Just a general moan about housing and a missed opportunity

dgerrard

Sorry, there is nothing useful in this thread. Just using this as the proverbial "write a spiteful letter and throw it in the fire".

I moved to the UK in 2010, with a mindset of buying an apartment or even a starter home. It's 2018 now, and I'm no closer. In the interim, my salary has doubled, my now-wife's salary has doubled, but a decent home in a decent area still seems totally out of reach.

The other day, I was looking through my old e-mails, and was reminded of a situation I'd completely forgotten about. It was about buying a new-build flat, directly across the street from Brockley station in Zone 2. We'd been living in Brockley for 4 years, and the area was on the up. Our rent was about to leap from £800 pcm to £1400 pcm due to a new landlord, and we were needing to leave. The new flat opportunity was a new-build studio flat (with two partitioning walls for the bedroom), £270k, 36.7 square meters. This was in March 2015, the flat wouldn't have been completed until April 2016, so it would be buying sight unseen. The mortgage would have been nearly out of reach for us, unless we borrowed from our families and took an Equity Loan, but it would have been just doable. We weighed up the pros and cons, and decided against it. I'd just started a new job, we'd just got engaged, it felt like too much at an already very busy time.

Now? We're coming up on 3 years later, renting a slightly larger one-bed for £1175 a month, with what feels like nothing to our name. If we'd just bought the new build, right now Brockley is doing excellently, new school, new pubs, house prices on the up, we'd be coming up on 3 years in the new build, with the possibility of selling up and looking for a proper home. Instead, we've got nothing to sell, but because we've held off for so long until our salaries went up, our expectations are higher, and buying a flat NOW would feel like a step sideways/backwards. We want to buy a home, but man, we can't find a thing. I can’t stop thinking about that stupid apartment, and what a better position we’d be in now if we’d bought something small back then, even though it was only 3 years ago.

I don't feel like we're being TOO choosy. We're looking for any semi-detached or detached home at £300k or under, within 1 hour train commute of London, in an area that's in any way pleasant. We've viewed about 10 properties, and every single one of them is a JUST enough of a stretch to put me off, not just in terms of £££, but like...they'll all be £325k, with a 1 hour 20 minute commute, in an area that's slightly dodgy. If it was just one of the three, then no problem. Two of the three, hmm, but OK. But all three? It just feels like too much compromise. The last one we went and saw, it was so close! Just over one hour commute from Kings Cross up in Bedfordshire. House 10k more than our max budget. But the area was just so grim, and then our last impression was literally being chased to the station by a gang of howling pimply teens on BMX’s right along the only pathway that my wife would be taking every morning to work. Such a rotten last impression, no way could we drop such a massive amount after that.

Or, we go mad, my wife quits her job and we buy somewhere cheaper on just my salary (work from home), and hope my wife can find something pronto. I’ve posted other threads on this so won’t go into it here.

It's like…when we were first looking, our budget was £250k, and everything was £300k. Now, 3 years later, our budget’s £300k, and everything’s £350k. All we want is a happy little life in a nice town somewhere, nothing flashy, just not terrible, and it seems that’s totally out of reach. We aren't talking Guildford or Gerrard's Cross here, places like Chelmsford, Bromley, Welwyn Garden City, Cheshunt, New Missenden, St. Albans, basically anywhere on one of these "top London commuter towns with affordable houses"...we're signed up with a bunch of agents, but we're getting no joy whatsoever.

Bah, anyway, nothing constructive here. Just a big whinge. Really, really hope it’s just a summer slump that there’s nothing available, and in the Autumn/Winter we’ll be able to find something to call our own.

Red-Squirrel_2

Do you absolutely have to work in London? You picked the most expensive part of the UK to move to! If you don't have family connections, why not consider other cities?

oystercatcher

Try North Herts, Hitchin, Letchworth and surrounds . You should be able to afford a reasonable 2 bed here.

Rent out here would be cheaper, why not try renting somewhere further out for a a few months and see how you get on with commuting and work out where the nicer areas are to buy. We're not all Chavs

jennhg88

Yeh I think you need to be realistic with location, 300k doesn't go that far within an hour commute of London.

PasturesNew

The longer you wait, the more you want/expect for your money.

With every feature you spot - and every viewing you attend - your list of wants increases ...

You either accept that you will never be able to afford "the house you want", then just buy something ... or sit and wait while your wants list gets longer and longer.

Even if you had £400k cash given to you this afternoon .... you'd still not find "the right house" because you just have too many expectations and wants at any price. We all have this issue.

It's the same for everybody at every budget, where there is "something I/we could afford" - except you don't want it "because... XYZ".

Just buy a house and accept that it'll never be "the house you really wanted" .... then you'll at least not feel you "missed out".

cattie

dgerrard wrote: »

We aren't talking Guildford or Gerrard's Cross here, places like Chelmsford, Bromley, Welwyn Garden City, Cheshunt, New Missenden, St. Albans, basically anywhere on one of these "top London commuter towns with affordable houses"...we're signed up with a bunch of agents, but we're getting no joy whatsoever.

Bah, anyway, nothing constructive here. Just a big whinge. Really, really hope it’s just a summer slump that there’s nothing available, and in the Autumn/Winter we’ll be able to find something to call our own.

All those areas you've named tend to be pricey, so can't see much chance of getting a house in any of them for your budget, unless you go for something nearby, say in a place like Downham, (ex council) which is often marketed as Bromley. :rotfl:

You seem to have ruled out flats from the equation & I don't understand why when you seem to be beating yourself up for not buying a pretty usuitable studio in Brockley years ago.

Jox

how about a 2 bedroom house?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55453113.html

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55518696.html

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-54631956.html

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74904839.html

dgerrard

Thank you all for your replies. Have put a lot of things in perspective for me.

And Jox...I don't know if I'm just thick at this or if you've got magic fingers, but these are just the sort of places we'd be looking for. I'd searched these areas, but had none of these come up. Thank you! Will be reaching out to them.

See, what I'm feeling I really need is someone who has the time and skill to find a place for me, but I don't have an extra £15k kicking around to pay a property finder.

Jox

*magic fingers*

I went through all this in 2016, I was looking for a 3 bed house in Cheshunt, Hitchin, Stevenage for about £330k, I'm based in zone 5 north London and have been all my life so moving further out didn't appeal in the end, so I had to spend another £100k to stay in my area!

On Rightmove I put in £300k 2 bedroom houses within 3 miles of EN1, look at the route from the station and bear in mind that living in zone 5 costs about £200 a month to zone 1 and living in zone 8 (Cheshunt) costs about £400 a month travel and about £488 a month from Stevenage. Good luck

pumpkin89

PasturesNew wrote: »

It's the same for everybody at every budget, where there is "something I/we could afford" - except you don't want it "because... XYZ".

Just buy a house and accept that it'll never be "the house you really wanted" .... then you'll at least not feel you "missed out".

While I think you're right about taking the leap and buying a house, you're definitely wrong that it's the same for everybody. We love our house and it was nowhere near the top of our budget.

Andalya

My partner and I recently moved from Oxfordshire to Essex, and we've had to adjust our expectations accordingly - it was tough! We went from a 3 bed terrace with loads of space to a 2 bed maisonette - with a significant £kkk increase (albeit with a much bigger garden and room to extend into the loft if we need to).
We were dead against a flat of any kind when we started looking, but soon realised that you actually get more metres squared in a flat/maisonette than you do in a lot of the victorian terraces in the area.
Try not to get too hung up on a house if you want to be within 1h commute of London, a lot of houses near stations are being converted into maisonettes to maximise accommodation (and developer revenues) - you might end up with more for your money.