Dilemma. Nicer area and old house that requires renovation or new house in proximity to Finsbury Park station

[kokos1]

Hi all! We are planning to buy a house somewhere in North London with plans to send our daughter to one of independent schools around Hampstead park. Our budget is around 1m and for this price we can afford a small 3 bed house that requires renovation around Highate/Waterlow Park or we found a new built house (which we really like) to the west from Stroud Green road and 12 minutes walk from Finsbury park station (just off the Tollington Park road). What would you recommend? Better overall area, close proximity to schools but old house that requires renovation (that will be a money drain in future) or new built house that we really like but in about 30-40 mins from schools and subjectively worse area (or maybe it’s not that bad? we’re just concerned about proximity to finsbury park station e.g. dodgy people, drugs, thieves etc).

P.S. We are not British originally and not really in love with Victorian houses which are cold and expensive to heat and even more expensive to renovate.

Thanks!

If you can find a £1m house in Highgate you'd better have £300-500k for renovations as it's going to need gutting.

3bed share of freehold flats on the archway/Highgate border will set you back a mil!

All my family lives here and we've had to move to west London and still paid £800k for a 3 bedroom (semi detached) house

I don't understand all this talk of driving. This is london and we have some of the best public transport in the world. Get the bus, use a Lime bike, get the tube. Walk.

It's always faster, generally cheaper.

And yes, I'm a Londoner.

It's always faster

No it's not. I'm in z3 & plenty of journeys are much quicker by car particularly going SW to SE.

In Highgate with the car restrictions it will definitely be faster.

@lightlypoached I replied to your post that it's always faster...

I would usually agree, but some parts of London aren’t that accessible from one bit to another by public transport. Across north London isn’t that easy, for example.

But I definitely agree that locking yourself into a school run commute that requires a drive will never be quick and easy!

So I would recommend the op moves as close to the school as she can to avoid it. Plus it’s bad for the environment to drive that much, all those cars and fumes makes London less pleasant to be in, and schools try to discourage it.

People are talking about a specific journey in an area they know well, which OP will be doing four times a day- Tollington Park to somewhere in Hampstead. Take SHHS for example- she’d either have to get the rush hour tube, with a child, into Kings Cross and then the Metropolitan line out to Finchley Road, or two separate buses. Both take substantially longer than driving- the bus option over an hour so that’s over 4 hours a day for OP. It’s just not doable. Even driving will be about half an hour each way but that’s half the time of the bus.

She could do the journey in about half an hour from Waterlow Park by bus, or 20 mins in the car- both more reasonable, again driving is quicker.

Just nonsense to say public transport is always faster- of course it isn’t. And I say that as someone who’d never drive if I could avoid it and uses public transport every day.

I’m sure you are aware of how high renovation costs are these days? Does the maths actually work?

Two things occurred to me that might be useful

1. depending on the work that might need doing to a house for renovation, check if the council borough you're in will make a difference - I think some of Highgate is Camden & I've heard (very vaguely) that Islington can be quite arsey about eg sticking an extension on the back of a Victorian/Edwardian property. Idk if it covers things like skylights or more minor adaptations.

2. there are some nice large houses off St Johns Way near Archway & in the streets around Junction Road which might be a much simpler commute.

Highgate would be a better investment. Period properties hold their value and it will always be a desirable area.

For me FP would be more interesting and better connected in general, but I wouldn't choose to commute to schools from there (though I know several families who commute with primary aged kids by public transport during rush hour and it's fine).

Some schools will have private bus services as well, so you could look along the bus routes for other areas to live.

Are you looking for a prep school place? Most of the top Hampstead schools are selective which makes it hard to plan exactly where to move as you won't find out whether you've been offered a place until fairly late (in terms of buying property). Other schools are based on date of application but expect to have a name put down within a year of birth, and they like parents to visit in person before offering a place.

Coming late to this and haven't read the whole thread but I suspect some commenters have not been to Finsbury Park lately! It will never be Highgate, but the station is amazing Gail's and Marks and Spencer, a Picturehouse, the Park Theatre, excellent ramen, vegan burger place, lovely bakeries. The park itself is great with three huge new playgrounds and boating rides. The transport CANNOT BE BEAT direct trains to the city, Picadilly and Victoria line, straight trains to Cambridge and Brighton, 1 stop to Kings Cross.

I don't live in the area anymore but would move back in a heartbeat! Much more potential for growth and really cool area. I suspect a whole house for 1 million near Waterlow park needs a wild amount of work as I would say that's very low for the area.

Forgive the accidental cross outs.

@kokos1 what did you decide at the end and how did it all go?

We wanted to get a place at Highgate too but the places that we saw which was promising were around £1m and are all really in Archway (being advertised misleadingly as Highgate - one place was literally 20 mins walk uphill to Highgate itself) and still needed extensive renovations. We didn’t think Archway was worth anything near £1m but there is simply nothing in actual Highgate!

I wouldn't buy the new build, the commute will be too annoying.
Also prices of new builds tend to be inflated. You'd be better of buying an older house walkable to the school - better investment for your wallet and your MH not having an awful traffic logged commute?

@Pinkyone some of the houses around Whitehall Park are really nice and easy walk to either Highgate, Crouch End or Archway. But I think most are more than a million now. The Shakespearian Road's off St John's Way are not too bad and lead into Whitehall Park.

If it's a new build you are considering, I would knock on doors and ask others that have already moved in what the snagging issues they've had with the property. Got too many friends with new house horrors!

Thanks whilst I agree some of the houses look nice and we did look into Whitehall park but it’s not for us as we felt there are too many large housing estates nearby and it’s still really Archway (safety is a big concern for us and no we didn’t like Archway). We felt it’s not worth the £1m-£1.5m for the asking price. Our preference is we will rather compromise with a better location rather than a bigger house at this stage. And the 20mins uphill walk to Highgate is absolute killer!!

We were not able to sell our flat so didn’t buy new house. But we had time to think where we’d like to live and ideally it will be East Finchley (either near the Cherry Tree park or closer to Hampstead Garden suburb). Also Muswell Hill area is nice and not too far from Highgate. We saw couple houses near Archaway and we didn’t like area, especially in comparison to East Finchley or Muswell Hill.
We will be trying to sell our flat soon so fingers crossed will move to North London soon.

Good Luck @kokos1 I agree that Muswell Hill is a good shout, lots of good housing stock if you like period properties and cheaper than Highgate or Hampstead (no tube though, that’s the compromise).

1M isn’t actually that much in London for a house especially if you will also be paying school fees, so there will always be compromises.

Have you also considered Crouch End?