Living in Oxford...

Soldato
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Anyone familiar with the Oxford area? I need to start looking for a place to live. I'll be driving to work in Enstone and its completely dead up there, hence me wanting to live in the outskirts of Oxford. I guess ideally somewhere in the north-west, perhaps between Oxford itself and Kidlington.

Can any of you recommend anything?

Atm I'm probably looking to rent a one bedroom apartment, I'm gonna hunt around a couple of estate agents today.
 
Avoid Cowley if possible... Botley or Summertown is always a good bet as their relatively pleasant areas and quite close to the centre of town. Not sure about property prices at the moment, however, as I haven't lived in Oxford for a few years now.
 
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You could try kennington, relatively cheap there and not too far away.
Though trying to get into the centre of town at rush hour is akin to wading through treacle.
 
i live in Woodstock, near both kidlington and oxford, its quite expensive here for housing, but stonesfield is about a 1mile away and is even on the oxford bus route, that a bit cheaper and a nice place


edit, just read the bit about outskirts, but if you want to live anywhere between woodstock and oxford, there is affordable housing in yarnton and begbroke which are closer to oxford itself, if not the biggest place between oxford and kidlington is summertown i think
 
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Botley, Jericho or Summertown are very nice but very pricey.

Avoid Barton at all costs. :eek: I wouldn't live in Cowley either - not as bad as Barton but it's full of students = target for thieving sh*ts.

The girlfriend and I have lived in Headington (about 2.5 miles north-east of the city) for the last 10 years and both really like it. Decent size with good access to Oxford and the ring road. It's still quite expensive but then so is anywhere near Oxford.
 
As has been said Woodstock is really nice but exspensive. Kidlington is pretty nice, I lived in a village called Hampton Poyle just on the outskirts of it. Avoid cowley!
 
Booner! said:
i live in Woodstock, near both kidlington and oxford, its quite expensive here for housing, but stonesfield is about a 1mile away and is even on the oxford bus route, that a bit cheaper and a nice place

The bus route that's once hourly if you're lucky, from about 8am to 6pm. :p

Public transport around here is hopeless (I live very close to Stonesfield).
 
Summertown is probably a good option. Frequent buses into town and it's near the ring road (and its the North side of Oxford).

Looked at housing around there recently (January) and theres a lot of ex-council semis with one large and one small (OK tiny) bedroom for ~£225,000

There are a few blocks of flats around there, although the newest ones tend to be leasehold, which means ground rent.

Chancellors Estate agents do a lot of buisness in that area.
 
My mate seems happy on the Iffley(sp?) Road, seems quite happy, about 25 minutes from town.

Don't go to Bicester. It sucks.
 
OllyM said:
The bus route that's once hourly if you're lucky, from about 8am to 6pm. :p

Public transport around here is hopeless (I live very close to Stonesfield).


Bus transport is TOO expensive here! £5 to get a return?, i can to bloody london for that price! rip off merchants :mad:
 
Efour2 said:
Yeah i lived in cowley for 3 years. Students, theives and drug addicts.
cowley is aweful place IMO , everytime i go there im either freaked out or some hobos attack a nearby shop.. . i always happen to find the weird person there
 
Efour2 said:
Yeah i lived in cowley for 3 years. Students, theives and drug addicts.
cowley is aweful place IMO , everytime i go there im either freaked out or some hobos attack a nearby shop.. . i always happen to find the weird person there
 
Other than avoiding Cowley (as every other poster has :p can you see a pattern there?) avoid Blackbird Leys as well.

Summertown or Jericho would be my choice if I had the chance.

S
 
I live in Oxford atm.

Summertown = > £500K for a house.

Jericho = >£400K for a house.

Marston is right next to Summertown, and it's a bit cheaper, closer to £300K for houses.

Blackbird Leyes is the largest council estate in the whole of Europe, IIRC. However recently it's much better. Kassam Stadium, Bowlplex, etc; quite a few nice developments down there.

I'm not too sure why people say Cowley is horrible... I used to go down there all the time to visit friends, seemed nice. :s Loads of nice shops (NANDO'S!) and about 5 minutes walk into town.
 
If you can afford it, any of the outskirts villlages are very close to oxford (15 minutes car drive, 25 minute cycle)

And by them I mean Horspath, Wheatley, and Garsington... etc.

Barton is a dump, but the nearby estates of Risinghurst and Sandhills are much nicer and well worth a peek in :)
 
Cheers for all the suggestions, I've been busy looking up various things. One thing I'm not too sure about is the price however - not specifically in terms of Oxford but more in terms of general letting behaviour - this will be the first time I rent anything not "studenty" so to speak.

It looks like ill be getting about £1600 in disposable income a month (ie, after tax, NI, student loan). What do people usually spend on living costs? 50%? All the decent one and two bedroom places in the outskirts of oxford are about £700 a month - does that sound right?

edit: I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to living in the real world.
 
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