Thoughts on areas of the UK that have cheap £150k detached housing?

Skiddaw1

Heres_the_deal said:

pinkteapot said:

Skiddaw1 said:

A vote for Carlisle from me. Very underrated city IMO. Lovely country all around (Lakes, Solway coast, Southern Uplands, Hadrians Wall, etc) and lots of local parks/river walks. I like Carlisle very much (we live near Penrith so it's our nearest large town).

Came here to say the same thing (hey again, skiddaw1 )

The type of house and budget you're talking won't be in the best parts of town - if you post where you're looking at there may be people with experience of living there. But I didn't hear about any *really* bad parts and there wasn't much crime in the local papers. Mr Teapot works in Carlisle so can ask his colleagues about areas if you get that far. 

The thing you should be aware of before even considering a move to Cumbria is the climate. It's grey and wet - we get all the weather coming off the Atlantic. 

When we took a quick look around the UK, properties were coming up in our price range close to Carlisle expanding upwards towards Gretna. Similarly, for parts of the boarders close to Berwick. However, I have no idea what these places are like. Over the next week I hope to pinpoint specific locations.

As for the climate, not an issue. I once lived on the west coast of Wales up the side of the  Preseli Hills. I thought the sun had been stolen at one point.

As @pinkteapot says, if you're OK with the climate and know what you're getting into (we, too, knew Cumbria very well, have close friends in Carlisle and family not far away and had been coming here regularly for many years) you can't do better IMO. I do like living somewhere with proper weather. The Borders are lovely too- some fab wee towns including Moffet, Lockerbie and Newton Stewart for example. Funny you mentioning the Preseli Hills- we have a close friend who lives in that neck of the woods.

ProDave

Greymug said:

ProDave said:

Have a look on hspc.co.uk, quite a few in the Highlands in quite nice locations.

The Highlands have got some real gems, but council tax can be a bit steep especially for detached houses.

Don't forget the Council tax in Scotland includes your water, so that may make it look more expensive than England but you don't have to pay any extra for water rates.

I am 20 miles north of Inverness, if you want an opinion of any areas around here please ask if you have seen a potential property.

What I like about here is we are rural, quiet, nice countryside, close to the sea, close to the mountains and Inverness offers most of what you want for shopping and is a small easy city.  And it does not rain as much here as the West Coast.

And in this part of Scotland they mostly don't have a problem with incomers (which is good because probably 50% of the population around here are incomers)

edgex

You mentioned Durham.
Just be aware that what you call Durham, & what the EAs call Durham are two wildly different things/areas.

Crashy_Time

Prices in Aberdeen are dropping fast.

Nebulous2

Crashy_Time said:

Prices in Aberdeen are dropping fast.

They are not. 

Crashy_Time

Nebulous2 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Prices in Aberdeen are dropping fast.

They are not. 

What are they doing?

Nebulous2

Crashy_Time said:

Nebulous2 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Prices in Aberdeen are dropping fast.

They are not. 

What are they doing?

Stable, slightly up. 

Crashy_Time

Even I was shocked by the RMove Sold price drops for Aberdeen! From peak that is, not from the start of the SD holiday.

ChasingtheWelshdream

When you say Wales, it really does depend where you mean and what you define as 'rough'.

We live in mid Powys, which is one of the largest, but least populated counties. North and South have much, much better transport links than the centre and thus more expensive. But the central area is stunning, overlooked and very reasonably priced (especially coming from the home counties). You do however, have to get used to travelling to do pretty much anything and the community is close-knit as a result (or insular depending on your point of view). There's not many nicer places to be locked down, ;-) 

I love this area, but coming from Essex it did take me a while to get used to the hours journey in any direction to access the facilities we were used to. But now we don't mind at all and don't really need to do so much. There are a lot of outsiders discovering our town and putting down roots.

Having said that, we do feel our kids will be at a disadvantage as they get older than if we had moved an hour North/South instead. There is no choice of high school and college is a 2 hour bus journey over the border. Brecon/Welshpool would give a much better choice. On the same note, employment is not great in terms of career choices. Pretty much everyone I know works for the Council or Tesco, but the cost of living is much lower than we were used to. I fully expect our brood will move away.

I don't know your situation but we had initially wanted to move to the West coast. We decided against it as we felt our children were too old to be placed into Welsh Medium education and there was pretty much no other option. Similarly, LA work (my career) was pretty much a non-starter without Welsh language skills in Ceredigion and Gwynedd. So we looked further East and Powys CC rarely require it. I must stress we began learning Welsh as soon as we moved and our kids attend a dual stream school so are getting a grounding in the language. Had they been younger we would have not hesitated to have them educated in Welsh from the outset. But something to consider depending on your family/work situation.

In terms of 'rough', as an example Merthyr Tydfil has a reputation and I can't comment what it is like to live there. But pre-lockdown we would travel there frequently for cinema, shops, restaurants - it has pretty much everything a well-serviced town should have. It's not pretty but I certainly don't think the reputation is justified. And the Beacons are on your doorstep, with Cardiff/Swansea very accessible.

So in a nutshell, cheaper areas will have their compromises. But it does not necessarily mean they are undesirable places to live.

Nebulous2

Crashy_Time said:

Even I was shocked by the RMove Sold price drops for Aberdeen! From peak that is, not from the start of the SD holiday.

I didn’t see that caveat in your first comment. 

“Prices in Aberdeen are dropping fast, except for the last year.” Would have been more accurate. 

That doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.