Live in Greenwich

[hkshine]

Hello, am moving to UK and looking to buy an affordable 2 bed flat in London at 600-700k. Greenwich sounds like a good choice. Would you recommend Greenwich?

Getting a mortgage would be difficult to overseas buyer, how long would that take for cash buyer to complete a flat purchase? Is there any way we could push that?

As uk gov already opened the border to bno holders, my family is planning to come over in Aug, stay in airbnb for a month or two, and looking to complete the purchase as quick as we can.

How quickly you can complete a purchase depends on how quick the lawyers are. But even if the property is currently empty and the flat good, then it’s still likely to take a month or more.

Have you done all your research and are you sure that where you need to be? Many families rent for the first year to make sure the area suits them and to get to know the place better as sometimes 200m can make a difference to how nice it is. It also gives you a chance to see where families actually live: if you’re looking at modern apartment buildings, it’s likely to be young renter coming and going.

Where in Greenwich? As a borough it has several very different areas.

And yes, as PP said, your purchase is only as quick as your solicitor. It's not impossible, but unlikely to complete that quickly.

I live in the Royal Borough of Greenwich but not actually in Greenwich, am close to Bromley London Borough. However I know Greenwich very well and have been looking on Rightmove with a view to (perhaps) moving to a smaller place at some stage. You won't get much for the figure you quote in the best part of Greenwich but look on Rightmove. Make sure properties are SE10 and look at the map to see exactly where they are because Greenwich covers a large area.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?searchType=SALE&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E85358&insId=1&radius=0.0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&minBedrooms=&maxBedrooms=2&displayPropertyType=flats&maxDaysSinceAdded=&_includeSSTC=on&sortByPriceDescending=&primaryDisplayPropertyType=&secondaryDisplayPropertyType=&oldDisplayPropertyType=&oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType=&newHome=&auction=false

@jessstan2

With your link, I can see why the OP refers to 600-700k flats as ‘affordable’

maps.cdrc.ac.uk/#/geodemographics/iuc18/default/BTTTFFT/14/-0.0025/51.4846/

OP, the pink areas on that map show you where families live in the area.

I lived in Greenwich for years and unless you're super rich I wouldn't recommend. It's only 'leafy' right near the park. Very built up everywhere else, always full of traffic and the trains were always jam packed in the mornings for work. You can get much more bang for your buck elsewhere.

[quote JoJoSM2]@jessstan2

With your link, I can see why the OP refers to 600-700k flats as ‘affordable’ [/quote]
Yes and you can see why I probably won't be moving to Greenwich. My house is possibly worth £650K, though I haven't checked recently, but I would be very out of pocket after I'd paid all the fees, etc, to buy a two bed flat (if I was lucky), in a not so good part of Greenwich, almost Woolwich. It's nicer where I am, just that the house and garden are a bit big now I'm alone and need maintenance. I shall look in Bromley, Chatterton Village maybe. I fancy that.

Hey op, Bromley is nice!

Property prices certainly haven't gone down that I can see and I was casually looking before the pandemic.

Westcombe park in Greenwich is lovely. Great little parks and an easy enough commute. I moved to Greenwich a few years ago and it is lovely. I wouldn't move anywhere else to be honest.

The only issue if you are set on Greenwich is that the council is notoriously slow with local searches so even if your solicitor is completely on it the sale will take at least 8-10 weeks.

I lived in Greenwich for the best part of 30 years. There are lots of flats near the North Greenwich Jubilee Line tube stop. It's called Greenwich Peninsula. It's walkable to the tube with shops etc nearby. It's a short (depending on the traffic which can be terrible) bus ride to Greenwich Town Centre. There are lots of Chinese people buying flats on the Peninsula.

@Dogsandbabies

Westcombe park in Greenwich is lovely. Great little parks and an easy enough commute. I moved to Greenwich a few years ago and it is lovely. I wouldn't move anywhere else to be honest.

The only issue if you are set on Greenwich is that the council is notoriously slow with local searches so even if your solicitor is completely on it the sale will take at least 8-10 weeks.

Agree with you about Westcombe Park. I didn't know Greenwich Council were slow with local searches, thanks for the info because I live in the borough.