Moving to Edinburgh-ish.

slbhill

Grouchy wrote: »

Thanks for that info. Sorry for late reply have been doing some digging.

A few more questions:

Option 1 - have been doing some research on areas which has been helpful. Now one query is, which floor is most desirable if one lives in a tenament or converted townhouse. I'm thinking ground floor has lots of plusses, no stairs (may be an issue with knee/getting older) and possibility of own bit of small garden. Downside neighbours directly above and also worst place for hearing other residents go in/out. Then I'm thinking first floor is the only other option, due to not wanting too many stairs. I'm assuming these two options are the most expensive? And top/upper floors are cheaper. Any up/downsides I haven't thought of.

Sorry I can't really help with most of your questions, but a couple of other factors about ground floor - you might get a main door flat (no shared access) on the ground floor but security may be an issue and it might be that people walking down the street look straight in your windows. But if you have a dodgy knee you probably are better off on the ground floor, especially as tenement flats are tall so even the 1st floor is often 20+ stairs up.

Don't forget the ground floor may not be the bottom floor - a lot of tenements have a basement flat (I think commonly called a "garden flat" although I could be wrong on that). So you could still have downstairs neighbours, but the trade-off is usually that your windows are further back from the street (improving security and privacy).

I've lived on the first floor and stayed with friends a lot on the 2nd & 3rd, never had a ground floor flat so I'm guessing to some extent but I don't think the noise of people going in and out will be that different - if the door bangs or people are noisy it tends to echo up the stairwell quite effectively even to the top floor!

Good luck!

bettyboo71

Probably not Bonnyrigg, unfortunately I don't know so much of the south side of the city - although I lived there for 20 years.
First floor is usually the most desirable/expensive. Having lived on the third floor in a couple of tenements, the noise of coming and going probably isn't much different from any floor. As someone else said, one side or end of a street can be nice, and the other not good. Estate agents are pretty good at deception - when I sold my flat last year it was listed as Ferry Road, because if you didn't know any better you wouldn't realise that it was actually in Pilton - another area to avoid.
Portobello is a very nice area but, as previously said, it is also a bit more expensive.
If you have a look at the ESPC website, I'd be happy to give an opinion on any areas where you see something that appeals.
I'd also be happy to recommend the solicitor who handled my sale last year - he has a good deal of experience, a friendly and helpful team, and my 'in need of complete redecoration and some modernisation' in a not-so-desirable area sold in a month.
Trinity, Newhaven (some bits) Comely Bank, Stockbridge, Bellevue, are all nice areas on the north side of the city, but not sure how affordable the prices are.
Keep asking and I will subscribe to the thread and do my best to help.

custardy

If you want to test out travel times etc. Punch in the journeys to Travelines journey planner.

http://www.traveline.info

You can vary journeys etc. Bonnyrigg etc isnt that far from the city.
Also key in stair noise in the tenements. It can be a nightmare dependent on neighbours.

Grouchy

Thanks for further replies.

custardy thanks for that link, very useful.

bettyboo - thanks for your kind offer. Could you possibly PM me the solicitor's details? As to areas, I've been narrowing things down that we will want to try to view when we are there just over a week away now, areas seem to be:

Morningside
Bellevue
Leith
Leith Links
Juniper Green
Currie
Duddingston (Park Avenue)
The Shore (Leith)
Newhaven (Gosford Place)
The Inch

We are trying to look at a variety to see how we feel about things, so the above are mainly gf/1st floor 2 bed tenement or half villa type flats or there are a few semi-detached houses in the less central parts (I'm sure you'll know which is which just from the areas.

As I mentioned we are looking for quiet(ish), respectable sorts of neighbourhoods, and hopefully neighbours!

Appreciate all the help.

loadsacash

I think that you should think about what you really need.

Homes in Edinburgh are more expensive near the "Better" schools ie near Marchmont, Morningside, Barnton.

Parking is also a problem in Edinburgh.

I suggest West Lothian.

Linlithgow has a good school and there is a nice high street with cafes and little shops.

There are lots of mining towns in West Lothian. Whitburn, Bathgate, Winchburgh, Broxburn, Blackburn - All these places have nice communities and you can drive to a railway station (or get a bus) quite easily.

Farel01

I live in Liberton, which is also pretty decent. We're surrounded by bad areas, but Liberton itself is lovely. Takes 20/30 mins on bus to get into city center and about 10 minutes by car to be out of Edinburgh as well. Lot's of parking and property should be in your range. I bought a semi det bungelow that was in poor nick for 160, but there's some good places available.

Grouchy

Thanks farel01 I will check out Liberton. My favourite area of the ones I saw was Duddingston, bits of Leith, Broughton/Bellvue. Was not overly fond of Hilside except for a few streets. Juniper Green seemed nice but perhaps a bit too removed from city life.

Well 10 days in Scotland and managed 7 property viewings with one which would have done nicely, if my property sale was a bit further forward at the time I would have made a very serious offer. Encouraging though.

The trip certainly helped to narrow things down.

Stayed in a tenament for a few days, 3rd floor. Good for a test. Can now write off everything above 1st floor as I don't want that many stairs on returning from a hectic day.

The tenament option is very much narrowed down to either main door or 1st floor. But even more narrowed down by the state of the front door, entry and stairwell. Don't mean to cause offense to anyone, but I was quite shocked at the state of nearly all of the tenement stairwells I saw. They don't appear to have been repaired or painted for decades and are less than clean. So coming home to banged up walls, dark brown paint from the 1950s and all kinds of dirt and dust everywhere is not on for me. This, even when the flats were very nicely kept and £300k. I can't understand it myself, but understand from enquiries that is 'normal' for Edinburgh. There are the occasional tenement with a well maintaned stiarwell.

I think the half villa option is more of a goer in a ground floor flat/upper floor flat configuration. Though not cheap if you want something nice it seems.

The colony flats are interesting but I've not got my head around that yet.

Saw a couple of houses in the suburbs and was underwhelmed a bit.

Viewed a house in the country which was a nice setting but tiny. Will keep an eye out on that Borders rail area.

Anyway, all good experience and information gained.

Have now accepted an offer on my house so it is more serious now. Am looking into short term rentals should I be forced into that (not what I'd like I admit), but it seems the best chances of securing the home you want is in effect being a cash buyer. Don't like to 'waste' money on renting but it may be the only option on finding the right home.

Thanks for all the input.

custardy

Tenements vary massively. you can get some lovely stairs near, Polwarth is a good example. however there are really scummy ones too.
I live near Duddingston so know the area pretty well.

bettyboo71

There are a couple of problems with tenement in Edinburgh. The main one is that older 'stairs' won't have any sort of factoring or management, at least not formally. Rarely you will find a stair where someone takes responsibility for managing stair cleaning, etc. and usually the other tenants are happy to pay their share so long as someone else does the organising. If nobody is prepared to do the organising, then thigs tend not to get done. It is probably quite rare now to find a whole block where none of the flats are rented, and the more rented properties within a building, the less likely it is that someone is keeping up with the maintenance. When I bought my flat on 2000 only 1 of 6 flats was rented. When I sold last year, only 2 were still owner occupied, and the other family clearly had no interest in maintenance. l
Edinburgh City Council used to have a statutory repairs department, which would deal with repairs in common stairs where work needed to be done, even in privately owned buildings. However, there was a big fraud case a couple of years ago (just google Edinburgh council housing fraud), and so now they will only deal with something if it is deemed as an emergency - ie something that might result in some serious structural issues, safety concerns.

From my personal experience, there are always plenty of willing tenants in the city, and so long as the flat is internally decent, someone will put up with messy/unclean/unsecured stairs, especially if the price is right. At one point we had 7 adults living in the 3-bed flat opposite mine, and they either didnt have enough keys, perhaps because they were not all meant to be there, or they were very careles with keys. Either way, we gave up with repairing the lock after the third time it was forced, and we had no way of proving it was them, and their landlord really didn't care.

So, in summary, unless you have some specific reason to want a flat (eg ideal area, or some specific feature) I'd go for either a main door flat, or an alternative property type.

Good luck, and do keep us posted.

gothrockchic1

A few suggestions Liberton, Gilmerton (not sure what the area is like), Dalkeith and possibly Musselburgh? These are all on bus routes.