Is a 3 bed flat in St Albans a bad idea?

[onlychildhamster]

Firstly a lot of people on this thread are probably going to tell me to go for a house with garden rather than a flat? But I have always prioritized location and the houses in the areas I am interested in (Hampstead Garden Suburb, East Finchley, Muswell Hill and St Albans) are very expensive unless they are very small and as I am not a very outdoorsy kind of person, I need indoor space rather than outdoor space. Furthermore houses usually carry a premium which far exceeds the service charges (I currently own a 2 bed flat and the service charges are around £150 per month which I find ok; a house in my area the same size on the other hand would be 200k more)

I would like a third bedroom as a home office and hence I am in the market for a 3 bed. I really love London but i haven't found many nice 3 bed flats in my local area (east finchley/hampstead garden suburb) and Muswell hill is very expensive.

I found this lovely flat here: www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/115501745#/floorplan?activePlan=1&channel=RES_BUY

my DH is very fixed on being in zone 3 (and like me, doesn't mind flats) . But Muswell Hill is very buzzy and well connected to London so in a sense, even though I am a diehard londoner, I don't feel that bad moving there as I know that if I am willing to pay the transport costs, its quite easy to get back to London (judging from the number of times my DH has 'accidentally' ended up in St A when boarding a thameslink train from blackfriars!). For my first property, I did look at St Albans but it wasn't that much cheaper for a 2 bed flat as compared to London zone 3 + transport costs. However, it makes more sense when you look at bigger flats which carry a much higher price premium in London.

i mean this well, but please don't suggest I move to Hitchin/Bedford/cheaper location where I can get a house. It will take me an age to persuade DH about St Albans, never mind Bedford! When we bought our flat, DH wanted to live in zone 2, I managed to persuade him about zone 3 and that was an uphill task! While zone 4-6 would geographically be closer than St Albans, I find that St Albans has a more vibrant town scene and faster rail links to the city (the con is that the transport costs are higher); but overall feels more 'city-like'.

We don't have a car and don't plan to get one so we need a place that is walkable to the station. We are planning for a child in a few years, and where I come from, 95% of children grew up in flats and while I did have outside space, my father had extended the house to such an extent that we only had a patch of grass at the front so my DH doesn't even consider it a garden and it certainly isn't big enough to play in!

Oh sorry, I read 'he works in banking' as Barking!!!

And what does your husband want to do ? Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it (live in london, live in zone 2/3, be close to hustle and bustle, and have a family [i guess?])
You seem to be looking for real solutions whereas he is being perhaps slightly delusional?

@Frauhubert well I suppose we do have our flat so we could stay there and save until we have more? Earn more? DH thinks we could just have the baby in our flat and we probably could, there is a family with 2 kids in our block.. and then we can move when the baby is older and we have saved more

I just want to move before I go on maternity leave as it's generally easier to get a mortgage when you are DINKY.

I mean, looking at st Alban's, I do see flats in high barnet and Kew with similar square footage and cost 600k (which isn't much more than the St Alban's option when you calculate transport costs). Of course Kew wouldn't really work for me as it is too far from family and I don't really like high barnet but I do find it weird that my area isn't at least on par with Kew...so I can see the rationale of staying in London given that it isn't much more expensive than st Alban's if I was more open-minded about area...

@Frauhubert Well I guess he grew up in zone 3 and while that was a different time in 1997 when his parents bought, they were also on 1 income and had 3 children and also couldn't exactly afford the desirable properties in their zone 3 area either. My MIL told me that for their budget, it was between a tiny ex council house on the tracks of Hendon Railway Station or her current home, a 3 bed victorian terrace in need of refurbishment (still hasn't been refurbished) next to a drug dealer (drug dealer moved out a few years later and a religious orthodox Jewish family moved in). they even looked at large flats but those exceeded the budget! Of course now the tables have flipped and in most cases, even the house next to the motorway and the house in a less 'desirable road' in north london is often worth more than the larger flat cos of freehold/HMO conversion opportunities etc.

But i guess thats why he thinks staying in zone 3 isn't that crazy if one makes some compromises...

If you look at a 2 bed that sold recently, it has the same floor plan as this 3 bed one. The small 3rd bedroom looks to have been constructed within the second bedroom for which the measurement appear incorrect. This is because they include a useless corridor I think. I would check this out.

You've had lots of comments on house vs. flat for bringing up a family, all of which are valid. I will just say that I lived in St Albans for 13 years and this is an excellent location, train and town within easy walking distance. There is an excellent bus network and good Drs surgery in the same street.

@chocaholic73 one thing that it doesn't have is that its not in catchment for Sandringham or Beaumont! Would I need to move by then if i don't go private?

@chocaholic73 thanks for your insight :)

Ah yes secondary places! I'm out of touch on where the likely boundaries are these days but you are talking about 12 years time and so much can change on that sort of thing between now and then.

@chocaholic73 if you don't mind me asking, is it easy to get tradesmen in St Albans. Our boiler broke down this morning and I got a gas engineer to look at it at 2:30 pm, he said the fan was broken and he would be back in 2 days to install it. I then called my usual gas engineer and he managed to get the heating working again (hopefully this would last until I get the fan replaced on Wednesday). If I didn't have hot water or heating tonight, I would have gotten a bus to my MIL's place where I could shower.

My DH's comment on this- do you think you can get 2 gas engineers to come to you on the same day at such short notice and also isn't it nice that my mum's house is so near?

I didn't really have an answer to that...though I thought most tradesmen seem to live quite far out but DH says that it's easier to get tradesmen for jobs as they have to come into London anyway for other jobs.

A beautiful flat and area, but it is £225 per month for Service & Maintenance Charges (£2700 per year).

@toolazytothinkofausername that's quite normal for mansion blocks. Mine is cheaper but it is also a lot smaller.
I guess that + transport costs would be quite a lot though!

I think the lifestyle of the commute and kids further down the line sounds horrid… I would hate that commuter lifestyle. Agree with a pp who said childcare + long commute might be tricky; I think ideally in that scenario you need someone really reliable who can collect at short notice etc or a live in nanny/au pair and I don’t think that’s feasible in a 3 bed flat. Another thing I thought was maybe you could find a flat in London in your desired area & do a renovation?? Could you find somewhere with the potential to extend or change the layout to meet your needs? Could give you what you want for a better price point. I know St A well (I grew up very nearby!) and I went to uni in bath- both are ‘nice’ but IMO they are boring if you’re coming from the big smoke. Good luck whatever you decide to do! xox

..you can definitely get tradesman in St Albans yes!! It’s not quite out in the sticks 😉

I'd ditch St Albans and move to Hitchin 😊

@sjxoxo thank you for that, I have thought that too. But a lot of Londoners who move further out, most don't buy huge mansions right? And I am sure not all have nannies or au pairs either. You are right that many probably have local grandparents which I wouldn't have. My DH's mum would never leave London, she would sooner move country (but that is also unlikely to happen as the people she knows who moved to Israel found they needed a lot more money than they thought and so it's just not viable for her).

One thing about St A at the moment is that some properties are going WAY over asking. Not sure about the town centre/Verulamium but catchment for Beaumont/Sandringham and Chiswell Green area is outrageously competitive.

But otherwise- our experience of St A is that it’s an amazing place to live and bring up children. Commute to London is great (we both work in London), traffic isn’t that bad (nothing like London- we lived in London for 10 years previously), easy to get tradespeople, brilliant schools, easy to make friends, lots to do for kids and families.
But it’s so different to London. I much prefer it but I think you need to be ready for the move.

My dh kids are at Beaumont and the catchment is very tight and extremely expensive so be aware a house near Beaumont may be unachievable.

During the lockdown house buying rage houses in St Albans were going for 200k OVER original asking price in some cases. It really is a hotbed!!!

I hate it as traffic etc awful but it is a good place for eating out etc.

School system has a definite snobbery and competitiveness so that may bot suit you depending on which type of Londoner you are think Amanda from motherland

Would you consider SE18? Really near Canary Wharf (Crossrail will make it super quick) and far more diverse and buzzy than St Albans. And so much space for your money.

@whenwillthemadnessend

My dh kids are at Beaumont and the catchment is very tight and extremely expensive so be aware a house near Beaumont may be unachievable.

During the lockdown house buying rage houses in St Albans were going for 200k OVER original asking price in some cases. It really is a hotbed!!!

I hate it as traffic etc awful but it is a good place for eating out etc.

School system has a definite snobbery and competitiveness so that may bot suit you depending on which type of Londoner you are think Amanda from motherland

Agree about school/nursery snobbery and general showing off about how important/busy your life is. Lots of normal and down to earth people too but in some areas of Marshalswick and Fleetville it’s utterly rife. The families who actually are earning the mega ££££ seem to go about it much more quietly.

@shenanigans5 If we stayed in London, my kid will either go to Jewish school or private school (if we can afford it), but more likely Jewish school.. in north London, there is a lot of school snobbery too, I think my DH actually has it! He thinks st Albans might be more relaxed at a primary level...

[quote onlychildhamster]@shenanigans5 If we stayed in London, my kid will either go to Jewish school or private school (if we can afford it), but more likely Jewish school.. in north London, there is a lot of school snobbery too, I think my DH actually has it! He thinks st Albans might be more relaxed at a primary level...[/quote]
Oh he’d love St A then! Even at primary loads of showing off, snobbery, competitiveness- but you also need the 1.5m Marshalswick house to be taken seriously

There are some much more relaxed parts of town too and we’ve made some brilliant friends here. It’s not all bad.

@shenanigans5 do those parents commute to the City. I suppose they drive to the station there. As those areas are more than a mile from the station. I think thats the problem with St Albans. The school catchment areas are quite far from the station/city centre, so in a sense its much less 'far off northern suburb of London with city vibes' and more 'Home Counties town' which is a big change.

Yes, it’s probably about a 7-10 minute drive to the station in rush hour from Marshalswick and a short walk from Fleetville. Possible 10 minutes from Chiswell Green in the car (good primary schools there). Parking is easy to come by- big multi-storey by station that I’ve never had a problem parking at.

It sounds quite a hassle but we’re used to it. One of us gets our older DC to school, the other gets the littlest to a nursery close to the station then parks and hops on an 18 min train into st pan.

We used to live in London but the commute for us is a similar length of time.

We couldn’t manage without a car (each) now though and we barely drove anywhere in London.

Pretty much all the families we’re friends with have at least one parent working in London. The commute from St A is viewed as no big deal and pretty handy all things considered.