Buying in Oxford- budget max £600k

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My daughter/partner are moving to Oxford for work and looking for a house with a garden. Budget £515,000 with possibly a bit of a stretch but a hard ceiling at £600k. No kids yet but long term move. They don't know the town. Needs to be nearish hospitals, easy access to station and to ring road to exit in the direction of london. Will also cycle. 3 beds. They have been looking at Littlemoor (which seems a bit isolated) , Iffley, Headington and and Marston. Does anyone have insight on these rather large areas or advice? The housing stock seems varied. Thank you!

The only thing I know about the Oxford housing market is that people always say North Oxford is the posh bit.

Oxford traffic is a nightmare so it is worth being as close to where they need to be as possible and its worth checking out the local bus services - all buses go into the City Centre, but can take quite lengthy routes, or get bogged down on certain roads.

North Oxford is the posh bit - around the Summertown area in general.

The answer to where should I live is complex because it depends on stuff like where you need to commute to.

Oxford is the kind of place you live in if you need to, not because you want to. At least for most people. Because it is stupidly expensive in the good areas.

Headington has good access to hospitals and good links to London both on the M40 and through the Oxford-London buses.

But if you are working in London, you have to ask the question why live in Oxford. Generally people want to live outside of London because the property is cheaper. That is not so in Oxford.

Thank you for the comments. @GasPanic One will commute to London by train or will need to drive to various places so easy access needed, one will be workingin the hospital near Headington so living in London not an option - hence the move

I’ve check out Wheatley and surrounding villages to Oxford. There’ll be cheaper and often nicer

Headington or east oxford are fun! Near cowley road- can cycle to town in 10 minutes.

There is a newish park and ride at water eaton that gets into Marylebone.

Kidlington wouldn't be a bad place to live for that and has relatively easy access to the A34 for other travel and the motorway network.

I don't know how difficult it is to get to the JR from Kidlington. You would go onto the ring road and come off at Marston. That place is pretty bad for traffic normally and there is a long queue at commuter times (I used to go in the opposite direction).

I am not sure which would be more miserable. Living in Headington and having to commute to water eaton (if you were commuting in rush hour you would get stuck at the first roundabout on the A40 which always has a massive queue), or living in Kidlington and having to go on the ringroad to get to the JR/Churchill.

If you are trying to avoid parking charges at the hospitals then probably the Headington area is your only option if you want to walk/short bus ride.

Of course the JR hospital is on one side of Oxford and the train station on the other side, and the Botley Road is a nightmare at the moment because of work on a bridge near the station. One of them will have a miserable commute. Might be best to buy in Headington and use a bike to get to the hospital and the train station as well.

As PP have said, Headington is perfect for the hospital but a nightmare for the station (either station!).

Given the train commute is the longer one, I'd be more tempted to head for Summertown / Kidlington / Yanrton areas, where you can use Oxford Parkway station (same location as Water Eaton park and ride which others have referenced) for the train, and both have a regular bus service for the JR.

Summertown is lovely, lots of bespoke shops, cafes and bars and feels very 'community' in a nice way. But comes at a price!

Would they consider Abingdon? There are direct buses to the hospital, Oxford station and Didcot Parkway with access to the A34. Abingdon is increasingly cycle friendly and many ride to Oxford and Headington

Travelling to the JR at peak times is very difficult from Kidlington and the hospital is expensive and difficult to park in. There is very little staff parking for the size of hospital.

There are buses from Kidlington to the JR once an hour. It is a manageable cycle by electric bike but a pretty hard slog if on a normal bike and the cycle lanes are not great - either shared pavement or shared bus lane. Someone was killed last year cycling just before the park and ride.

Could the person commuting to London travel on the bus? There are regular Oxford Tubes from Headington which get to Hillingdon very quickly. Central London obviously takes longer, but could swap to a tube at Hillingdon.

Didcot Parkway also has loads of trains to Reading (4 an hour) which is on the Elizabeth Line.

Yy to Killington. The new station Oxford Parkway is there and there is a direct bus to the JR too. It's a 20-25 min journey but an hour or so in the rush hour. Hopefully hospital shifts can avoid the rush hour.
Yarnton and Begbroke are also nearby with a range of houses in your price bracket

Fair points.

I don't know much about the bus service Kidlington to JR or transport options, other than on a bike you would have to cross the A40 and the car journey would be a bit miserable at peak times.

Oxford tube into London is good, but takes forever, but as you point out you could get off at Hillingdon. Question would be how the costs work out for Bus+tube season ticket vs say a rail pass from Water Eaton. I guess it also depends where the train from WE puts you relative to where you want to work, as it finishes more central.

Wherever they move to they are not going to be local to the JR AND the train station so some compromise is necessary.
Cycling is a way of life in Oxford with excellent cycle routes whereas driving a car is a nightmare so they need to be willing to look at cycling as an option.
Access into the JR by car can be awful so don't bank on always driving (and parking) there.
Buses are ok, many go straight into the city centre but as PP have said, there is a direct bus from Kidlington which also has the (relatively) new train station.

Kidlington to Marston for hospitals is easy: you can do it on main roads or back roads via Islip. Water Eaton P&R gets you to Marylebone in 45 mins.

Your DD could get a great place in Kidlington for 500K. Primary schools are good. Avoid Littlemore at all costs.

Bear in mind that Oxford is in the middle of introducing the massively controversial '15 minute neighbourhood' plans which, when fully operational, propose to limit private car travel from one area of town to another. Medics working at the hospitals are not exempt from this, neither are electric cars or carshares (at least as far as I can see)!! It will, of course, be possible to drive from, for example, Botley to Headington, but you would have to get onto the ring road rather than cutting across town. It impacts commuters driving into Oxford for their jobs from towns and villages around the city and will be an absolute bloody nightmare. I'm not one of the crazy conspiracy theorists currently protesting this (I think they believe it's all part of a plot to turn us into giant lizards whilst being made to inhale chemtrails or something) but it's going to make everyday life very hard for people who have been living outside what is a very expensive city and commuting in for years. It'll also make travel on the ring road even less pleasant than it already is (my son is on SEN transport to his SS on that road and I'm dreading the full implementation of this scheme as god knows when he'll have to leave home).

Get the bus, you say? Well that's a good idea but the bus service is patchy, with several routes affected by low driver numbers. So they're not always reliable.

The back roads to the JR are not much less busy than the main road - the traffic build up is at marston whether you're coming from the bypass, Woodeaton or Elsfield. Cycling through the villages is doable, but there is a lot of traffic which isn't always careful and it is hilly.

I take the train regularly and have not managed a 45 minute journey in practice. Most are 1 hour 5 minutes to London and 1 hour 25 back as they stop more. Doable but hard everyday.

I'm not one of the crazy conspiracy theorists currently protesting this (I think they believe it's all part of a plot to turn us into giant lizards whilst being made to inhale chemtrails or something) but it's going to make everyday life very hard for people who have been living outside what is a very expensive city and commuting in for years.
Well if that's what you think of the people advocating for easier travel you deserve to wait a really long time for a bus. Maybe you should actually use your voice instead of slagging off those who do, or put up and shut up and shoot yourself in the foot to prove a point that you're not "one of the crazy conspiracy theorists".

Oh do calm down! 😀My experience of some of the people campaigning against this - in Oxford and in other cities considering this - is that a lot of them are driven by really hyperbolic ideas and far-fetched conspiracy theories about deliberate policies aimed at curtailing personal freedoms (why?? why would this be an aim??) and many of them seem to have beliefs that overlap onto the predictable raft of anti-vax/chemtrails/end of cash currency/evil 5G theories...

Just because I view the 15 Minute Neighbourhoods concept as flawed in practice (I actually think it's quite a nice idea in theory!) and a disaster for everyday life in and around the city, doesn't mean for a minute that I agree with the reasons WHY some of the protestors are protesting! 😀 We can all agree that the sky over Oxford was pretty blue this afternoon but that doesn't mean we share lots of other perceptions.

And how do you know I've not used my 'voice' about this issue?

Thanks . Why avoid Littlemoor?

Sorry forgot to tag @TheOutlaws . Really helpful comments here -Thanks all

Because it's not particularly nice, or convenient for where they need to be.

I would go for Headington/Marston and the London commuter uses the Oxford Tube. If they do eventually have children, there are good schools also.

This interpretation of 15-minute cities is absolute bollocks.
15-minute cities is about making facilities available within a 15- minute walk or cycle, thus reducing the need for short car journeys. The LTNs have now been confirmed and there are likely to be further traffic restrictions, designed to discourage unnecessary short car journeys — but restricting people to their own areas is nonsense.
Traffic continues to be a problem because Oxford was never designed for cars and people still haven’t got to the point where they decide it’s easier to walk or cycle, but changing habits takes time.

Headington is the best bet for proximity to the JR by bus or cycle , it’s a beast to travel to and park in .
Summertown is lovely , very leafy , and a community feel but getting to the JR from there would be a nightmare . Traffic in Oxford is hell on legs .. I live in a rural area and Oxford is my nearest major city and I hate driving into it ..