SE London houses - what do you think?

[MrFirstTimeBuyer]

Hi everyone, first time poster, long time reader.

We want to buy a house for a young couple / family in SE London. Budget is around 1-1.25m, and main criteria are a nice/safe area, finished house (not in need of renovation), and decent commute.

Any thoughts on these? The prices seem a bit crazy compared to properties that sold just last year.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/118492337#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116841581#/?channel=RES_BUY

I'd rather be too conservative and miss out on the first couple, then overpay and regret later. What do you think? Any thoughts/advice greatly appreciated!

Elmers End is a bit scruffy to be honest. It has a large Tesco store and some uninspiring shops.

In comparison to other houses you have listed and other areas those locations are considerably better in my honest opinion.

With your budget it’s not a location I would pick.

MrFirstTimeBuyer - The buy has £800k and you are pointing to a £1.15m house. You do understand the concept of a budget, yeah?

@BovineJuice

MrFirstTimeBuyer - The buy has £800k and you are pointing to a £1.15m house. You do understand the concept of a budget, yeah?

Hi, what do mean by "buy has 800k"?

For us budget is flexible, we're not looking to max out.

@MrFirstTimeBuyer Honestly, I wouldn't move to Elmers End. It's pretty grim. You could move somewhere really lovely with your budget. I'd focus on area, then the house.

@MrFirstTimeBuyer - Apologies. I'm on two threads and the other is the £800k limit.

Btw I wouldn't move to Elmers End. It's not worth the money. For that money you could move to Kent House, Clock House or Cator (Penge/Beckenham borders) and have better transport links, shopping options, etc

[quote BovineJuice]@MrFirstTimeBuyer - Apologies. I'm on two threads and the other is the £800k limit.

Btw I wouldn't move to Elmers End. It's not worth the money. For that money you could move to Kent House, Clock House or Cator (Penge/Beckenham borders) and have better transport links, shopping options, etc[/quote]
Ah, that makes sense.

Thanks, we'll focus on those areas more. Might at least walk around the Elmers End to see it for myself, but the opinion here seems pretty uniform

So went to take a look around Elmers End. As anticipated, the around the station and the shops isn't great, definitely a few tiers below Beckenham high street. But 24hr tesco superstore can be quite useful.

The Forster road itself seemed fine, and the house was actually really nice, had a very sensible layout and ticked all the boxes. Too bad we can't move it half a mile closer to Clock house station...

What about the area around this house? Is it better? Seems closer to Beckenham high street, but further away from trains to Lewisham/London bridge.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/120446243#/?channel=RES_BUY

That's in a nice set of roads, though I know that the road parallel to it is a bit of a rat run.
It's very close to Croydon Rec, which is a nice park. You may even just be in catchment for the Langley schools, for Langley boys it's usually just over a mile.

Good road, lovely looking house. Seems a good choice if you want to be in Beckenham. Bit of a walk to a station is maybe only thing.

@SD25

Good road, lovely looking house. Seems a good choice if you want to be in Beckenham. Bit of a walk to a station is maybe only thing.

yeah, it seems to be quite far from the clock house or new becknham stations. They had an open house today, which i missed, so might be a moot point if it goes quickly...

@Puffthemagicdragongoestobed

That's in a nice set of roads, though I know that the road parallel to it is a bit of a rat run. It's very close to Croydon Rec, which is a nice park. You may even just be in catchment for the Langley schools, for Langley boys it's usually just over a mile.

what exactly is a "rat run"? Not my first language so never seen this phrase before.

@MrFirstTimeBuyer - is often a normal residential road that is frequently used by drivers who know the area well as a short cut to get away from busier main roads, avoid traffic lights, etc.

@BovineJuice thanks that's good to know!

We'll probably pass on the Forster road place. It's actually halfway up the street (quite far from the pin on the map on rightmove), so it's roughly the same distance to clock house and to elmers end. But the price seems just too much for the area. 75-100k less would be a different situation ha

Lower Sydenham- first time buyer

We have had an offer accepted in lower Sydenham. We noticed the bridge leisure centre is closed down and not reopening a few doors up from the property.

Looking for Local views on this and what they think will become of the bridge.

We love nice bars and restaurants and originally wanted to buy Beckenham but it’s too expensive for budget so any thoughts on lower Sydenham would be great before we proceed with the sale

Spending 1m in Penge I’ve lived in SE London nearly 10 years and there’s mo way I’d spend that type of money in any of those two areas lol Beckenham, nothing wrong with it, but faaaar…. Penge, Sydneham, Crystal Palace, not even sure where I’d need to start.

Unless you have a huge family to move into 3000 sq feet house, I’d go for something smaller in popular and beautiful parts of SE London. Especially that you seem to want to sell it on later, I don’t think these type of houses will sell easy in these areas, since majority who’s going there are low budget and need space.

@Wanderergirl

Spending 1m in Penge I’ve lived in SE London nearly 10 years and there’s mo way I’d spend that type of money in any of those two areas lol Beckenham, nothing wrong with it, but faaaar…. Penge, Sydneham, Crystal Palace, not even sure where I’d need to start.

Unless you have a huge family to move into 3000 sq feet house, I’d go for something smaller in popular and beautiful parts of SE London. Especially that you seem to want to sell it on later, I don’t think these type of houses will sell easy in these areas, since majority who’s going there are low budget and need space.

You get more for your money in Sydenham and Penge, that's why. You can get a lovely 4 or 5 bed period house in Penge for £1m and live in a very nice road, with loads of parks within a short walk.

@Wanderergirl

Spending 1m in Penge I’ve lived in SE London nearly 10 years and there’s mo way I’d spend that type of money in any of those two areas lol Beckenham, nothing wrong with it, but faaaar…. Penge, Sydneham, Crystal Palace, not even sure where I’d need to start.

Unless you have a huge family to move into 3000 sq feet house, I’d go for something smaller in popular and beautiful parts of SE London. Especially that you seem to want to sell it on later, I don’t think these type of houses will sell easy in these areas, since majority who’s going there are low budget and need space.

Hi - what do you consider to be the popular and beautiful parts of SE London?

For that budget and commute I'd look at Ladywell (lovely!!) or Brockley (also lovely).

Or parts of Lee/Hither Green/Blackheath

Have you considered West Wickham? You'll get more for your money there and the schools are good. We moved out of Beckenham to WW so that we could afford an extra bedroom and are really happy. Not quite as buzzy as Beckenham but a lovely community feel and fairly decent high street too.

Penge isn't that nice, Crystal Palace has nice bits but is a slow train and can be a bit try hard, I like Sydenham and Honour Oak and Crofton Park but honestly you could get a nice place in Greenwich / Maze Hill / Blackheath / Hither Green / Lee / Ladywell- all much nicer areas and closer to everything.

@11GrumpsaGrumping

Penge isn't that nice, Crystal Palace has nice bits but is a slow train and can be a bit try hard, I like Sydenham and Honour Oak and Crofton Park but honestly you could get a nice place in Greenwich / Maze Hill / Blackheath / Hither Green / Lee / Ladywell- all much nicer areas and closer to everything.

Depends on where you live in Penge. There are loads of really lovely and safe roads of period houses and you are never far from a park, including one of the best in London (Crystal Palace Park). There's also lots of nice places to go for drinks, food, etc, and unlike some places in the area, a few practical shops too (eg Wilkos, Homebase, Peacocks, various continental food shops, etc) as well as supermarkets. And for transport, you'd do well to find better that far out, with multiple stations offering Victoria, London Bridge, Shoreditch, Croydon, Canary Wharf, Charing Cross, Cannons Street, Brixton tube, etc as realistic destinations.

Move to the likes of West Wickham and you are stuck with one train line.

@11GrumpsaGrumping

Penge isn't that nice, Crystal Palace has nice bits but is a slow train and can be a bit try hard, I like Sydenham and Honour Oak and Crofton Park but honestly you could get a nice place in Greenwich / Maze Hill / Blackheath / Hither Green / Lee / Ladywell- all much nicer areas and closer to everything.

And Sydenham is ok but has been seriously left behind re High Street and night time economy. I know a few people from Sydenham and they seem to spend all their evenings out in Penge, CP or Beckenham and its shops (apart from the big ones at Bell Green) are pretty sad.

@MrFirstTimeBuyer I live in the clock house area, as pp good transport links some really lovely parks short walk into either penge or Beckenham high streets, think the reason penge has become more expensive is the transport links & people priced out of dulwich/Crystal Palace, also agree with pp some nice roads in Sydenham but the high street isn’t the best penge/Beckenham high streets has useful shops & some really nice restaurants, Beckenham has some good bars.
West wickham is a really good family area, but only one train line.
Forest hill is fine, but some of the roads are a long way from the station the high street is very compact & the traffics is horrible.
Happy to help with any information on Beckenham/penge property’s.