Njee The carriage seating was so badly shagged when I was using it that my L4/L5 disc would grumble after a week in town unless I used the disabled seats in coach D. After 3 weeks I would be crippled. Unless the upholstery has been replaced wholesale (down to the frame not just the covers) since I was using them regularly (which they haven’t from a trip to the Dynamo this year) it’s a third rate experience at best.
Regular paint-jobs/wraps of the engines and coaches should be lower down the refurb list.

Having commuted for 25 years (75 mins each way assuming all is well) I can safely say it sucks big time !

I would pick Milton Keynes, many of the commuter towns just outside the M25 are over-rated for commuting. The average commuter town: Packed trains, no toilets, stop at about 15 stops before you get to the main London terminal, before having to get on a tube, it sucks from what I can see.

My BiL has just bought a 2 bed end terrace in Aldershot for double the OPs budget, doesn’t seem to be in a great area and needs a load of work doing to it. 90 minutes down one of the main lines line the ECML are going to be $$$ as well if you’re commuting from anywhere further than Peterborough.

Unless the upholstery has been replaced wholesale (down to the frame not just the covers) since I was using them regularly (which they haven’t from a trip to the Dynamo this year) it’s a third rate experience at best.

You’re in luck…

Don’t ever travel on a crowded suburban train if you find those uncomfy! They use the same coaches on London-Aberdeen trains!

MK as said above has other advantages: proximity to Woburn and Chicksands for riding London out of your system on a weekend.

I live near Uckfield in East Sussex. Train time to LB is 1.15 (but patchy service).

Riding is as good as anywhere in the South with South Downs, Friston Forest, Bedgebury all being 20-30 mins away and North Downs less than an hour. Brighton is nearby for nightlife and Lewes is pretty cool too plus we have loads of good village pubs all around. East Sussex has no motorways and is the most wooded county in the South (maybe in England). Sea is close by and the walking is great too with Ashdown Forest on your doorstep – no biking there though booo.

Despite all this, house prices are reasonable compared to Surrey and you could probably get a flat for around £130k.

Another +1 for the “good luck finding something close to London for £120k that isn’t a complete hellhole”.

Slightly OT, my brother & his gf have just bought a 2-bed semi-basement flat in London, it was £600k and it’s in terrible condition having been a rental place for ages. It’s not even in the area they originally wanted, they couldn’t afford *anything* there and had to compromise by going two tube stops further out. London is utterly mental.

Reading/Camberley is my locale and you might find a studio or 1-bed out here but it’ll be tiny and the cost of commuting will ruin it IMO. And obviously tiny = nowhere to keep bikes, which may be an issue if the whole point is to have easy access to biking…

Budget for a 1-2 bed place is 120,000ish.

Change your accent, approach Nottinghill council and say you are fresh here, please give me place to live.

bingo- a nice place for cheap 😀

That flat must still be in a good location? My mate is selling his small flat in Putney for £400k.

just bought a 2-bed semi-basement flat in London, it was £600k

FACK 😯

Over 1/2mill. What do they earn roughly?

OP – try East Croydon.

Over 1/2mill. What do they earn roughly?

Relevance? 😕

Quite relevant wouldn’t you think.

High-paid jobs?

Big equity?

Lotto?

Quite relevant wouldn’t you think.

High-paid jobs?

Big equity?

Lotto?

Not relevant in the least. They’ve bought a house. Their means are of zero concern or relevance whatsoever. That’s just nosey.

Only 2 suggestions for Milton Keynes so far for a London commuter town…. It only exists because of the London commuters for Christ sake. Ok riding is not as good as Dorking but have you seen the prices of property there!!! You can get a 2 bed house for about £150,000 if you look hard maybe cheaper if shared ownership and it’s about 33mins on the right train.

You can still get one bedroom houses in Basingstoke for around 150k and flats for less. Although I doubt they are in particularly nice areas.

It’s about an hour from Waterloo and the riding round about is quite reasonable.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-30445377.html?premiumA=true

I think that North of London is worth looking at

MK as others have said fits the bill. Depending on where you live you can be really near Woburn. Its probably worth going to Woburn for a ride to see how you feel about it. Woburn Sands has a Station and is right on the edge of the wood. Main line to Bletchley. Change trains and chug over to Woburn Sands

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E27236&insId=1&radius=1.0&sortType=1&numberOfPropertiesPerPage=10

Or Leighton Buzzard for an older town feel but higher prices. Could be riding in Rushmere in minutes. The its easy to connect through to Woburn on guite good trails

For the Chilterns Wendover would be good but expensive. Better riding than Woburn in the summer but worse in the winter

Some where near Flitwick. Half way between Woburn and Chick Sands. OK riding from the door.

OP i’d second East Croydon or Purley/Coulsdon if you wanted to go a bit further out.

East Croydon is 20 mins to Victoria/London Bridge and whilst West Croydon is a dump, East Croydon and then heading south out of the borough is nice. I live 10 mins from East Croydon station in Park Hill and it’s nothing like the perceived Croydon image. Avoid east areas like New Addington though….

Riding isn’t bad. Few bridleways on the immediate doorstep. Good access to Surrey Hills and coast. Coulsdon has really good access onto the North Downs and is still a relatively fast train into London if you wanted a quieter area.

Investment wise, property prices here are set to do well with the regeneration of the town centre and the new Westfield shopping centre due to open in 2018. Lots of building set to happen within the next 5 years.

Almost exactly halfway between Tufnell Park & Archway tubes. I’m not a Londonite so I’ve no idea if that’s “good” area but it seemed OK. Certainly not posh though.

For those that are nosey – they’re both well into their thirties and have capital from previously owning elsewhere. Not highly paid. Content to compromise space in favour of location, they both love being close to town and wouldn’t consider moving any further out. Neither have expensive hobbies, or drink or smoke, so financially they are able to make it work.

Horses for courses !

@somewhat and @mrmoo – his budget was £120k not £150k or £170k (that’s 40% more !)

You can still get one bedroom houses in Basingstoke

Not the ‘Stoke!

*Shudders*

😉

2 bedder in Battersea is around £800k, close to Park and transport, 5 mins to Chelsea

I think the OP needs to rent for a while. Buying in a place he can afford will suck up a lot of travelling cost/time. Rent a room somewhere nice – like my old lodgers used to do 🙂

Basingstoke

the place with 2 names…
Basinghole and Boringstoke 😉

Milton Keynes

perfect if you want to be a member of roundabouts anonymous.
dunno what riding there is nearby, but I do recommend a visit to Bletchley Park

2 bedder in Battersea is around £800k, close to Park and transport, 5 mins to Chelsea

We might not have the earning ‘abilities’ but £800k gets you a fair bit more around here, and better biking too. 😆

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1189&maxPrice=800000&numberOfPropertiesPerPage=50&radius=20.0&includeSSTC=true&_includeSSTC=on&googleAnalyticsChannel=buying

This was my local on my road 🙂

https://m.facebook.com/theovalcroydon?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Furl&_rdr

http://www.theovalcroydon.co.uk

Not sure about prices now but unless you earn 100k a year + paying 500k+ for a tiny flat in a converted house needs your head checking.

On my old road in west hampstead a BEDSIT (Advertised as a stylish modern studio) went for 450k.

I would seriously hold off buying in London till after the election at least. All the data is suggesting buyer demand has just come to a grinding halt – buyers just can’t afford a thing even by borrowing loads, lenders are tightening their criteria, share prices of the estate agents are going downwards at speed and selling prices fell 0.7% last month (an annualised 8% only a few months after all the noise was about continued rises for ever and ever according to the more excitable estate agents and media)
I know of at least 2 friends trying to sell who had offers which then fell through, and asking prices are definitely dropping.
+ after all the recent data showing prices were falling there have been a couple of press releases from property investment companies claiming 30% increase in prices over the next few years (see today’s Evening Standard). You have to ask yourself why a property investment company would publish a press release designed to scare people into buying now just after official data has demonstrated prices are falling…

I know of at least 2 friends trying to sell who had offers which then fell through, and asking prices are definitely dropping

this but with a big ‘but’ i just completed on a purchase that was 20% under asking which would be unthinkable 4 months ago when i couldn’t even get a look-in during the summer mania of offers over and stupid prices people were asking and some paying. theres definitely a softening and asking prices are now coming down to ‘sensible’ levels.
if there is a slight dip it wouldn’t surprise me to see them creep back up again in the spring summer.
as for buyer demand coming to a halt? no chance theres always people with money and always people wanting to move, only the ball is now firmly back in the buyers court.

London is a bubble- rich people dont want tiny flats. The bottom/mid of the markets going to cause the xrash then?

Here’s who to blame

Rich people may not want tiny flats but there are always people who’ll live in a tiny flat if it’s the right location – crazy to me. I mentioned my mate selling his Putney flat for £400k – it’s tiny, though not a studio, and it sold in a week a few weeks ago for the price he put it on at – one agent valued it lower and another a range which he went for the middle of.

rich people dont want tiny flats

They don’t want to live in them, but as an investment vehicle, particularly for foreign investors and the huge Chinese search for places to park their money.

Foreign investors are rolling in cash, but they aren’t idiots, they will stop investing in the London market if they think growth is slowing, or going negative. Then the negative spiral will follow and the crash.
No idea when it will happen mind.

There’ll always be people, who are mostly interested in just having a place to live, who’ll look at price dips as buying opportunities – there are times when there aren’t enough of these though of course.

I’m hoping this is proves to be true:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2799834/house-prices-rising-faster-south-east-london-says-rightmove-national-average-property-cost-hits-271-669.html

On my old road in west hampstead a BEDSIT (Advertised as a stylish modern studio) went for 450k.

I’m looking to buy in W Hampstead just now and it’s amazing how quickly your expectations change. A few months ago I’d have snorted with derision (not a pretty sight) if anyone had told me the prices, but now I find myself saying “half a million quid for a one bedroom flat, yes, that seems jolly reasonable”.

“half a million quid for a one bedroom flat, yes, that seems jolly reasonable”.

I have a old shoe box I’m selling for only £100,000

Interested DrJ?

I suddenly feel very poor in relation to the Singletrack massive and their half a mill property portfolios!

Don’t worry. Theres plenty of us (who live in the ‘Real World’ outside the golden paved streets within the M25) thinking ‘Jesus H Corbett!!!! You could buy half our street for that!!!!. I know I don’t have an Artisan Bagel Shop. And thats an issue, obviously. But the riding from the front door is bloody brilliant!!! And I’m unlikely to get stabbed for my phone. Result! 😀

London property prices are utterly and completely insane, whatever benchmark you use. Absolutely hatstand bonkers!! And even contemplating thinking that they aren’t is a sure-fire sign that you’ve cast off the last vestiges of your sanity

You wonder where all the toilet cleaners in London live.
We will surely end up with worker shanty towns on the less desirable areas of the south coast and the lucky few will be bussed to work 2 hours after they arrive home.