Best areas to buy in Essex

MrsBrush

I have just moved back to Leigh on Sea from Braintree, so much better - but I am biased because I grew up in the South East Essex corner. In addition to where others have mentioned, some good value places in the SE corner - Rochford is slightly further out but much more affordable, Southend is good value still (and with the new City status watch out for new investment and massive price rises as we saw in Chelmsford a few years ago!) If you want a good community spirit Canvey Island is a good place to be, but travel on and off the island can be problematic. There are other places as well, like East Tilbury, Corringham and Stanford le Hope, as well as Grays and Chafford Hundred that are all a bit cheaper than Billericay, Leigh, Benfleet and Rayleigh.

I really don't agree with the 'further north the better' comment! I would much rather have moved to Basildon than have stayed in Braintree. Now that place really is a dump! The place is affordable (just) as lots of new housing going up everywhere, but it is cheaper for a good reason. The town centre is awful, and getting worse, there is a terrible road network, an appalling single track branch line forming a very expensive train service, very little to do and traffic galore - difficult to get around by road because the network is so bad and public transport is poor. Its also insular as well, doesn't seem to have any aspirations or hope amongst general people and I have spoken to more neighbours in my new house in 10 days than I did in 18 years in the old house!

The surrounding villages are all very nice, to be fair, and it is 15 minutes from Stansted - but overall Braintree is not a great place to be.

JamieJ89

hazyjo said:

Loving Leigh-on-Sea, there's lots to do here. C2C is reliable and is prob still cheaper than trains from Billericay (certainly used to be the case).

Wasn't keen on Brentwood, and I personally find Chelmsford a bit big.

More info please - budget, requirements, work locations, etc.

I too live in Leigh, lovely place and highly recommended.

JamieJ89

Also I would add that the C2C line is cheaper and more reliable than the Greater Anglia line into Liverpool Street.

macman

If you are commuting to anywhere west of LP St or Fenchurch St, then you might want to look at at the stations on the eastern end of Crossrail, as you'll possibly have a single train journey  to work, once the through services finally start operating to Paddington from Shenfield next summer (unless there are yet further delays).
But without knowing your budget, it's not possible to be more specific.

MysteryMe

Until the OP comes back and provides the basic info requested we are all basically trying to nail  blancmanges to the wall.  

GoogleMeNow

MysteryMe said:

Until the OP comes back and provides the basic info requested we are all basically trying to nail  blancmanges to the wall.  

Yes, very frustrating when OPs do not come back and comment when people have given up their time to respond.