Buying a house in south Manchester, but what areas to go for / avoid?

elljay

One of my biggest concerns would be the airport. A friend of mine lived in a gorgeous big house in Gatley but you couldn't sit in her beautiful garden unless you wanted to look up and wave at the passengers (who you could easily see looking out at you) flying overhead every 2 minutes. Horrendous!

zzzLazyDaisy

elljay wrote: »

One of my biggest concerns would be the airport. A friend of mine lived in a gorgeous big house in Gatley but you couldn't sit in her beautiful garden unless you wanted to look up and wave at the passengers (who you could easily see looking out at you) flying overhead every 2 minutes. Horrendous!

It does depend where you live - I lived on the edge of Wythenshaw 15 mins drive from the airport, and that was one of the few good things about the location - I never heard the planes, because they flew the other way. I couldn't even shop in Knutsford however, a few miles further south and much posher, for the noise of the planes overhead.

But it is a good point, do go there at different times of the week - especially saturday, and see if the planes come over the house, and if you could live with the noise. Personally, having lived round there, I wouldn't go for that immediate area at all, but if it is all you can afford, then take your time and take the surrounding area into account, not just the little development where the house is situated.

nightingalesgarden

All depends on what you want to pay.

As a MSE convert I shop in Wythenshawe but I wouldn't want to live there - sorry but it's just not a great area. But some parts of Northenden are worth a look especially where the tram is coming through.

Absolutely agree that Sale and Timperley are lovely but they are pricy and are in a bit of a bubble at the moment.

I live in the Sale area and I am watching with disbelief prices moving up on what seems like a daily basis and houses selling within hours....

Not sure if this is just the M33 area.....

Tony_the_Greek

In areas like Wythenshawe you can get a good street next to a bad street - often a couple of bad families can send a street downhill fast as the better tenants move out and friends of the bad ones move in. I'd walk around the area and see what the gardens are like - tidy ones indicate owner/occupiers, and overgrown ones with sofas in them indicate tenants.

zzzLazyDaisy

Tony_the_Greek wrote: »

In areas like Wythenshawe you can get a good street next to a bad street - often a couple of bad families can send a street downhill fast as the better tenants move out and friends of the bad ones move in. I'd walk around the area and see what the gardens are like - tidy ones indicate owner/occupiers, and overgrown ones with sofas in them indicate tenants.

While what you say is true, it is not the whole story. I did not live on Wythenshaw itself but in a small development of private appartments on the edge of the estate. It was a lovely development, the neighbours were lovely, and the apartment was lovely. But we were constantly pestered by youngsters kicking the communal front door until they broke the lock (not to burgle, just because they could), knocking the coping stones off the walls, removing the gates, aiming golfballs at the windows, setting fire to wheelie bins, smashing car windows, and slashing tyres - these were youngsters off the estate, often known to the police, excluded from school, and generally out of control. It is true it was not bad enough to make me feel unsafe in my own home, but it was exhausting and expensive and spoiled my enjoyment of an otherwise lovely development.

taxiphil

^^^ I concur with everything zzzLazyDaisy has said on this thread.

Unfortunately Wythenshawe is awash with feral youths whose lives seem to consist of vandalism and general nuisance behaviour.

My friend lived on a new-build development in Woodhouse Park (Thirlmere Road). The whole development was surrounded by council houses and plagued by gangs of hooded teenagers roaming across private gardens, spitting, throwing drinks cans on the ground, smashing windows, kicking down fences, scratching cars and intimidating the residents. He lasted there several years but eventually couldn't bear it any more. He described it as a "siege mentality" - you spend your life anxiously peeping out of the window.

It wasn't made any easier by the laissez-faire attitude of Gtr Manc Police who didn't regard the problems as "real crime" and were nowhere to be seen most of the time.

When you build nice new houses in the middle of estates with social deprivation, the new houses become a magnet for attacks and intimidatory behaviour; the disadvantaged youths mistakenly think the people in the new houses are wealthy and privileged.

If you see any property you like in Wythenshawe/Gatley/Sharston, research it to death. Go there at least five times, at different times of day and different days of the week, sit in your car outside for 2 hours and observe the goings-on, and speak to existing residents.

pattojones

I grew up in Altrincham, and didn't leave until I was 22. Lovely area...especially Hale, Hale Barns, Timperley districts... All very expensive (Trafford Metropolitan Borough).

Avoid like the plague..... Wythenshawe; Sharston; Northenden; Northern Moor; Stretford; Urmston;

RupertTheCat

I live in Hale (posh and definitely smug but nice to live in) but it's really expensive to buy here despite being lovely. I wouldn't go near Wythenshawe either - not nice at all. Sale is OK I think, as are Didsbury, Chorlton, Swinton. Really you need to spend time in the area and talk to the locals.

louise3uk

Decided to scrap sharston and have found a lovely house in edgeley, stockport.
Lets hope I dont regret it

oliveoil99

I was born in Wythenshawe, Northern Moor in the early 50s was known as the posh part then, moved abroad for 6yrs when I was 17yrs old then came back to Wythenshawe, Woodhouse Park, Portway for 5yrs moved away completely in 1980 and just visit some family in Baguley now, most the family have moved to other areas of Manchester out of Wythenshawe as a lot of the estates had become so rough. Gatley, Cheadle Hulme, Altringham were always known as the posh areas as I was growing up not sure what they are like now. I would never go back to Wythenshawe to live it all seems so alien to me and Wythenshawe Civic Centre used to be great but not now to many dodgy people about.