Which is better investment- Bath or. London?

[fruitqueen]

If you had 250k to spare to buy a first property in UK for investment, and you had the choice of a 2 bedroom flat in really nice and safe surroundings eg in. Bath and another property somewhere in Zone 3 or 4 in London , but a 1 room flat. in a not so nice or safe area, which would be the better bet? Both from the investment point of view and a place to stay as a vacation home.

IMO London every time.

London- look at stations in the east of Stratford on the new crossrail route. Dodgy areas now but give it 5 years...

100% London.

London, but pick your area wisely.

I'd go for Bath, no hesitation. But I know the area well and know how nice it is around there and properties always sought after. You would have great holidays in the West Country and get more for your money.

London but you struggle to find anything for £250 in a nice area!

a studio in London won't increase in value that much, I think prices won't rise as crazily as they have in the last few of years, but great for renting out, about the same as you would get for renting out a 2 bed in Bath if it was long term. .
Bath, a 2-bed will increase in value but slowly as the market there is pretty much at its peak, i.e. places with high asking prices don't sell fast. If you want a holiday home, Bath very good choice (and for holiday lets which are much higher price than regular rent - plus for your own use as a getaway!).

London

Bath is going to get a lot of new houses in the next fews years as they build on ex MOD land. Plus the demand is not so great no they have moved thousands of civil sevants out of the city.

but Op wants a holiday home, not just an investment, so if she means scenery and access to countryside, while being safe and with good transport links and good shopping, Bath is much better.

If she could afford a big flat or house, I'd say london purely as the major investment, but a studio - you can't buy a studio anymore for 250K in the best areas, so it will be not in central/affluent area, it really won't grow in value that much, and won't be a holiday home - doesn't sound like OP sees Lon as a holiday place. But if someone needed a regular base for cultural events or work in london, that's different.

TBH having lived in Bath for 30+ years I don't see it as a place to have a holiday home.

Plus, all these additional new properties will have a depressive effect on the market. The housing supply in Bath used to be taken up by civil servants. Back in the 70s and 80s they colonized Oldfield Park, Fairfiled Park, Combe Down, Weston. Many, if not most, of those civil servants are now retired and there will be no demnd for thier houses from today's civil servants who have no link to Bath and who will be buying in the Bristol area - again depressing house prices. You only have to look at all the empty factories along the Lower Bristol Road to see how the city has lost jobs.

Bath cannot survive on tourism alone and there are very few large employers in the city once you have discounted the University and the RUH. Lack of demnd will result in a poor investment.

I agree that if OP bought in Oldfield Park or other suburbs you mention, MyCat, she may well lose money, or at least the value will stay same.
If you buy in Bath it HAS to be a NICE place somewhere central away from the noise of main roads. In a georgian building. Then I can bet anything that the place won't drop in value in years, as these flats are limited in number as holiday lets - and seen very attractive to non-Bath residents as it's a unique city. Don;t agree that it's not a good holiday base - oyu can travel around to all sorts of scenic places easily, you have good theatres and very good shopping and places to eat. Really very few cities ar arond that compare in picturesque setting and all these facilities. Especially if you like 'historic and nice'.
I agree that overall housing stock is overpriced now and won't be growing. But a nice but not expensive holiday flat is a good invrestment there - mind you, I thik for 250 it will be a good size 1-bed flat with sep kitchen, or if two beds than open plan kitchen and not on prime floors of a building. I wonder why suddenly all the civil servants aer being relocated to Bristol? I thought there were major council job cuts in Bristol - unless you mean non-council.

London

London. No question.

Although what you can get for £250k I don't know. A lock up garage?

16,000 to Bristol where the HQ is now located following the closure of their offices in Bath. That's a lot of spare capacity that will be coming onto the market as these former civil servants that now occupy them in Bath wil not be with us forever.

Having also lived in Georgian flats in Bath, give me a modern building every day. With Georgian I had damp from the rain blowing against the single skin Bath stone block walls. Soundproofing was dreadful as they were never designed to be flats. Basement flats van be very dark and damp. Upper floor flats can be a chore to struugke up multiple flights of stairs with no lift. On the mansard levels your view is restricted. Parking can also quite quite a challenge.

If I wanted a holiday home I'd go to a village/town that also had a railway station.

Clever money is investing in oxford not London

Def not bath for reasons given

London. But not Stratford. That's going to take a hell of a lot longer than 5 years...

Ok,now we have Bath, Oxford and London as potential investment opportunities as well as holiday home. Which would be the easiest to let and have higher rental yields ?

Oxford you can always let to students at the Uni and Oxford Brookes as well as tourists as well as academics passing though as well as everyone else who lives and works here. Lots and lots of people rent for a year or so after moving from London before buying a house or flat. Its very vibrant. It follows the london market about a couple of years behind and smart money thinks London is plateauing and Oxford beginning to take off in the sort of boom london has had for the last few years.
If you are interested in oxford you can find facts and figures about the oxford rental market and yields etc on the very good finders keepers website (google finders keepers oxford - its an oxford rental only agency (no sales) that has the rental market pretty much sewn up in oxford).

BTW I have no involvement in property industry but have been thinking about investing in property in either Lon or Ox and this is where I have come out from my research so far...

I'd add York, Stratford-on-Avon and Cheltenham to the options.

The Unis are the only really big renter of places in Bath and they are going to build more student rentals in Bath in the future.

Great suggestions and I think Oxford sounds good. This may sound irrelevant but it actually has a bearing on my decision:- I was wondering would it be normal for anyone studying or working in London go back to Oxford to stay over the weekend or holidays?

Cambridge?

I'd second York because it's a great holiday home if you like the countryside (incl access to Scotland), and the values will held there, not sure about increases. Rentals very easy there for the warmer half of the uear, but not so sure about winter months. I'd still buy there if I had spaer cash as I love the surrounds and York itself is nice.

MyCat I think it's time you left Bath - you sound well fed up with it! Unless you have moved already. Tourists LOVE it though!

will hold, I mean

Oxford is very crowded in warmer months! If you like 'vibrant' great, but if you want more peace on your holidays - no. It is a good base for Cotswolds though but yo uhave to enjoy long drives as not much on railway there. Rentals would be high and not just seasonal, true.

Londoners with high income often have a weekend/holiday place in the Cotswolds rather (i.e. Woodstock, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow, Cirencester) than Oxford itself - it's crowded and too similar to London to be a holiday home, unless you like driving around a lot from there. But as a rental investment it's very reliable.