padbear

I've jsut started looking as thinking of moving back. Mixed signals so far from what i can see. Definitely a few price reductions but plenty on at rates that seem out of kilter with others. One of the est agents showing me around said that early in the year (when you sold i presume) there was very little on the mkt so sellers were holding out. more on now (not masses from what i can see) so more balanced. I get the impression that the offers are lower but overall seems to be ok still note i'm looking at a slightly diff mkt - 2-3 bed chara houses in central st albans (defined as near station/ conservation area/ church st area. Would guess quieter over next couple of months but after that its the crystal ball of course. Wouldn't surprise me if that's a resilient mkt as very popular near station/ abbey conservation area cheers P

just been looking there as a cheaper alternative to st albans for me in the quiant 2 bed cottage market. Seems to be mainly SSTC at the moment with the properties that aren't looking more expensive. I can see why it should be at a premium to other areas though as it looked lovely to me in the old conservation area and the trains aren't too bad. Hard to compare to 2007 for me as I don't know the area that well

the squares that monkeybutt mentioned are all horrible but there are plenty more horrid areas too. Lots of perfectly decent areas too of course. My sister lives there so i know it a little and I did once for a year when young. Broadly for nice areas I would suggest stony stratford as that's one of the three towns at the edge. Beautiful full of pubs, character high street and character houses. Avoid bletchley in one of the other corners although bletchley park (home of WW2 codebreaking) is a fascinating spot to visit. Best areas to me would be willen (on the lake - lovely) or woughton on the green. loughton (central) or walnut tree. As someone has mentioned though there are lovely villages around too near MK cheers P

Area people here still keeping an eye on St Albans at all? I used to live there and am thinking of moving back. I saw one of the flats from the block I used to live in (bought in 1993) up for sale on rightmove here http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-28004720.html?locationIdentifier=STATION%5E8570&insId=1&sortByPriceDescending=false&minPrice=200000&maxPrice=400000&minBedrooms=2&maxBedrooms=3&radius=0.5&pageNumber=1&premiumA=true&fromSummary=true&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FlocationIdentifier%3DSTATION%255E8570%26insId%3D1%26sortByPriceDescending%3Dfalse%26minPrice%3D200000%26maxPrice%3D400000%26minBedrooms%3D2%26maxBedrooms%3D3%26radius%3D0.5 (apologies for long link) so looked up on houseprice.co.uk and found this history (note some 2 bed terraces, mainly 2 bed flats like the above, a few one bed flats) and adjusting for the mix http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=millers+rise+st+albans&n=100 it looks like 2007 they peaked around 220/230k and went down to 175-200 earlier this year. What price are they on for now? £250k, ie a 25%+ uplift on earlier in the year and 15% higher than the "peak" in 2007 On the same road you can see on rightmove there are two 2 bed terraces under offer at asking prices £310k and £320k respectively whereas one sold in 2007 for £277k Seems very strange to me, and somewhat annoying as I would like to buy. Naturally this seems to be the case higher up the chain as well. Ah those happy days when at 27 I bought on eof the things for £65k P