Bonkers Cambridge house prices

[Stillnoidea]

Ok, I did know that prices on North West Cambridge would be stupid, and I was a fool to sign up to the marketing list. But seriously, guess starting prices for a 3 or 4 bed house...

Winner gets a play mobile house as the only thing anyone can afford.

If I'm honest, I really can't see the attraction of a modern house on a busy route into Cambridge. You definitely won't get as much land and the room sizes in new build may not measure up to older style houses. Bathrooms will be numerous though.

It sounds like an urban myth, but it's so quiet in the city even one street back from 'high street' type roads like Mill Road because of speed limits. There can be parking problems mind you, but it depends how much one needs to use a car if living centrally.

At the moment, Chesterton 1950s houses are bargains. Huge amounts of land, great proportions, fairly high ceilings. Possibly not pretty but much more solidly build than new build. I don't live there, but have and it's well connected.

I know! I glanced around a bit - we have to rent first while we build up credit, but I glanced at house prices (in the centre, because if I wanted to live further than a 4 year old could walk to shop, or too far to ever see the lovely parts of the city, why even move to Cambridge, in my non-driver opinion) and I realized it would be 800 thousand to a million for a "reasonable" home with practical features, like bedrooms large enough to actually put a bed in, a kitchen with daylight, etc. Crazy! I looked at the price history And houses selling for 1 million now sold for 200 thousand not so long ago! Anyway I guess I will have to wait for my kids to leave home, before we could buy one...

I'm looking for a house and the problem is very few are coming up that fit - we just want 4 beds and a garden & don't want to move the kids from school because we've moved around A LOT, and one is about to go up to secondary school. There are houses cheaper than we could afford that are smaller, and there are houses in fancier more central places than we need that are more expensive, but nothing in our price range/area that match. We need to move in and don't really have time to wait for extensions to be approved/added, so the smaller cheaper ones are basically not viable. There have been a couple of perfect houses we could afford but they mysteriously just withdrew from the market, one after I'd put in an offer on the first day of viewing! Lots of houses have told me, when I've booked an appointment, that they're not selling after all.

Very few new houses have been added this year. I have noticed at least a third of houses that come up in a rightmove search in my category are reduced - houses either immediately sell or stick around for a long time. Sometimes weeks go by and my area + rooms + garden + price search has literally no new houses in it. I don't think prices are going up this year - and we sold in London for lower than I would have a couple of years ago. But because there are so few new houses it's proving impossible to find somewhre.

Quail - what's your budget and what secondary school are you trying to get?

About 850k? - I was originally going lower than that but am now happy to bankrupt us to find somewhere - and I'm hoping for somewhere like Gilbert Road but happy to go all the way out to Girton. There is a 4 bed on Gilbert right now for that price! But they have cut 2/3 off the garden and sold it to build another house and there are 2 large rooms and 2 tiny rooms, and the roof is not extendable. This would be the absolute dream, I want this house please:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-59096524.html

For that budget there's quite a few around- this one is Milton road catchment which probably means Chesterton secondary catchment also and its massive
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-68732618.html

Thanks, Tid! I did see that one once and must have been seeing other houses that week and now do 3 day searches so it somehow fell out of my radar. I'll book and see it, I think it might be a good fit (although it doesn't leave me much budget to get rid of the beige carpet!)

I would be careful about buying on Milton Road atm - you could be in for years of disruption as the Greater Cambridge Partnership builds whatever bus/cycle infrastructure eventually gets agreed on. Just been through three years of works on Hills Road ...

The house on the Milton Road is not in the catchment area of Milton Road Primary unfortunately, you might still get in though

I used to live near Cambridge. I now live in a ‘cheaper’ part of south east London. It’s depressing to think we can’t actually afford to buy a house in Cambridge. Our house is cheaper than the equivalent, and we are in the catchment for outstanding schools here!

We used to live in Cambs in Kings Hedges. Prices in and around Cambridge are insane.

I was going in through j11 to Trumpington today and saw the big advertising sign for 2 bed apartments at 309k. 309k for a 2 bed flat?!?! That's THREE TIMES the price of our 3 bed detached house with ample gardens 20 years ago. How the hell anyone young affords to buy here is totally beyond my comprehension. What on Earth are our children supposed to do?

I still have no idea why someone would pay 1.2 million for a tiny 4 bed house on the nw Cambridge development, with a tiny garden, when they could have a gorgeous, massive, character property with loads of grounds nearer the city, or even somewhere like grantchester or the mighty storeys way????? Why????? Just why??????

Just seen a 3 bed on eddington ave (nw Cambridge development) on rightmove for £940,000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's like the Abedeen Ave development from a few years back that sits off Brooklands Ave. The larger units are big, but don't have much garden. One is somehow supposed to manage with the shared open spaces.

I once went in a smaller unit in Copse Way. They are like modern mews houses without the character of the original. The house was furnished with older style furniture and without putting modern styling in really did look awful and dark. The lady who owned it went to get something out of the shed in the yard (too small to call a garden) and was able to open the door of the shed - that was on the opp side of the outdoor space - and extract what she needed without exiting the patio doors. Now that's what I call small!

this applies for any house in central cambridge unfortunately. the amount of pollution from cars is insane!