buying property in Reading

makeyourdaddyproud

onlyroz wrote: »

I live in Berkshire and Bracknell is indeed a dump. They've been promising to modernise the town centre for at least a decade - I wait with baited breath. To the OP I'd suggest looking a bit further south, e.g. Camberley or Farnborough, if you want a "commuter town". I also quite like Basingstoke - much improved in the last 5-10 years. As for Reading being a hub of IT activity, I work in IT and when I was job hunting a few years back not one of the recruitment agents suggested any companies in the Reading area, despite me expressing a strong preference for a job in the area. All the best paid programming jobs either seem to be in London or Surrey.

If you want to beat the prices with a fat deposit and shorter mortgage term, why don't you do programming in London? Whats the great attraction for a job in Reading?

onlyroz

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

If you want to beat the prices with a fat deposit and shorter mortgage term, why don't you do programming in London? Whats the great attraction for a job in Reading?

As I said above, I was unable to find a programming job in Reading. I currently work in Woking, Surrey, but live in Berkshire - not a commuter town though, with no easy route into London.

makeyourdaddyproud

onlyroz wrote: »

As I said above, I was unable to find a programming job in Reading. I currently work in Woking, Surrey, but live in Berkshire - not a commuter town though, with no easy route into London.

Woking? There's some good tech there McLaren et al ... Loads of .net webby jobs

Tancred

onlyroz wrote: »

I live in Berkshire and Bracknell is indeed a dump. They've been promising to modernise the town centre for at least a decade - I wait with baited breath. To the OP I'd suggest looking a bit further south, e.g. Camberley or Farnborough, if you want a "commuter town". I also quite like Basingstoke - much improved in the last 5-10 years. As for Reading being a hub of IT activity, I work in IT and when I was job hunting a few years back not one of the recruitment agents suggested any companies in the Reading area, despite me expressing a strong preference for a job in the area. All the best paid programming jobs either seem to be in London or Surrey.

I also live in Berkshire. Bracknell is still hugely better than Slough - and the town is currently in the process of being improved, so they are actually doing it and not just talking about it. It does suffer from a lack of decent restaurants and high quality shops, but this will change. The Oracle in Reading is a hard act to follow - before this was built Reading also had poor shopping facilities. If it wasn't for the Oracle you could quite easily call Reading a 'dump'.

Bracknell has good residential areas such as Warfield, Binfield, Martins Heron and the new estate at Jennett's Park. Hardly a 'dump'. The crime rate is also lower than Reading. It does have council housing like everywhere else, no big deal about that.

Basingstoke is no longer cheap - prices have crept up there as well due to the rail service to London Waterloo and proximity to the M3 and M4. Sandhurst and Camberley/Farnborough are a bit cheaper but again, not hugely so.

Reue

Tancred wrote: »

Basingstoke is no longer cheap

Cheap compared to Reading. Ive found houses in Basingstoke for £165k where the same type/size/location house in Reading would be £210

onlyroz

Tancred wrote: »

I also live in Berkshire. Bracknell is still hugely better than Slough - and the town is currently in the process of being improved, so they are actually doing it and not just talking about it. It does suffer from a lack of decent restaurants and high quality shops, but this will change. The Oracle in Reading is a hard act to follow - before this was built Reading also had poor shopping facilities. If it wasn't for the Oracle you could quite easily call Reading a 'dump'.

Bracknell has good residential areas such as Warfield, Binfield, Martins Heron and the new estate at Jennett's Park. Hardly a 'dump'. The crime rate is also lower than Reading. It does have council housing like everywhere else, no big deal about that.

Bracknell has some good aspects - e.g. the leisure centre is excellent, with 3 swimming pools and plenty of swim and exercise classes, and the kids also have Coral Reef, the Look Out etc. But the town centre is just depressing - in its current state I won't go there unless I have a specific reason, e.g. to visit the council offices. I hope that they do put some effort into smartening it all up because unless there is a serious investment people will just drift away.

They could learn a few lessons from the recent improvements to Camberley town centre - the new Atrium complex has massively improved the leisure and entertainment facilities in the town. True, there are still quite a few empty retail units, but I think these will be filled once the recession starts to lift.

Tancred

Reue wrote: »

Cheap compared to Reading. Ive found houses in Basingstoke for £165k where the same type/size/location house in Reading would be £210

Yes, but it depends on area and location. I can find cheap properties in Reading as well, but they happen to be near council estates etc or actually former council properties. Properties on main roads are also cheaper. It's hard to compare unless you go on-site.