FTB: London

MastermindJapan

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy with my partner and this will be our first home.

Currently looking at places that is within a 40-50mins commute to Liverpool Street Station.

We have been looking out towards Chelmsford in Essex and new builds are going for around £320k for a 2 bed flat.

It seems that including travel costs, it might be more worthwhile to look for places on the outer zones of London instead of buying further out.

We are not really looking to start a family anytime soon, so schools are not a major concern at the moment.

It would be lovely to get some opinions as to which areas would be the best to look at.

Thanks and look forward to your replies!

elverson

Does it have to be on the NE London / Essex side? If you need to get to the City then also consider SE London / Kent with trains into Cannon Street, or Abbey Wood Crossrail from 2018.

Gravesend or Rochester might be worth a look.

Cakeguts

Metropolitan line. Harrow on the Hill station to Liverpool Street. Might be worth looking in Harrow?

hazyjo

Highams Park or North Chingford, both E4. Shenfield, Essex. Leigh on Sea, Essex. Hertford, Herts. All worth considering

Wanstead, South Woodford, Buckhurst Hill, etc may be too pricey.

Some like Brentwood but I lived there and it wasn't for me - and the trains were hell for there and other stops on its line.

Jx

Running_Horse

Chelmsford is not in London. It is the county town of Essex.

AlexMac

Another vote for SE London. Look at the rail map for S.E.Rail at http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/your-journey/network-map/ then draw a search area on Zoopla etc.

While the inner stations (like Greenwich, Blackheath, Westcombe Park ) are in prime and pricey areas, there is still lots of property for sale under £325k around the dozen or more rail stations in the outer London transport Zone 3 and 4 areas- on the lines, from, say Charlton out to Belvedere, or the line from Kidbrooke to Barnhurst, or the one from Lewisham to Albany Park. (I just did a test and found over 150)

While some parts are a bit crummy, others have lovely open space, and many are finally improving.

The rail service is reliable. Temporarily til 2018, only some of those lines (e.g the Woolwich but not the Lewisham one) have trains stopping at London Bridge, but it's an easy bus hop (or a 15 minute walk) from there to Liverpool St. The 2018 extension of Crossrail to Woolwich and Abbey Wood in 2018 will do these areas a favour too.

I bought into the inner part of that area (Charlton) in the 1980s, long before it improved on the back of the transport infrastructure improvements associated with the O2 arena and Canary Wharf. I got a feel of the area by cycling round all the available properties in my price-range and now love the manor.

Good luck!

wjr4

I'd recommend against Chelmsford - I live there and although housing costs are lower than London, the trains are a nightmare! Be prepared for late trains constantly or trains not running!

zarf2007

MastermindJapan wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy with my partner and this will be our first home.

Currently looking at places that is within a 40-50mins commute to Liverpool Street Station.

We have been looking out towards Chelmsford in Essex and new builds are going for around £320k for a 2 bed flat.

It seems that including travel costs, it might be more worthwhile to look for places on the outer zones of London instead of buying further out.

We are not really looking to start a family anytime soon, so schools are not a major concern at the moment.

It would be lovely to get some opinions as to which areas would be the best to look at.

Thanks and look forward to your replies!

try bush hill park/enfield, zone 5 and overground into liverpool street in 35 mins

AndyBSG

MastermindJapan wrote: »

We have been looking out towards Chelmsford in Essex and new builds are going for around £320k for a 2 bed flat.

Why does it have to be a New Build? Unless you are using the Help To Buy scheme then you'll be much better off buying existing builds.

I bought a spacious 3 bed semi with driveway and garage for 250K in CM2 last year.

A new build 2 build terraced just one road up from ours, literally 30 seconds walk, went for 340K at the same time and the rooms were much smaller than in our 3 bed.

If you are going for help to buy you really need to be comparing existing build to new build and you'll probably find that price differences of 100K for comparable properties in Chelmsford aren't unheard of. Is the Help To Buy scheme really worth taking on an extra 100K!

Prime example, this new build is 375K.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53289139.html

It has the living room on the first floor, the same floor as one of the bedrooms, and the rooms really aren't huge. It has a 'car port' but there is almost zero on street parking on this site so if you have a second car or visitors you're going to struggle.

On the other hand just 30 seconds walk away you can buy this for 275K

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-58343393.html

Much bigger garden, the kitchen is ripe for extension(90% of houses down that road extend the galley kitchen with an infill extension of the L shaped bit if you look at the floorplan and add a downstairs toilet) and there's plenty of parking.

New Build in Chelmsford is a complete rip off

jackr5

rjw4 wrote: »

I'd recommend against Chelmsford - I live there and although housing costs are lower than London, the trains are a nightmare! Be prepared for late trains constantly or trains not running!

I wouldn't say this is a good enough reason to rule it out. True that Greater Anglia are not the best but you just have to come to terms with the fact that all train lines experience issues. Many train operators are across the country are having to rectify years of under investment and it will take time.

They have not been too bad in the last few years and you cannot blame train operators for people jumping in front of trains and the slowness of restarting of services as there are protocols they have to follow by law. I think the real issue with living on that line is that if you live further East than Shenfield then you don't really have any alternatives if they trains do go wrong.

In my opinion, despite the travelling costs, I think somewhere like Chelmsford is a good place to live and commute from. I mean, you can get from Essex in to Liverpool Street in 35 mins - that's pretty impressive when you look at the map. The travel is around £4,000 but your house price will be far cheaper than London.

AndyBSG

Yeah, Greater Anglia aren't great.

For instance you're 32 minutes from Liverpool Street and pay 4 grand for it but on the C2C line a 32 minute journey would put you in Benfleet and that season ticket would cost at least a grand less for more modern trains and one of the most punctual train lines in the country.

That said, although the commute is worth considering I think Chelmsford is a better buy than any areas on the C2C line that are a comparable train journey ride away from the City.