh, Glasgow Birmingham and Manchester have got about four universities each if you're considering renting out.

zagubov

ccbrowning wrote: »

Thanks - it does seem convenient enough. However, I know this city even less than others! House prices are very cheap there...

You're quite right, you get a heck of a lot for your money there. Very nice houses indeed.

Reminds me what a rotten deal we get here in London, all just so we can get a view of Big Ben outside every window (if you believe hollywood movies).

There once was a gun crime issue with Nottingham, IIRC. Don't know if that's in the past, but most people aren't affected by violent crime in any case.

ccbrowning

I quite like some parts of London, but the prices are just insane for a first-time buyer.

But, Nottingham... the police.uk reports for it are a bit scary. Seems that way for most places I put in around the country though, so maybe it's normal. However, it also has fewer period homes than other cities.

Ivana_Tinkle

Two places on that list I know well are Liverpool and Bristol, both of which are fantastic places to live, but with both you'd get a very optimistic view of house prices just from a Rightmove search. Both have lots of really nice-looking "period" properties which look like amazing bargains - until you visit the street and realise it's seriously rough and you'd never want to live there. Both also have absolutely lovely areas where you'd love to live - but obviously the prices there are much higher. I suppose the same might well be true for most cities - I can only say that you need to actually view some houses in the city before taking the plunge. I mean, you wouldn't want to plump for, say, Bristol, rent a place "temporarily" then discover you can't afford to buy in one of the nice bits and be stuck renting.