Milton Keynes among best commuter areas for 2020: Buckinghamshire town with fast London train links is the hot tip for house price growth
Not exactly aspirational, but MK’s affordable homes and brilliant commute of 35 minutes to Euston, with a season ticket at £5,524, make this post-war New Town north of London an obvious option for buyers who prize convenience and value.
Why Milton Keynes is tipped as one to watch in 2020
Experts hotly tip MK to enjoy strong price growth over the next few years.
CBRE recently named it one of the most buoyant locations in Britain, with the fastest-growing population in Europe.
Investment firm Seven Capital has named MK as one of six key hotspots for 2020 citing its impressively high level of business start-ups and house price growth of 21 per cent in the difficult years since 2014.
Pros: lots to do with a 400-shop town centre mall, a theatre, orchestra, art gallery, outdoor music venue and indoor skiing and snowboarding centre. Very leafy, MK has 5,000 acres of open space and more than 22 million trees.
Schools almost all have a “good” Ofsted report, and Castlethorpe First School is “outstanding”.
Cons: a bit characterless, too many chain stores and regardless of whether you are a fan of brutalist architecture, some of the Sixties and Seventies housing hasn’t stood the test of time.
Average house prices in Milton Keynes — and what there is to buy
In MK3, the postcode covering the popular suburb of Bletchley, average prices stand at £294,000 according to Rightmove, up from £222,000 five years ago.
A village-style family house in one of MK’s original suburbs would cost around £750,000 to £800,000.
A budget of £500,000 to £600,000 would buy a large executive family home. And £250,000 to £300,000 would stretch to a three-bedroom semi.
At the award-winning Brooklands development, 10 minutes from the town centre, there are apartments and houses on offer, with the focal point of a central square with shops and a medical centre. Several different developers are involved in the site – expect to pay around £450,000 for a four-bedroom house (brooklandsmk.co.uk).
