h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm coming over to the UK in a couple of months and will be working over there for a while. Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced and nice area to live in? Also, any house hunting tips for London?

Are you looking to rent or purchase?
Do you already have a job guarenteed when you arrive?
How much cash have you got?
How downmarket are you prepared to go?

Noggin

You can have reasonably priced....

Or you can have a nice area....



sprout

Renting.
Will have job. Don't know location as of yet.
Not really that interested in too shabby.
Am I dreamin'?

You're dreaming. Unless you really really like commuting. Fiancé and I have a nice maisonette of diminutive proportions way out in South West London, the area is sort of shabby chic and slowly going up-market, and is 20 mins by train from Waterloo, and has NO tube. You can get nice if you are prepared to spend time getting to and from work.

London is enormous. Not as enormous as Tokyo or Rio de Janeiro, but pretty enormous.

There are some nice places that are quite cheap in Lille. It's only two hours from London now...



sprout

I don't mind small (less to furnish). But I will be working late at night and I am not sure if I should be worried about travelling at night on public transport for long distances. I'm pretty used to it in Sydney, but new town and all.

Just for the record, London is one of the safer cities in the world. Even for young women trundling about late at night. I go home late at night without batting an eyelid. Just don't go meandering up dark alleys or infront of oncoming traffic .

Cool. Sounds like Sydney. You just have to be sensible.

I lived in London for 4 months during an exchange programme - in a little suburb of Enfield called Ponders End which I rather liked. Ponders End is more of a cross-roads and Enfield is a very nice proper town. While that area's not too bad (about 20-30 minutes from Central London by train/tube), I would recommend staying away from Tottenham (where my uni happened to be located), which is just to the south of Ponders End. It's just one of the rougher areas and while it's not *unsafe*, if you're going to be coming home late at night, it's probably not the best of places to travel through.

South East London tends to be the cheapest & some of the outer bits are quite nice – n.b. high rent/property prices do not always equate to nice area (e.g. Camden (NW1) very expensive ('cos it's very central) but you cannot walk down the high street without being hassled by drug dealers & junkies).

Thankyou all, I need as much info as poss.