How moving from London to Essex buys almost 3 times the living space for the same money

11 Jul How moving from London to Essex buys almost 3 times the living space for the same money

Despite London house prices falling over the last year, the area remains the most expensive place in the UK to purchase a property at an average of approximately £471,504 (April 2019 – UK Land Registry).

Homebuyers looking to spend this much on a new property could have almost 3 times more space, on average, for the same money if they moved just outside London.

The most expensive location to buy in the UK is Kensington and Chelsea. Anyone looking here with a budget of half a million pounds can realistically only expect to buy a studio flat, or at best a small one-bedroom apartment.

But those who are prepared to buy further afield, could enjoy much more space and even, a smaller mortgage. For example, a new five bedroom home in Oaklands Hamlet, Chigwell, is currently on the market for £739,995. For that, you can enjoy 147 m² (1,577 Sq Ft) of living space over two floors and a garage.

Potential buyers in cheaper London boroughs would also benefit if they considered properties in the home counties. On average, people moving out of Southeast London, for example, can expect to have over double the space when they move to areas like Runwell and Chelmsford.

For roughly the same price as a 1-2 bedroom flat in Bromley, for example, they could buy a three-bedroom house in Beaulieu, Chelmsford, for £479,995 and enjoy 120 m² (1,296 Sq Ft) of space.
Recent statistics from Rightmove have also revealed that rising rents are making the capital prohibitively expensive – London families pay on average over £300 more a month compared to eight years ago. That means around a million private renters are now having to fork out £3,600 extra each year.

In addition to paying more, Londoners are also not always necessarily saving more time to get to work. It takes approximately 30 minutes to travel by train from Chelmsford station to Liverpool Street; around the same time it takes to travel on the tube from High Street Kensington to Liverpool Street.