Should I buy in London or wait?

AndyGuil

Generali wrote: »

Which brings us back to the question: are you better living in a very central crap-hole, a suburban crap-hole or out of town altogether?

For my money, Zone 3 is the worst of all worlds. You have a horrible commute and (probably) live in a boring area. At least in Guildford or whatever you live in something approaching a decent community.

It is highly dependent on where you go for. I think Wimbledon is a fantastic part of zone 3. Golders Green is up there, as is Greenwich. Further out is Finchley, Kew etc. I could go on. All with fast commutes in. Unless you work at the end of the train station you get off at the commute racks up coming in by train, which can get worse if you end up queuing for the tube. It is unlikely you will have a horrible commute from zone 3 unless you have a lot of tube changes. You will almost certainly have a greater issue with having to change tubes etc. coming in by train as transfer times from the train station to the tube are greater. Station to station Guildford to Westminster is 46 mins if you manage to get somewhere near Guildford station.

The additional benefit of the London location is you will always be able to get to work or home. There are always a few alternative ways in if there are issues with one and regular 24 hours transport. One train delay or other issue and you are ruined if you are outside London.

Snakey

Personally I'd go for a small flat in a great location over a great flat in a rubbish location, I think Generali is bang on right about getting the worst of both worlds if you're not careful - just how far out would you need to go to find something you genuinely like?

I just bought ex-council in W2 which was ideal for me - well obviously, not as ideal as buying a same-sized flat in a private building with high ceilings and a balcony and period features overlooking a garden square (like the ones around the corner from my estate), but I didn't have the extra £300k+ that would have been required for that - but you know what I mean. For my budget, it's ideal.

If you only want it for Monday-Friday you should be comparing the flats you view with a hotel room, not with the five-bedroom house you'll be going home to at weekends. Buy a small studio in the best central area you can afford. You might even find you can informally let it to friends at weekends to defray costs a little - plenty of people are coming in to town right at the point where you're heading home and vice versa.

AndyGuil

A great location and zone 2 on tight budget is going to be extremely difficult hence a slight compromise is to look a little wider. Whether that is a few hundred metres further out to zone 3 or further zones or to look outside of London.

posh*spice

lisyloo wrote: »

Thanks all very much for the info on the area.

Sorry if I was unclear - my current place (Wiltshire) is 2.5 hours.
We don't see the value in uprooting to move somewhere that's 75 mins away.

Brilliant if you work at Victoria but neither of us do.
Victoria -> angel is 30 minutes by tube and don't forget to add walk to Croydon station, wait for train, walk to Victoria tube, wait for tube and walk to office. So 5+5+20+5+5+30+5, so your 20 mins has just gone to 75 plus 2 season tickets, to live somewhere safe but otherwise completely uninspiring.

Thanks for the suggestion but it's just a different (less attractive) trade-off than central London. Yes it's safer and property prices are lower, but add in the 2 season tickets and the commute and it's a less attractive trade-off to my mind.

At the moment I think I'm not going to buy.
We're going to struggle to get a large mortgage simply because OH went self-employed 5 months ago, we would struggle to upkeep 2 properties and of course the job could all fall through (unlikely but we'd be stuck with a property we don't want).

However the bottom line is that
I don't want to pay 1/4 million for somewhere that's pants or 1/2 million for somewhere that's only half decent.
I have a lovely huge 5 bed detached in a lovely area to compare it with.

So - for those of you who are bullish, are we getting to the point where buyers will baulk at priecs and simply say no?
At least something for those of you who think prices will continue to rise to think about.

You commute 2 and a half hours a day? On the train? Is that just the train journey - do you have a walk and a drive too?

lisyloo

You commute 2 and a half hours a day?

If commuting my husband does around 2.5 hours (each way).
That's drive/walk to station, main line rail, then two tubes then walk.
Some people do commute to London every day from our area but perhaps they work in places closer to Paddington?

We had flooding earlier in the year which affected the trains and tube strikes as well as sometimes cancelled or late trains. There was a day when it was 9 hours, obviously that's the exception but clearly you can't expect everything to run like clockwork.
I also have to get up at 6:00a.m to do the taxi service to the station (or else he would have to get up even earlier than 5:30 to walk).
I don't do well without sleep and I crashed the car one morning - it was just a fence post at the railway station but nevertheless my judgment was impaired by fatigue We have got used to it a bit better now, but it's still tiring.

He has tried staying up in hotels for a couple of nights a week (about £65 for days Inn or Travelodge which is "OK").
If it was just a few days a week then he woke at 5:30 a.m. Also didn't enjoy eating out alone or generally being alone in a sad hotel room.

I went up for a week initially and we stayed in a Travelodge. I liked being in London, but eating out every day is not desireable.
We have since booked appartments for 4 days a week.
The business has been spending between £80 and £105 per night for that.
It's quite good, we both like London a lot and we can cook our own food (albeit usually we don't have a cooker). We have done stuff together like going to the national potrait gallery etc. and it's a obviously much nicer having company than being alone.
The last appartment was very central but a broom cupboard. I must admit that we did book the "economy studio" so I guess we got what we paid for.
The reality of not having enough room to bend down to pick up the soap in the shower, sitting on the toilet at an angle, climbing over the bed and sitting on the bed to eat, meant that we felt the very smallest studios weren't ideal for a couple for the longer term.

I'm lucky in that I can be flexible but as it happens my role is best served by me being in the London office.

Our plan was to look for somewhere to rent, but I'm now somewhat concerned about some of the areas I was thinking of looking in.

Generali

In the end you pays yer money and you takes yer choice.

London is an amazing city but it's no place for the faint hearted. House prices reflect very keenly the chances of getting home with your wallet intact and the ease of getting to a job in Zone 1 (plus the odd bit of posh such as Chiswick or Kew that is expensive despite a crap commute).

I've lived in some of the nicest and also roughest postcodes (EC2 and SE27 respectively) that London has to offer so I have some perspective. If you are on a budget and don't want to have to explain to your boss that you're late to work because someone was shot outside the station the night before (as I did) then zone 8 is better than the crime zone.

AndyGuil

District is a slow line, despite this Kew is 30 mins to Westminster. I've lived in SW19, SW15, NW11, NW2, NW6 and various others. East is cheaper and concentrated with dodgy areas and less dense transport options. I would go around a few areas in London and make your decision based on your priorities and your feeling towards the area. Sit down with a tube map (inc. national rail lines) and get on zoopla/rightmove etc. If you don't like what you find then start looking at commuter towns and take into account higher costs nearer the station, the season ticket, longer commute and train delays.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Have you thought about lodging? A friend of mine is a contract engineer and down in London Mon-Thurs. He lodges in someone's spare room so gets use of a kitchen and lounge and the arrangement suits both parties. In a city of 7 million there are all sorts of flexible flatshare options for professionals who are only in the city part time.

lisyloo

DH says absolutely not (we've been living in our own place for 23 years).

padington

Generali wrote: »

Which brings us back to the question: are you better living in a very central crap-hole, a suburban crap-hole or out of town altogether?

For my money, Zone 3 is the worst of all worlds. You have a horrible commute and (probably) live in a boring area. At least in Guildford or whatever you live in something approaching a decent community.

The commute from woodgreen is a breeze and it's now got the most busy high street in London, second only to Oxford street, so it's actually got quite a buzz these days. Even duckets common on turnpike lane is a pleasant park, times are a changing.