Moving to Richmond?

xSkarloey

That link @Octatonic put up as being Mortlake is actually East Sheen on a little road leading in the direction of the Park.

And those houses are pretty small.

I mention this not to be pedantic, but to illustrate the premium attached to certain locations.

I think in a lot of cases in London, you're buying mainly for the location, not for the quality of the house.

I think if you've got that itch and are thinking of a move, it wouldn't hurt to come over this way and have a look around, having done a web search on which areas/ homes might be in budget.

Might help you decide either way.

octatonic

True, it is just across the street from Mortlake but I posted it because it was the cheapest house closest to Mortlake and it was still over budget.

In Mortlake proper you are looking at this:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-51823631.html which is £735k 

Or something like this: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34226259.html at £675k.

My point is that in that part of town there is nothing viable within budget in a 2 bedroom house.

mellowsun

Thanks for the links. I'll take a look around Mortlake but looking on Rightmove, it doesn't seem too promising. 

I'd probably get 350K for my current house (prices in my part of London are around half those of most of the rest of the capital) so I'd be looking at having to borrow at least another 300. Not feasible really so looks like we'll be staying put!

Antique_Guitars

Born and raised in Teddington, my parents still live there and its a great place to grow up as a kid but it is full of total posh wankers these days.

They live in an old railway workers house kinda 2.5 bedrooms but room for loft conversion/ extension down a niceish rd, house is a total shithole and needs to be completely gutted but is still probably worth £650k NOT a bad investment considering they paid 90k for it in 1989.........................

xSkarloey

Ok. So Oct's latest two examples are nearer the mark.

However example one is NOT Mortlake. It's East Sheen but still a useful example because it's in an area I referred to earlier as 'The Royals'. Crazy prices and solely because of the location.

House two IS Mortlake and effectively it's a similar house.

I knew previous owners of that gaff and it's nothing special. Looks like it's had a lick of paint since I was last there though.

What it tells you is

a) Mortlake's going up yes indeed


But also

b) You pay a premium for gaffs where the owners have given it a make over

and

c) Beware estate agents. I know the bloke who runs that branch of James Anderson who're selling that: let's call that pricing 'ambitious' for want of a less diplomatic epithet. He's ramping that up because it's a period cottage, because prices elsewhere have shot up, because it's in decent decorative order and because he can.

So example two's at the upper end. But @Octatonic is right on current evidence. As I said/ implied yesterday, there MIGHT be something in the c. 500k bracket in Mortlake/ North Sheen but on this evidence they'll be 'need work' type of places.


Anyway if you think these are pricey for cottages, search for Barnes. Bonkers prices there.

Gassage

I have to say, us rock and roll glitterati are very worried about you guys stalking us. (Joking aside, Kew is like rugby Stella Street...,Jason Leonard, Dallaglio, Easter and Marler all live within 5 or 6 streets of me!)

xSkarloey

/\ Pah!

I've stood next to Trevor McDonald in Waitrose. :P

Gassage

I see your Trevor Macdonald and raise you a Mark Austin (who plays cricket at Richmond CC)

thomasross20

It's THE biggest chip on my shoulder, the cost of housing. And I'm not on a bad salary. It's just ridiculous. I'm balking at the thought of 200k houses never mind ones costing more than half a million. My generation are well and truly stuffed -either the market resets or .... F*** knows!

It is SERIOUSLY depressing (hence thread about working overseas)

Gassage

You are very right

xSkarloey

thomasross20;609444" said:

It's THE biggest chip on my shoulder, the cost of housing. And I'm not on a bad salary. It's just ridiculous. I'm balking at the thought of 200k houses never mind ones costing more than half a million. My generation are well and truly stuffed -either the market resets or .... F*** knows!

It is SERIOUSLY depressing (hence thread about working overseas)

You are dead right. As I said to the OP yesterday, I can't imagine the circumstances under which my kids will be able to afford to own a property in the Borough they grew up in should they wish to do so.

And although Richmond's at the extreme end of the scale, I'm sure parents elsewhere could cry foul similarly.

Axe_meister

The UK is becoming more like Germany where most people rent.

thomasross20

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do

mellowsun

thomasross20 said:

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do

To be fair, where I currently live prices are half that of Richmond. Not all of London is insanely priced. You can get nice cottage in a leafy area for around 330 and be in central London in around 30-40 mins.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-34332162.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49279120.html

TTony

London's property market is a bit of a mess really - and that infects the rest of the UK's property market.  It's an interesting study in what happens with unregulated free market supply & demand.

Firstly, London has acquired itself a bit of a reputation as a one-way bet for property prices.

Developers actively market new projects to overseas smaller investors.  They'll never live in the properties that they buy off-plan, just keep them for a year or two, maybe rent them out, and then sell on for a nice % profit.  The overseas larger investors are either funding the developments (often with money of "questionable" origin), or are driving up the prices at the top end (ditto, London property is a safe money-laundering haven) which then pulls up the rest of the prices further down the market.

Secondly, that's exacerbated by the problem of cheap money.  If you can borrow at 3% and "invest" the money in property with a return of >10%, of course you would ... 

Thirdly, and with apologies for the political sensitivities of such statements ... but where do you think that most of the people coming into the country want to live?  The Scottish Highlands?  West Wales?  Coventry?  Skegness?  Ignoring the largely-seasonal migrant farm worker labour force, most immigrants want to live in London because they want to work in London because that's where the money is.  So that's a ready market for the rental properties (whether the pseudo-posh new stuff, or the run-down benefit-land b&b).

Of course, it's all "good" because it's driving UK economic growth, and GDP growth is way more important to politicians than the affordability of housing in London.

It carries on until the next property crash (they happen just infrequently enough that you've forgotten the last one before the next one happens), when prices re-set and the cycle starts again.

mellowsun

octatonic said:

Even in Mortlake you are going to pay over the odds.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31797927.html is the most affordable 2 bedroom house at £580k.

Interesting that this place has been on the market for 9 months and not sold. I think it was first listed above 600. So maybe I should just wait a while and get it for 500.

xSkarloey

/\ 'Ambitious' pricing again.

It's a nice enough property but small.

What ramps the asking price up is a) it's Sheen 'parkside', local agent speak for a property between the Upper Richmond Road and the Park and b) it's in the catchment for Sheen Mount, a local school which many want their kids to get in to.

Were that house in Mortlake knock 75-100k off the asking price.

Speak of the devil, on a stroll to the pet shop just now I passed an agent's window and saw a 2 bed house in a quiet bit of Mortlake on for 425k.

mellowsun

/\ This one? http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33371184.html

It's a lot for a 2-bed ex-local-authority house but I guess it could be had for 375 given that the market seems slow atm. I'll take a look.

imalone

TTony said:

London's property market is a bit of a mess really - and that infects the rest of the UK's property market.  It's an interesting study in what happens with unregulated free market supply & demand.

Firstly, London has acquired itself a bit of a reputation as a one-way bet for property prices.

Developers actively market new projects to overseas smaller investors.  They'll never live in the properties that they buy off-plan, just keep them for a year or two, maybe rent them out, and then sell on for a nice % profit.  The overseas larger investors are either funding the developments (often with money of "questionable" origin), or are driving up the prices at the top end (ditto, London property is a safe money-laundering haven) which then pulls up the rest of the prices further down the market.

Secondly, that's exacerbated by the problem of cheap money.  If you can borrow at 3% and "invest" the money in property with a return of >10%, of course you would ... 

Thirdly, and with apologies for the political sensitivities of such statements ... but where do you think that most of the people coming into the country want to live?  The Scottish Highlands?  West Wales?  Coventry?  Skegness?  Ignoring the largely-seasonal migrant farm worker labour force, most immigrants want to live in London because they want to work in London because that's where the money is.  So that's a ready market for the rental properties (whether the pseudo-posh new stuff, or the run-down benefit-land b&b).

Of course, it's all "good" because it's driving UK economic growth, and GDP growth is way more important to politicians than the affordability of housing in London.

It carries on until the next property crash (they happen just infrequently enough that you've forgotten the last one before the next one happens), when prices re-set and the cycle starts again.

The last crash didn't even touch London property prices, just slowed them. Prices in other parts of the country are only just starting to recover. I suspect it's one reason there's not enough appetite to really get into building more homes, doing it properly would hit property values in the south which are driven by scarcity, and there are still more people who own homes than not.

rlw

Gassage said:

Acton will be the next big thing, buy around there.

Are you fucking mad? Acton?