5 worst places to live 4 in london

[Ardesco]

DOH!


Quick re-read the original post and edit your post accordingly

[kramer]

Richmond is such a great place to be if you can afford it..
I think i am moving to twickenham from the northern england next year ... its close to richmond but at 400k for a single bedroom ol richmond is out my league at the moment...

[sasguru]

Richmond is such a great place to be if you can afford it..
I think i am moving to twickenham from the northern england next year ... its close to richmond but at 400k for a single bedroom ol richmond is out my league at the moment...

Aye - I'm lucky that I have some cash from BTLs - even that doesn't go very far in Richmond I can just about afford a 2-bed cottage (nice quiet road though and close to the river).

Twickenham is a good choice.

[Bernard Common]

Aye - I'm lucky that I have some cash from BTLs - even that doesn't go very far in Richmond I can just about afford a 2-bed cottage (nice quiet road though and close to the river).

Twickenham is a good choice.

You mean a Terrace house. You pauper

[Francko]

I don't think you really understand the housing market. Price rises may be higher in the East. Conversely if a downturn comes falls will be also be larger in the East. Good areas in the West are more stable either way.

PS I'm leaving the property scene - just sold my third flat last week. Putting it all into a mortgage free property in Richmond.

I think this is a common misperception and an easy way to make you feel safe. Have a friend who just bought a 3-bed flat in Putney for 600k. You buy the same in Barking let's say for 200k. Right, let's assume that there is a big downturn and interest rates go up to 10%. Who do you reckon will lose more? Do you think people will still think that a house in Putney would be an investment? In any case, how far do you think the average house in Putney, Richmond can go up to? 1-2-3-4 million pounds? Or aren't we already close to a limit already? I think you are playing with the fire.

[lilelvis2000]

5 Islington
Super rich lies next to super poor.

4 Newham
New hope has come in the form of the Olympics.

3 Merthyr Tydfil
Slowly improving since the steel industry died.


2 Tower Hamlets
The second most deprived borough in the UK.

1 Hackney
High crime, bad education - our worst place to live.




Doesn't SAS Guru live in one of these places. I hope he has a good alarm and a supply of mace :-)

Simply shocked that Blackburn and Oldham are not at the top. Maybe its not so grim up north after all?

[sasguru]

I think this is a common misperception and an easy way to make you feel safe. Have a friend who just bought a 3-bed flat in Putney for 600k. You buy the same in Barking let's say for 200k. Right, let's assume that there is a big downturn and interest rates go up to 10%. Who do you reckon will lose more? Do you think people will still think that a house in Putney would be an investment? In any case, how far do you think the average house in Putney, Richmond can go up to? 1-2-3-4 million pounds? Or aren't we already close to a limit already? I think you are playing with the fire.

Do I look bovvered? I'm paying cash for my place - I don't really give a rat's arse what the interest rate is or what the housing market does. In 25 years the place in Richmond will still be worth more than the place in Newham.

And anyway you're completely wrong.
If interest rates go up the non-established people who are borrowing 5 times their salary to buy a tulipehole in the East End will suffer more. Prime property in good areas is bought by people who are relatively unaffected by the interest rate. They buy with inheritances and city bonuses and anyway earn more.

2 golden rules of property buying in London:

1. Location, location, location
2. Buy the worst property in the best area, not the best property in the worst area (obviously this does not apply when you are starting out and have to speculate).

[sasguru]

You mean a Terrace house. You pauper

Try washing the crusty curtains in your bedsit before posting

[IR35 Avoider]

I live in Tower Hamlets. In general it deserves it's rating. Large parts of it consist of really depressing council housing. But, as they said, it is a place of extremes. Where I live, in Wapping, there are many multi-million pound warehouse conversion flats with views of the river and Tower Bridge. This was the original yuppie location in the eighties, and parts of the area are still frequently used as a scenic backdrop by film-makers.

I live in a somewhat less expensive purpose-built development. The view from all bar one of my windows is of carefully maintained private and communal gardens. Personally I prefer this to a more expensive river view. It's more beautiful, and the beauty of my surroundings is very important to me. A recent visitor to my living-room commented that sitting there, looking out through the glass sliding door to the private garden and landscaped communal gardens beyond, you could be in the countryside. (Actually, that was unintentionally insulting - nice gardens are much more beautiful than countryside, unless the latter is being viewed from a distance.) In terms of intrinsic feel-good factor, for me my flat is better than 99% of properties in the UK.

In addition, there's the potential lifestyle benefit of the edge of the City being five minutes walk away. It used to take me 20 minutes to walk to the Stock Exchange when I contracted there, and my wife can walk to her job in JP Morgan's London Wall office in half an hour - and she's not a quick walker. Having said that, I would not in the long-term regard any amount of such location benefits as sufficient compensation if I were living somewhere ugly.

In generally, compared to what I grew up with, I find British housing crappy, depressing and slum-like. I'm not talking about the Tower Hamlets style council estates. I'm talking about most traditional terraced housing, as well as the majority of modern British housing estates. I remember a work colleague in my first job, back in the old country, returning from a visit to Britain, commenting on how ugly it was to have all the houses "joined together" with roofs and walls in non-matching finishes and colours. (This was her attempt to describe terraced housing, something she hadn't previously needed to make part of her vocabulary. Like me, she'd never really seen a terraced house in the first 20 years of her life. Similarly, the terms "detached" and "semi-detached" didn't exist for us because in our world terraced houses weren't proper houses in the first place. A proper house is surrounded on all four sides by several meters of landscaped garden.)

Having said that, although my current accommodation is a duplex ground and first floor flat with smallish rooms, the architecture and gardens make me as happy as any building can, and I'd be happy to spend the next 40 years of my life here. (Though children may change the picture - may need a mansion where I can lock myself away out of hearing as well as out of site of them for large portions of the day.)

[sasguru]

I live in Tower Hamlets. In general it deserves it's rating. Large parts of it consist of really depressing council housing. But, as they said, it is a place of extremes. Where I live, in Wapping, there are many multi-million pound warehouse conversion flats with views of the river and Tower Bridge. This was the original yuppie location in the eighties, and parts of the area are still frequently used as a scenic backdrop by film-makers.

I live in a somewhat less expensive purpose-built development. The view from all bar one of my windows is of carefully maintained private and communal gardens. Personally I prefer this to a more expensive river view. It's more beautiful, and the beauty of my surroundings is very important to me. A recent visitor to my living-room commented that sitting there, looking out through the glass sliding door to the private garden and landscaped communal gardens beyond, you could be in the countryside. (Actually, that was unintentionally insulting - nice gardens are much more beautiful than countryside, unless the latter is being viewed from a distance.) In terms of intrinsic feel-good factor, for me my flat is better than 99% of properties in the UK.

In addition, there's the potential lifestyle benefit of the edge of the City being five minutes walk away. It used to take me 20 minutes to walk to the Stock Exchange when I contracted there, and my wife can walk to her job in JP Morgan's London Wall office in half an hour - and she's not a quick walker. Having said that, I would not in the long-term regard any amount of such location benefits as sufficient compensation if I were living somewhere ugly.

In generally, compared to what I grew up with, I find British housing crappy, depressing and slum-like. I'm not talking about the Tower Hamlets style council estates. I'm talking about most traditional terraced housing, as well as the majority of modern British housing estates. I remember a work colleague in my first job, back in the old country, returning from a visit to Britain, commenting on how ugly it was to have all the houses "joined together" with roofs and walls in non-matching finishes and colours. (This was her attempt to describe terraced housing, something she hadn't previously needed to make part of her vocabulary. Like me, she'd never really seen a terraced house in the first 20 years of her life. Similarly, the terms "detached" and "semi-detached" didn't exist for us because in our world terraced houses weren't proper houses in the first place. A proper house is surrounded on all four sides by several meters of landscaped garden.)

Having said that, although my current accommodation is a duplex ground and first floor flat with smallish rooms, the architecture and gardens make me as happy as any building can, and I'd be happy to spend the next 40 years of my life here. (Though children may change the picture - may need a mansion where I can lock myself away out of hearing as well as out of site of them for large portions of the day.)

Good description of one of the nicer parts of Tower Hamlets. Wapping is indeed very pleasant and has a couple of great pubs. Have you been to the Marquis of Whitby (?) ?