£450,000 for a tiny 2 bed in Brixton

[TheBogQueen]

I left London 10 years.

Holy moly I cannot believe the prices in 'trendy' and 'up and coming Croydon

Croydon???? (Yes I'm watching location)

There's much more to Brixton than what some of the London media and estate agents would have us believe. Lots and lots of poverty and crime there which is damn depressing. I wouldn't buy there if I had the money, personally.

I don't get it either. They could move to my town in commuterville and buy a large executive detached with bags of space, character and a massive garden for that price. Yes, there's a 35 min commute on the train, but I'd much rather that than coming home to a grotty overpriced bedsit every night.

£330k is a lot of money, it's no joke, to get that standard of property, it's not worth that, a poky bedsit without a kitchen in London. Why would somebody want that! My mum lives in Edgeware in North London, you could get a better property there fir that price.

It isn't as though the choice is London or a field miles from anywhere, as some seem to suggest!
There are hundreds of towns with independent cafés/restaurants/museums. London isn't the only city worth living in.

I know 123 there are plenty of lovely areas within reasonable commuting distance to London, where you will get a better standard of living and a bigger property.

Oh how I miss naked people dancing in the street

Not everyone wants to live in a house. Not everyone wants or needs a kitchen. Not everyone wants to live in commuterville and strap hang on the 7.30. Especially if you are young and want all that London has to offer. I lived in Zone 1 when I was early 20s and nothing beats going out all night and walking home along the Thames at 4am in the shadow of Big Ben or watching the sun rise on Parliament Hill. You don't get that in MK.

And London has always been unaffordable and crowded. My aunt lived in Notting Hill in the swinging 60s where she shared a bedroom with another girl.

As someone said you can get good (or better) value in the suburbs - Edgware etc. if you are prepared to commute on the tube. We certainly could not have afforded to live in Central London 30 y eras ago when I first bought and the house we bought then in zone 5 costs about £300k today or may be a bit more than that now (not cheap but even 30 years ago you needed two professional salaries i.e. not most people to be able to buy).

On the other hand my house has supposedly gone up according to Zoopla 9% in the last year and 18% over 2 years - zone 5
My daughter's flat (near Queen's Park) has gone up 17% in a year and 27% over 2 years again only according to Zoopla.

So I am not sure she is the fool for spending a lot on a one bed in London.

I think people tell themselves the place they live is "quirky/convenient/upandcoming/vibey" when in reality it is crime ridden and filthy to justify paying silly money to live there.
I bought in Brixton (years ago) because at the time I wanted space over location - and moved as soon as I could. I definitely put on rose tinted specs while I lived there so that I could tolerate being verbally (and once physically) abused by drunks and crackheads on public transport, the dirt, the lack of green spaces, the run down housing stock, need I go on.

London is still a great place to buy property and I think incredibly it will still continue to go up, but there are far, far nicer places to dump £500K on a home. Maybe one day Brixton property will be worth the money asked for it (other than market value) but for the time being I think it's money down the drain.

I loved Brixton, I used to play football in the park and have drunken nights out.

It was 2002ish, I went back a while ago, it really has changed.

Tondelay I am not talking about MK specifically, there are many lovely areas along mainline trainstations from London, with bigger properties, nicer areas, parks, shops, schools etc. I was using my area as an example, but alone my line, you have Leighton Buzzard, Berkhamstead, Hemel Hempstead, Watford, Harrow etc, not just London.

I totally agree, even as a student, I loved a kitchen to knock up some pasta, or beans on toast, I couldent afford to eat out every night madness. I enjoyed having friends over to watch a movie or play boardgames, you cant in a one roomed bedsit really, its all a bit cramped.

Erm, Brixton is not in Croydon...

Yes I know Green, my mum owns her own 3 bed semi in Edgeware, and prices are going up. The downside is that a lot of people cannot afford to live in London, you need to be a very high earner. Where I am, you get a lot of ex Londoners, who commute into London.

Aeroflot girl can you really not see why people - especially young, childless people - would prefer to live in London? You know, one of the world's greatest cities, as opposed to Leighton Buzzard?

Yes I can, it only appeals to those who can afford it! Your paying through the nose for living in London, you might not have much disposable money for going out.

Or you could live in Croydon, as I did as young, childless person. 15 mins to London, relatively cheap housing (compared to other parts of London), trains throughout the night, so I could always get home, whatever time the partying stopped. I don't live there now, but look back on it fondly.

I'm not sure about the SE market cooling - we put our 3 bed semi on the market 2 days ago for offers over 600k(!!!) and have 10 viewings over today and tomorrow.

First 2 people been already and were falling over themselves to let me know how much they love it.

We are just down the road from Croydon too!

Only a minority can afford to buy in 1-3, most of my friends did the same as me when we were young and carefree- commuted in from zone 4-6 which us quite easy now, our trains stopped at 1130

Couldn't even affors the stamp duty!!! crazy prices, think they said thay had an inheritance so this was the only way they could afford. Round our way you can get a big detached small holding but the respective salaries are much less I suppose

That programme is now several months out of date. London prices have cooled right down. They're in that phase when they've stopped rising and hanging off a cliff, ready to fall. I would not buy anything in London right now. There's a lot of houses not selling on the market, good price reductions coming through. People who bought in Jan/Feb this year have almost definitely overpaid.

I loved living in a grotty bit of zone 2 - did it for years! Now I live in a respectable bit of zone 6 with a garden and a proper kitchen and a mainline commute. That's how it works isn't it? Even as ancient and knocked up 35 year old I'm still nostalgic for staying out as late as I like with no last train to worry about.

Also (smug mode on) I remember when I bought my flat in 2006 lots of people saying I should buy in some boring commuter town in Surrey to get more space. If I'd done that I wouldn't have ended up with 250k of equity in my house now - that was all my grotty flat's gains.

That's the brilliant thing about Croydon, the all-night Gatwick trains, although if you missed the 4am you would have to wait until 5am (bitter memories of that happening on a few occasions)

Respectable zone 6? Where's that to?

Not everyone wants or needs a kitchen

Are you actually serious?