Forest Gate

[kirinm]

My house / flat search remains ongoing and so we have slightly expanded our search area and that means considering Forest Gate. We are seeing something on Osborne Road on Saturday. I've looked on rightmove and the same flat sold for£200k LESS than it's on for now in August 2014. Now, I know prices are mental but a £200k increase in price in 18 months?

What is Forest Gate like and do you think a £200k increase in 18 months is reflective of price increases or are the estate agents taking the piss?

Probably a mix of house price inflation + agents taking the piss + improvements/renovation

Last element may be wishful thinking.

Don't look at how recently the same money would have bought you a 4 bedroom house.

Exactly! There are houses on for £25-50k more. And the flat is pretty average. I would be incredibly reluctant to offer anywhere near the asking price. It's not actually where I want to be! God, house hunting is depressing. 65 people saw one flat last weekend.

Forest gate prices seem to reflect anticipated gentrification rather than current state. I am so glad not to be house hunting any more! I suspect around the cann hall area would be a better investment. Transport will improve with cross rail, businesses like wanstead tap and lakehouse cafe nearby. Also the high road improvements trickling down. It is however cheap for a reason, and there will always be estates near by.

Summer 2014 was peak mental for prices so it is weird to see such a sharp increase since then.

So did you see the flat? Is Forest Gate over hyped? Has "Location, Location, Location" made it go a little extra crazy?

Forest Gate is just having its time, 10 years ago we would be saying the same think about Stoke Newington/Hackney/Dalston etc. Those people who have been renting in these area are priced out when buying and so naturally move to the next affordable area.

Forest Gate has the Crossrail on the horizon and also an abundance of fantastic period architecture and housing. Houses are very big for London and green spaces are located close buy.

Forest Gate was featured on LLL two weeks ago, and Kirstie Allsopp was predicting something like a 40% rise in prices with the arrival of Crossrail. I imagine that this has had an effect in the last couple of weeks...

Oh yeah we saw the flat. It was HUGE! It totally threw us because it was so much bigger than anything we've seen in E10/E11 but I couldn't say anything good or bad about the area as we only saw the main road and we had no idea where we were really.

The estate agent admitted he didn't think the flat would sell for the asking price. If Forest Gate wasn't such a massive commute for my DP we would probably look into it a bit more but otherwise it's a no.

Wow. I work in FG and to my mind it's an absolute shit hole. And I'm from Romford- I'm not fancy! Even with Crossrail I don't think I would fancy living there. It may be up and coming but it's a long way off that at the moment.