Oxford house hunting advice please

[Artemiswhite]

Any advice gratefully received from this great forum please! I'm hoping to move to Oxford in the next year or so. I'm thinking of buying in the Headington area as just cannot afford North Oxford, and Botley, Cowley and Rosehill areas really don't appeal. (Unless someone can convince me otherwise?!) Budget 550-600K max. Would need a 4 bed house.

I've seen a perfect looking house in Headington, in the Sandhills. area. Does anyone know what this area is like? Specifically, crime rates, ease of getting to local amenities, getting the bus into the town centre, recreational things like sports centre, restaurants, post office, chemist, GP surgery etc etc?

Thank you so much in advance for any construtive advice, as currently feeling a bit clueless!

Wait, you point out that you don't need to move for a year or so. Let the prices settle. Prices will be considerably more favourable for buying in 12 months or so.

Sandhills isn’t really in the Headington area. It’s on the outer edge of the ring road. Personally, I’d avoid Oxford like the plague. It suffers from horrendous traffic problems, more so than other cities. Have a read of the Oxford Mail website over the next few weeks and look at all the Facebook posts with regard to the closure of the Botley Road, impact of the LTNs and roadworks. We moved out of Oxford a couple of years ago and do our best to avoid going in. It’s chaotic.

You want to be inside the ring road if you can and not on one of the main arterial roads but within walking distance of one for buses. Headington is very popular as you have Brookes and the hospital so you will be competing with the buy to let purchasers. Pretty much everything is 1930s semi detached there. You will get something for £600k but it’s likely to need work at that price. You might want to consider buying in Abingdon or Didcot and commute in on the bus or train.