Owning your own home

I meant "a nice area of Catford" - but overall it's pretty nice too.

I live in Sydenham. I am just poking fun.

I just had 10 minutes dreaming about living in the Dulwich Estate.

We looked at a flat in Catford a few years ago. It was beautiful. Are there really sub-£500k three beds there?

Yup. Prices have dipped slightly in the last 2-3 years.
http://www.john-alan.net/buy/property-for-sale?maxprice=500000&minbedrooms=3&incsold=true

only to spend it on a small terrace in somewhere that's...sorry guys who live there...a bit...neither here nor there?

I get what you mean about Crouch End. But it’s just a really nice area to live if you have kids and don’t have to work. The day care and schools are great. There are loads of GPs (the Queenswood Medical Practice for eg is brilliant - especially if you have children). Lots of parks. Nice shops.

You shouldn’t’ stereotype, but fuck it I will anyway… you get the feeling that the yummy mummies lobby their husbands to accept the slightly shit commute based on the upsides, and given they probably work shit hours anyway, what difference does getting back a bit later make anyway?

It sort of reminds me of Vicky Park, where I imagine it works best if you WFH most of the time or occasionally make the short cycle to a studio in Hackney or at worst Shoreditch. Otherwise why would you want to pay a fortune to live somewhere miles from a tube?

Otherwise why would you want to pay a fortune to live somewhere miles from a tube?

You could say that about all of Hackney, not just Vicky Park. I don't think you understand Hackney - we like being miles from a tube :)

^^^^this guy knows. Not having a tube was what kept Stokey alright throughout the 2000s. Not enough now mind.

I'd imagine a lot work in the City so it's 15 minutes on the train down to Moorgate (or a quick change at Highbury and Islington if you want to head into central london).

A lot of places, Stoke Newington being the obvious example, are attractive because they're not near a tube and that impacts on who lives there.

Uhuh. I can’t square that you can have all of this and have a spare £500k in your pocket if, say, you were prepared to live in Enfield. Or Catford.

OK maybe not the nice shops. I dunno. You get what I mean. Is it worth £500k?

House is on the market! Agents do talk some guff don't they. Luckily absolutely no one reads the blurb in the particulars.

Had a look today and there's another 2 bed flat over the road that looks like the one Tommy dies in in Trainspotting, doesn't have a garden and and is 2/3rds the size for the same price. Going to have to assume ours goes for a lot more than asking otherwise I'm throwing the towel in and conceding that I don't know how anything works anymore.

Ah developer chic

There’s a bit going unsaid in this Crouch End vs Catford conversation, which is that people will generally pay up to be far away from obvious signs of deprivation, and if you have £1m you probably want to live around other people that have £1m.

The most depressing thing about house hunting seeing how fucking dreadful most peoples taste is, just hooooorrrrrriiiiibbbbllllleeeeeeeeee. No wonder 51.9% of people in this country are absolute cunts if that's the state of the place they call home.

Tru say

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHahahahaa

u wot, I am genuinely looking for some

I sort of see what you mean, but if you buy a nice house in Catford or local area you can quite easily live your life avoiding the signs of deprivation.

My opinion is largely based on two of my friends who each have a net worth over £5m+ who chose the area because they like it and the sort of house that their money can buy them there. Neither of them spend any time hanging out in Catford though. They tend to do most of their socialising in swankier parts of town.

Edit: Personally I find the idea pretty miserable. Bring involved in the local community is pretty important to me.

Add another £50 and you'd have a nice figure for the Porscheheads

Also: show-off

children instantly born into a world of debt

Dullest sci-fi ever

but if you buy a nice house in Catford or local area you can quite easily live your life avoiding the signs of deprivation.

direct attack on @6pt and me!

Not at all. I was born in Lewisham, live in Lewisham and have a strong sense of pride in the borough in which I have spent most of my life.

The fact you two chaps chose to settle here just adds to that.

I suppose I was commenting more that there are people with money to spend on a house who choose Catford but opt out of spending any time there other than watching their kids playing in the huge gardens that their budget wouldn't have got them in crouch end.

Islington has the greatest disparity between haves and have nots in the UK, yet people pay serious money to live there.

Islington also has some of the best funded youth services, ironically.

Dulwich (although not a borough itself) also has a lot of startling disparities. There was a guy recently (I now can't remember who) who updated some of the old Booth poverty maps based on census data which colour coded properties based on income. Dulwich had some huge differences even on opposite sides of the same road.