To say ‘buy the worst house in the best area’ is not always the best advice.

[Totickleamockingbird]

I have seen rough areas of London move up so fast that we didn’t imagine it happening that quickly (Leyton/Walthamstow anyone?).
I am looking to hear from people who took a chance on a rough area and it paid off. I know what the standard advice is but just want to see the other side of the picture too.

One of my mum's best friends bought this house for buttons in the 50s when the area was truly dire and Rachman controlled most of the area. It's not that they had vision, it was all they could afford.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-7622607/amp/Pastel-pink-Notting-Hill-home-Denbigh-Terrace-listed-2-25m.html

Coming back to this response from OP to my earlier post, because maybe I'd better clarify:

It seems to me that we think in two different ways when we think ‘gentrification’. One class of people take it to be a massive price hike that could be used to get to a better area, even if it means a bit more commuting. The other class of people take it to be related to the population of that area.

NOt London, large city in the North of England. By borderline - three "respectable" working class districts, quite a lot of social housing, but they had an okay feel to them. Two didn't exactly gentrify (maybe that is a London-centric term) but they certainly became safer, less crime, less vandalism, schools improved. The area I bought in went downhill in the sense of kids stealing cars, setting them on fire and then pelting the fire brigade with bricks! I had four burglaries in eight years.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're working from a limited pot of money (I am very much team "somewhere to live" rather than team "forever home", given my income), I have learned the hard way that yes, you do buy the more run-down, smaller house in the better area, every time. Because taking a gamble on a just-about-okay area can go really badly wrong.

Over the course of 30 years I've gone from 2 bed terrace, to 1 bed flat, then back to 2 bed terrace, where if I'd made wiser decisions (or had a crystal ball) I could maybe have spent the same 30 years going 1 bed flat, 2 bed terrace, 3 bed semi. (Having said that, the 2 bed terrace worked out for me in the sense that I was made redunant, but could keep the mortgage ticking over during the financially hard years while I re-trained, by taking a lodger - something I wouldn't have been able to do with a 1 bed flat).

I grew up in hackney, couldn’t afford to buy near my family (in Hackney) once it was trendy, couldn’t afford Stanford hill, south Tottenham or seven sisters, so ended up near broadwater farm - we wanted to stay near family.
We’ve seen a lot of change with the farmers market and coffee shops in Tottenham Hale, the parks are good and primary school really good reputations. It did feel like it was improving but the fact is there is still loads of noise from shitty neighbours, violence, helicopters, rubbish in the streets and is ‘edgy’ some how in the last few years it’s felt worse or maybe I care about it more?

I’m desperate to move, all my childhood friends have moved away, I don’t feel the tie to the area I did 10 years ago despite family still being in Hackney. Maybe if we keep our place and rent it out we’ll want to move back once the kids are grown up and the crime has gone down? but then the older generations in the family will have passed away and our tie to the family won’t be here!

It boils down to location. Every single time. Schools, transport links, good high street.

Many years ago DH and I went to look at a flat near the Elephant and Castle. We walked past a burned out pub and bars on the windows of the flats before turning round and calling the estate agents to say we would not be coming.

I don't care how much it could have made, I could never have lived there. Ever.

We bought in April in a suburb we've rented in for 4 years, it is definitely on the up and prices have soared. Then guardian or another paper named it in the 10 best suburbs to buy in and it's just mad round here. 18 couples at each viewing selling first day etc.

We love it here and bought a house we can extend (large plot) one of the nicest roads etc. Saying that we could have bought in the next suburb along for prob 70k less which may see the prices go up next but at the end of the day we have to live here, it's a home.

Agree it's different outside of London, possibly because there are fewer incomers. A lot of gentrification is a self fulfilling trick that feeds on itself once an area starts being talked about in that way, which is much more likely to happen when you have folks who don't know the area but want to believe it will get better. Buyers in other parts of the UK tend to be people who have grown up in a particular place and know it so are less likely to believe crime statistics will be overturned by the presence of an artisan baker.

@Hardbackwriter

We fucked this up - not in London, but in a very close satellite commuter town where house prices are very much dictated by (and dragged up by) people who work in London but can't/don't want to live right in it. We bought in a cheap area and although the price did go up when we sold seven years later, it did so by loads less than elsewhere in the town - if we'd bought a worse house somewhere nicer we'd have made a lot of money. More importantly, where we lived got sketchier and sketchier, the drug dealing and violence got more open (I think some crime was being pushed into us as other areas got nicer) and meanwhile we had a baby, which made me feel less like I wanted to live there - it was one thing when it was just us as a young couple, the fact that the headteacher of what would have been DS's primary school had to go to the press to get the police to crack down on the drug dealing next to the school felt a lot less ok to me and we've moved to a less nice house in a lovely, pretty area.

That said, I'm very glad we sold in March; we did make a profit and I think prices in that whole town, not just our particularly shit bit, are going to nosedive if the shift to WFH is permanent; it's an ok but dull town whose only big asset is that you can be in city in 30 minutes on the train. I think that's going to disrupt some of the patterns of gentrification in London, too, if it goes on long term as I think people will be less likely to want to live somewhere objectively a bit shit but on a tube line if distance to their office stops being such a concern and so some areas that were 'up and coming' will stop and stay.

I think I know which commuter town you are talking about. If I am right, we we probably escaped the same fate as you by picking a different location in the end.

Leyton?! Seriously?; There is still a stabbing there every weekend like there has been for the last 10 years. Leytonstone a mile up the road has gone upmarket tho,lots of patisseries,coffee shops etc: & rent & houseprices went thru roof after Westfield shopping mall was built.

I get what you’re saying, but it isn’t as simple as location vs price. The advice ‘buy the worst house on the best street, not vice versa’ generally makes sense, because you - or at least your budget - can control what you do to improve the house. You have no control over the street/area.

Let’s say you want to live on a £600k street, but only have £450k to spend, a £450k house that needs complete modernisation is your only route in. There’s very little risk in spending money on it, because it will take a major crash for you to lose out. The risk is on whether you can afford to do the work or if you’ll be stuck with years of dodgy plumbing and kitchen units with the doors hanging off.

In those circumstances, spending £450k on a £450k street instead isn’t a bad investment. What probably would be a bad investment is spending £50k on that house and hoping you’ll make a profit; or buying an immaculate house on a £400k street for £450k because ‘at least the house is nice even if the area isn’t’.

Meanwhile....outside big cities....YABU.
Hey, who knew? There is live outside London!

But the OP talks about her experience of areas of London in the first sentence of her post. Why are you being so sneering about the replies also focusing on London?

will be interesting to see what happens to areas of London in zone2 with WFH.....these areas massively went up in value and many families bought flats with kids for the ease of commute. Wonder whether they will all move out and these areas will go down.

My flat in Brockley doubled in value (based on what I paid v what two identical flats in worse condition sold for) in four years. A mile away friends paid £x for their flat and their neighbours have just sold for... £x.

I attribute some of my success (hypothetical success really, until I sell it means nothing) to being very careful about what and where I bought, but a lot of it was “worst house in best area”. And luck.

My mum grew up in a house in Brockley back in the 1940s, (moved to Brighton in the mid 50s) - a proper three story house with a lodger. I bet they sold it for about £500 😑

It’s got to be better advice than “buy the best house in a terrible area”.

I don't think people mean it that literally - they just mean that if you're compromising on either house or location err on the side of location. Taking it literally leads to this kind of thing - www.thesun.co.uk/money/property/4609657/kensington-flat-converted-cupboard-west-london-cost/ - and I don't think many people would look at that and think 'what a smart decision and what a great life choice it would be to live there!'