Owning your own home

Was walking round there today. Beautiful but bleak. Great pubs. Just how I like it.

Sure, it depends what your comp is - for me I’m looking at the universe of places that are a ~1 hr train journey from central London. On that metric, Faversham (and that house) looks cheap unless you want to move to Luton.

I find Luton to be interesting. Super quick into London, cheap as chips, drivable to nicer areas nearby and yet it's so fucking grim that nobody will go there.

Surely it's the only London commutable town that hasn't boomed in price?

I know, just making the point it’s all relative. Under 1hr commute was the benchmark for me too. Just bust it with the high speed from Faversham and a Brompton. Very happy here tho.

Yeah. My Polish builder lives there. It's great for access to London via the M1, but someone got murdered on his street. Half an hour on the bike takes you to the top of Dunstable Downs which is beautiful, but, social and economic problems...

Social and economic problems usually don't put off investors when it comes to property in the South East. That's how bad it is there.

I haven’t spent enough time there to tell whether it’s truly grim or if that’s a false perception fuelled by the Daily Mail et al. because it’s more racially diverse than the rest of the Home Counties.

I know it fairly well. I'm sure some of it is exaggerated but my personal experiences of it are that it's a place that is really struggling.

I am biased ;-) - my girlfriend grew up in Selling and only has bad things to say about the place. Sure it has improved since the 90s though.

anyone have a Hackney/NE London recommendation for a carpenter to replace a rotted window sill on a sash window?

I've used this guy, was very good http://www.sashrepairs.co.uk/

Any recommendations for conveyancing in Reigate/Redhill? Or is the current method just to go online?

I know it fairly well. I'm sure some of it is exaggerated but my personal experiences of it are that it's a place that is really struggling.

The town centre hasn't sorted itself out yet. There are nice bits around it - you can drop half a million on a basic four bed in Icknield. If you were so inclined. Dicki's Lea ride gives a perspective in to the mess the town centre is in.

I don't doubt it.

However, where else can you buy a three bed house like this, close to the station, half an hour from St Pancras for under £280k?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-80794898.html

I just find it fascinating that Londoners haven't been flocking to Luton. Gives you an idea how bad it a really is, or how it is percieved.

I mean, you can still buy studios and one beds for less than 100k, within half a mile of a station that gets you into London in half an hour. There must be reasons why this is still the case.

Luton just means Tommy Robinson to me, that and (I think?) a car engine plant that shut a while ago.

Tommy Robinson

isnt he from Beckenham ?

His partner is ..

Huh. Yeah. The transport there really is great. I suspect though that the prices aren't cheap enough to properly undercut places like MK and Hemel or the 'charm' of the Kent coast, even if it means paying a bit more and having a longer commute.

Bedford also offers a significantly nicer alternative, albeit less well connected.

I hope Luton has its day though. Surely it has potential.

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Prob worth meeting the neighbours first to work out if you're into the sharing...

Has anyone actually been to these places? I go to MK and Coventry for work quite often and there isn't really anything that appeals to me about them.

Every time I go through Coventry I wish the Germans had been just a little bit more efficient.

Ha, yes. I agree there isn't obvious 'pull' other than £ per square foot - when you come from Central london and are never more than five minutes from an artisan loaf / flat white.

I lived in Coventry for a few years, I quite liked it. Milton Keynes is fucking terrible though.

I lived there for a year. I agree.

On the day I moved out of my flat , the police were exhuming the corpse of a murdered lady from a neighbour's FRONT garden. That's all you need to know about Coventry in the 90s.