Owning your own home

Hitchin, famed locally for the drug dealing grannies (about 15 years ago at least)...

Apparently their 'goods' were stashed in their shopping trolleys, with other things on top of them to hide them.

Also, the local 'dialect' tends to drop 'H' sounds, leading to the saying "Go to 'itchin, come back scratchin'".

A lovely little market town otherwise.

Thanks I really appreciate that.

I've lived in zone 1/2 most of my life I'm irrationality struggling with the idea. There is long list of pros and every con I can think of can be easily countered.

It's totally irrational and I feel like such a middle class guardian reading prick for being OK living in a rubbish bit of zone 3/4 because I can rationalise it as being "vibrant", "diverse" or see "potential", but yet I get anxious about lots of sensibly built housing.

It's good to hear about other areas in that part of the world. Borehamwood is the only place that seems to balance price, space and a short commute/drive back into London. But I guess because the area hasn't grabbed me I'm now wondering if there are similarly practical places in that part of the world that I would like.

Have a look at Tring, heart of the Chilterns (totally biased opinion).

Cheers I'll have a search, although I thought it was a bit pricer there.

I basically need to sort my shit out and stop being such a princess. Especially as we need to find somewhere to live soon and I'm holding everything up.

Prices are all relevant, we moved out of town because we couldn't afford space and we kept looking further afield until we hit a compromise. Areas like this which are sub-hour commutes to central London are selling like crazy as thirty-somethings take the money and run from town.

Got a nice card from the next-door upstairs neighbour saying they'd like to do a loft conversion and need party wall agreements. Seeing as we're on the ground floor, do we just say "yeah, go for it"? I said they'd have to notify our freeholders as well.

you can consent, but you probably should have someone review the extent of the works.

Yeah, I said to just come over and fill me in (fnar!)

tell them you want billions for the scaffold licence and that you want to be put up in the ritz for the duration of the works.

invoiced...

Oh we totally had this, and still do - we just got back from a holiday in New York and it feels parochial and small being back. As said above, it's all about the compromise and we found we could live with it here. But it is still a compromise.

The only other 'con' is that I miss riding my bike to work.

I'd love to move out of London, but the Mrs won't hear of living anywhere but, so that knocks that one on the head.

However, the other factor is that as soon as you leave (and therefore step off the insane London property escalator) you're buggered if you want to come back again.

Another Vaillant ecoTec 831 customer here, it's never exploded or failed to deliver warm water out of my shower head.

10/10

Colorado a no then?

Hook me up please. K

This is basically my situation, I would have moved out with our last purchase but we stayed in zone 2 and compromised on space.

I think eventually we will move out, but it will likely be out completely away from London, i dont want to build a commute into my life whatsoever.

Sensible thing to do is rent your flat out then rent somewhere wherever you move to.

Not sure if the new buy-to-let tax rules make this a non-starter though.

However, the other factor is that as soon as you leave (and therefore step off the insane London property escalator) you're buggered if you want to come back again.

Unless you move to: Northern Ireland, The South East or East Angular. From July 14 to July 15 London rose 5.5% and England as a whole on average was 5.6%, so you'd be more than likely better off living out of London than in it:

Northern Ireland 7.4% rise
North East England 0.7% fall
North West England 3.7% rise
Yorkshire and the Humber 4.7% rise
East Midlands 5% rise
West Midlands 4.9% rise
East of England 8.3% rise
London 5.5% rise
South East England 6.7% rise
South West England 4.2% rise
Source: ONS; 12 months to end of July 2015

Londoner in not thinking there is anything going on outside London shocker. ;)

In early '14 the three bed flats in our block were going for 250k, now they go for 400k.

I'd suggest that the 5.5% is a very broad average which doesn't reflect how some areas (chiefly, those with fast transport links to the major railway stations in London that also have a sour-dough pizza place on the high street) are performing.

I'd be really interested to hear an informed opinion on this. I jointly own a place with my sister, which we have lived together in for a few years. A likely scenario is that one or both of us move out and rent our rooms in a year or so. I also wonder what stamp duty there would be transferring it between us and when we would be liable for CGT if it were rented out.

I'd suggest that the 8.3% is also a very broad average which doesn't reflect how some areas are performing. Like Jaywick (google it).

And all the other %s too.

Point is, you can mos def leave London and return if you buy something in an area that's growing too. Do it right and you could even end up better off.

Britains most deprived town?

Sure, but it's a gamble that's made even riskier once you factor in the outlay of two sets of stamp duty payments.

What about Hertford? Doubt it's particularly cheap but it has two rail links to London taking two different routes (so if one's broken you can use the other).

Hertfordshire has some lovely riding, easy to get to Essex lanes as well and you're right on the Lea valley.

I've no idea what it's like as a place to live, mind.

Would bloody love to live in Harpenden but the average house price is about 50 million quid!

oi whats wrong with stevenage thats where i'm from.

people are slowly realising that there is a fast train straight into kings cross from stevenage which takes 20mins. if you work centrally you can get to work door to door in under an hour. agreed its not the most scenic of towns but once you see past that there are nice areas to buy. people are just too short sighted.

i was riding through london from the wharf and got chatting to a bloke who was cycle commuting from kings cross to the wharf and lives in hitchin....why can't you do that as well then? the train had loads of bromptons on it when i did the commute.

i had the option of moving out but didn't want to commute at all. riding my bike to work is too important. plus i like living in london, have to be at my desk early blah blah....so chose walthamstow as the best option for me.

have the best commute into the wharf (i reckon), has decent housing stock, great community where i live, great transport links and all the essentials for shops, pubs, cinema etc. just lacking in the good schools department. i think it will be better in years to come but i don't have to worry about that for at least 5 years. by that point i'm sure things would have improved.