Humour me - house on a budget in southern Herts

[kingstondc5]

How old is Chris? If its over 25 - go to Hertford.

If under - Hitchin

For night life that is

St.A used to have a good mix but now all the "under 25's" are invading the "over 25" places and making me look like a dirty perv

[Chris71]

kingstondc5 said:

How old is Chris? If its over 25 - go to Hertford.

If under - Hitchin

For night life that is

St.A used to have a good mix but now all the "under 25's" are invading the "over 25" places and making me look like a dirty perv

God I feel old when you ask that. I'm 30 in a few weeks.

Told there's quite a good music scene there?

boolay said:

Not the Twin Foxes?

Rings a bell, yeah.

[kingstondc5]

Chris71 said:

kingstondc5 said:

How old is Chris? If its over 25 - go to Hertford.

If under - Hitchin

For night life that is

St.A used to have a good mix but now all the "under 25's" are invading the "over 25" places and making me look like a dirty perv

God I feel old when you ask that. I'm 30 in a few weeks.

Told there's quite a good music scene there?

boolay said:

Not the Twin Foxes?

Rings a bell, yeah.

Where, Hitchin?

Maybe ive lived here to long but its mostly house music really and a few no-music pubs, within the town centre area. One place does play cheese Music but its generally full of lil wannabee rude bois who scrap with each other. Though ive not been there in years so it may have all changed

Despite my negativity towards it (like i said, been here to long), a mate of mine from St.A prefers Hitchin to St.A as its something different to what hes used to and vice versa.

When i was looking to buy a property back in 07, i considered Hertford but the 60 min trains to London put me off so i stuck with Hitchin - better transportation links to the country.Sad i know but there you go.

[red997]

in a similar situation myself;
renting currently in Abbots Langley - nice area, but pricey, and only on road parking...grrr

I'm paying more in rent for a 3 bed semi with no parking than I did for the mortgage on a large 4 bed new barn conversion with double garage, workshop and land in the north Cotswolds !!

I'm also looking for links into London, as historically that's where most of my work has been.

Abbots is good as Kings Langley station is about a mile away, and 27 mins into Euston.
I'd go up to an hour trip into the northern London Mainline stations to get the best location personally.

so, also open to suggestions ...?

[Chris71]

red997 said:

I'm paying more in rent for a 3 bed semi with no parking than I did for the mortgage on a large 4 bed new barn conversion with double garage, workshop and land in the north Cotswolds!!

Tell me about it. I was on the verge of moving to north Oxfordshire recently and for the price of our current flat (not that we own it, but hypothetically...) we could have got a four bedroom detached house in a nice area.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that the South East only really works if you're well within London or well outside it. There's a band from about Finsbury Park to Hertford where you have to put up with all the crap that comes with a city and prices to match.

For what it's worth, the OH did a gig in Sawbridgeworth a few weeks ago. That looked quite nice in a quiet, mature kind of a way.

From what I've heard I think Hitchin will be our first port of call when the house hunting really gets underway later in the summer.

Can only guess where's worth looking at further west (around Kings Langley). Maybe Tring? I know someone who lives there and commutes into central London without too much hassle. St Albans is quite nice too, I believe, but I have suspicion it could be rather pricey.

[Output Flange]

Chris71 said:

Maybe Tring? I know someone who lives there and commutes into central London without too much hassle. St Albans is quite nice too, I believe, but I have suspicion it could be rather pricey.

Tring's nice enough, but the station is in the arse-end of nowhere.

As I said earlier in the thread, have a look at Northchurch. It's between Tring and Berkhamsted, but cheaper than both.

[red997]

and whilst on the subject of trains / stations, I can honestly say London Midland are total shyte.

Virtually every time I've used them there has been an issue.

Mainly engineering problems resulting in trains being cancelled.
And when they do run, getting a seat is a major luxury

Tring is on that line..shame as the house prices look a little better

[Animal]

Pitstone is just outside Tring and Taylor Wimpey have a new estate there that might be in your price range?

Tring and Berkhamsted themselves are pretty pricey - have you looked at Hemel Hempstead/Boxmoor (where the London Midland line into Euston is) or King's Langley?

[TotalControl]

I notice no one has said Watford yet.



Don't move to Watford. It's too pricey and congested now.

[Pork]

red997 said:

in a similar situation myself;
renting currently in Abbots Langley - nice area, but pricey, and only on road parking...grrr

I'm paying more in rent for a 3 bed semi with no parking than I did for the mortgage on a large 4 bed new barn conversion with double garage, workshop and land in the north Cotswolds !!

I'm also looking for links into London, as historically that's where most of my work has been.

Abbots is good as Kings Langley station is about a mile away, and 27 mins into Euston.
I'd go up to an hour trip into the northern London Mainline stations to get the best location personally.

so, also open to suggestions ...?

Thameslink is good for getting into London. If you want to go up to an hour out, you can go as far as Kettering on the same line (Midland Mainline or whatever they're called now).

[Chris71]

Oh fk.

Found out today the landlord wants his house back in two months. I realise this probably isn't enough time to bring the house buying plan forward, but I'm going to look into it.

If anyone finds themselves bored at work, suggestions are welcome! Up to £250k, no further out than Baldock - preferably more like Welwyn or Hertford type area. Nice area within a mile of a station with direct services to London.

[anonymous-user]

Chris71 said:

Oh fk.

Found out today the landlord wants his house back in two months. I realise this probably isn't enough time to bring the house buying plan forward, but I'm going to look into it.

If anyone finds themselves bored at work, suggestions are welcome! Up to £250k, no further out than Baldock - preferably more like Welwyn or Hertford type area. Nice area within a mile of a station with direct services to London.

Chris, as mentioned before, PM me your address and I'll pop a copy of the two local papers in the post tomorrow (they are weekly and came out today) - they have property supplements in that cover respectively Stortford, Sawbridgeworth, and the surrounding villages; and Hertford, Ware and their surrounding villages.

[Chris71]

I know someone mentioned them briefly before, but what are Hoddesdon and Broxbourne like?

Currently all the houses that meet our criteria appear to be in Letchworth Garden City.

Also ... I drove through Welwyn the other day. At least I think I did. Not entirely sure if Welwyn Garden City is a separate entity. From the road it appeared the town centre consisted mostly of a giant car park with a sort of underpass beneath it! Are there nicer bits I missed or should I just cross it off the list? Did a couple of circuits looking for the nice bits, but never found any!

Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Hertford and Ware, on the other hand, all appeared to have a very similar feel to each other. And all looked pretty nice. That said, someone said there are a lot of rough areas around Hertford? Can't say I've seen any yet.

[Justin Cyder]

You drove round the back of the Howard centre shopping mall thing, there's much more to WGC than that. Stay on the west side of town though.

[nellyleelephant]

Just North (ish) of Baldock (10 mins) is a village called Ashwell, highly recommend there if you want village life......but 3 pubs, shop, post office etc....

You might be luck with your budget.

[Chris71]

We viewed a pair of houses in Baldock today and a whole load in Letchworth - including one we may well put an offer in for.

It's tricky. I found Baldock town centre far more charismatic than Letchworth, which is smart(ish) but rather bland. Being a former Quaker town it has a dire shortage of pubs and restaurants, although there does seem to be a reasonable arts scene. That said, the situation is arguably reversed in the outlying areas where we could actually afford to buy. Leafy 'early garden city' places come into range in Letchworth, whereas so far we've only found indentikit modern developments on the outskirts of Baldock.

The houses themselves were an order of magnitude nicer for the same money in Letchworth, on the whole. The only exception was this 17th century cottage right opposite the big Tesco in Baldock (featured on the first page of this thread). It's just stunning inside - photos don't do it justice - but probably not realistic for our needs: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prope...

Impressed with the overall standard, though. We didn't really find a bad house or a bad neighbourhood in either town. If only we could transplant Baldock town centre into the Letchworth suburbs...

[nellyleelephant]

As someone who lives close by and drives through Baldock to work in Letchworth, I'd choose Baldock out of the two (no offence to anyone!)

It feels a friendlier, nicer place to me......I'd still recommend a look at Ashwell.....

[Chris71]

nellyleelephant said:

As someone who lives close by and drives through Baldock to work in Letchworth, I'd choose Baldock out of the two (no offence to anyone!)

It feels a friendlier, nicer place to me......I'd still recommend a look at Ashwell.....

I agree entirely, but initial findings suggest we'd struggle to get the sort of house we'd like in Baldock. Budget is relatively tight and we now think we might need three beds rather than two.

Does Ashwell have a mainline rail station? My OH needs decent links to London (and Cuffley of all places).

[nellyleelephant]

It does have a station, but it is a couple of miles out of the village. They still call it Ashwell station!

A minibus service runs from the centre of the village to the station at about 7 am, same line as Baldock.

[MrDecadent]

I once made the mistake of buying a 3 bedder over a 2 bedder when my budget was tight. I bought an ex council 3 bedder on the West side of WGC (for £240k coincidentally, in 2008 it's also just sold right now on right move advertised at £260k...) and had neighbours from hell. I concluded from this that my budget stretched only so far for crappy bits of nice ares for 3 bedders where as I could have got a decent 2 bedder and perhaps extended into the loft at a later date if I needed the space.

West side of WGC is very nice, the rest of it not so much, lacks pubs & restaurants tbh and the market towns you've mentioned are better.

That cottage you've seen in Baldock looks very nice, only downside is the bus stop outside and constant traffic flows past the house and up the road joining.

I don't think much to Hoddesdon, but Stanstead Abbotts and St Margarets looked quite nice when I drove through.