Living in CENTRAL LONDON

[DazedEmma]

Can someone who lives in Central London give me an idea of how much it would really cost to buy a 1/2 bedroom flat? I'm having a difficult time finding anything...

What do you mean by Central London? Would you consider ex-council? I think those are cheaper.

DazedEmma- I'm afraid that that is an impossible question. A shoebox in Kensington can be millions. What areas are you interested in?

what's your budget?

Central central? Area please.

200k up if you want central London

postcodes / tubestations
budget
otherwise meaningless ?

and the rest?

I was being kind. Okay at least 250 for a decent one bed in a central-ish location. If you want 2 beds and in zone one, it's minimum 300k

london is huge, and affluent can be adjacent to deprived.recommend identify area/s and search but Look at Foxtons Kings Cross £285,000

consider

which areas
what transport
N/S/W/E London
which zone 9this will influence what you pay traveling)
what areas do you like
do you have specific criteria eg travel time to work

Sorry was a bit vague wasn't I. When I say central I actually just mean on the tube line. Preferably SW but SE is ok too.

if you go for an area not well served by tube you can get an ex-local quite cheaply (less than 200k). If you want a tube and not ex local, garden etc, I would say expect around 250k+ in more up and coming areas like Tooting. Balham, Clapham more expensive. Anywhere near a common and nearish to transport will be v expensive. In all honesty, above a certain point you can pay what you want to pay (ie lowest price will be ex-local in a high-rise, and you can pay £££££ more than that). I don't know much about SE sorry.

some of the SE train lines are better than the tube - Blackheath, Lewisham line always seems good to me and takes 15-20 mins and into a range of stations whereas the tube line (district) from Richmond takes 100 hours to get into town.

So don't assume the tube is better.

impt to decide which tube/rail line (consider journey from mainline to place of work), which zone (1 and 2 most expensive).

Look here: on this page there are 4 bed properties in Tulse Hill for under £300k.! The Tulse Hill overground station has very frequent trains (every few minutes) with connections of under 15 mins to Victoria, London bridge, everywhere on the Thameslink line: Blackfriars, Farringdon etc.

AND the one in Coberg Crescent is within the catchment of an Ofsted 'outstanding' primary school.

Tulse Hill is not glamourous but is (imo) one of the next up and coming areas, and is within easy walking distance of some excellent parks (including brockwell park with a Lido) and a short bus ride away from the tube.

ooops - here, that would be!

What do you mean by central?
It's a big city.

SORRY! It hasn't saved my specific pages. Start looking at £285k on p11 of that link for the 4 bed houses in Coberg Cres...there is another at £29ok and another at £310k. But plenty, plenty of v good properties in nice places further back in that SW2 search - anything described as Streatham Hill, Tulse Hill, Herne Hill or Brixton will have excellent transport and amenities. (Bizarrley some of the Streatham Hill properties are listed as Brixton.) herne Hill and Streatham hill are both in various stages of re-invention as smart locations, and 'sought after'.

yes - but be aggressive on bargaining through Foxtons - they charge vendors a huge commission...all that money has to come from soemwhere and foxton's do push prices as high as they can!

They drove me mad when I was trying to buy as they badgered me with inappropriate poperties...and tried equally hard to sell me a mortgage even after I had asked them not to call me about mortgages!

Findproperty.com lists pretty much everything from all the agents and has good search refinement features.

The evening Standard list is good too for London-wide - is it called 'homesandproperty'?

i'd hold on for a while, the way things are going you could probably pick up a lovely flat in central london for £50.00

What's your budget Emma? You can get change from £200000 and still be in zone 2 if you go for SE london.