London’s best value commuter towns: Biggleswade tops list with £300,000 average house price

For many working in London, it is a constant dilemma whether to spend more on rent and live closer to the office or splash the cash on travelling in.

And although more people are now deciding to leave the city and invest in a train season pass, it can be difficult to know where to relocate too.

Data compiled by property company and consultancy CBRE has revealed the new ‘best value’ commuter towns – with Biggleswade in Bedfordshire coming out on top.

While Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, where the average house price is £269,481 and journey time into London is just over an hour, was second on the list.

The most expensive spot was named as Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, where the average house price of £830,964 is approaching double of London’s £475,458. 

During CBRE’s research they found that, on average, a ten-minute increase in travel time reduces the average house price by £21,762. 

Also, for every £100 spent on an annual season ticket, the average house price goes down by £4,179. 

Biggleswade, which was named as the best-value, or most undervalued town, has a very reasonable travel time to St Pancras in London of 44 minutes.

A season ticket from there costs £4,792 for the year and the town boasts several supermarkets and a retail park.

Dianne Kenny runs a health and wellbeing centre in the area after moving away from London in 1996 to raise her children.

She told The Times: ‘Biggleswade has always been cheaper that Hitchin because it’s just over the border in Bedfordshire from Hertfordshire, but prices are going up. It’s a good time to buy.’ 

Other towns noted in the list included Benfleet in Essex, which has a 44 minute journey time to London with an annual season ticket costing £3,612. 

Grays in Essex was named fifth with an even shorter travel time of 38 minutes and having 19 per cent proportion of outstanding primary schools. 

As for the least expensive commuter towns, Purfleet, Rugby and Colchester all made the list.

Peterbourough was named as the least expensive commuter town and although being the furthest out on the map still had a London journey time of 53 minutes.

The average house price there was £177,741 but it only scored seven per cent for outstanding primary schools.

As for the most expensive Beaconsfield was a clear stand out, with homes being almost double the price of London abodes.

Speaking to The Times, Helen Rhodes from agency Heaton & Partners said: ‘It’s the most expensive market town in the country, followed by Henley-on-Thames. A four bedroom detatched house on a good road will cost you about £1million.’

People have been leaving London in record numbers over recent years and the city is the only region in England were more people are leaving than arriving. 

The data released by the Office for National Statistics revealed 340,498 people left in 2018 for other parts of the UK, an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year.

Over the same period, only 237,270 people moved to the city from elsewhere in the UK, meaning the capital lost a net 103,228 people to other parts of the country

Jennet Siebrits, UK head of residential research at CBRE, said: ‘We looked at nearly 150 commuter towns and villages. 

‘The average house price across these locations is £393,570, which is 19 per cent lower than the London average of £488,003. There is wide range to suit different budgets. 

‘For example, in Luton the average price is less than half the London average at £229,032. In contrast Beaconsfield has an average price of nearly £831,000.

‘There are many factors influencing this range in prices; including access to nature, local amenities, and the quality of schools. But for commuters there is a significant trade-off between property price, travel time and travel cost.’ 

Previous Grays in Essex was named as the best value commuter town after research found those travelling to the capital paid a combined annual cost of £15,008 for their mortgage and season ticket.

This combined with a relatively low travel time of 39 minutes to and from London Fenchurch Street station has made it the cheapest destination to commute to London, property website Zoopla says.

The results are based on how much it costs to have a mortgage and annual rail season ticket.

The research made certain assumptions about typical mortgage costs, which were based on someone having a two or three bedroom home and a 15 per cent deposit.

It used travel times and 2020 annual railcard costs to analyse the data, which were taken from the National Rail enquiries website.

Meanwhile in the Midlands, Wolverhampton was found to be the best value option for those commuting to Birmingham with an annual cost of £7,483.94 and travel time of 20 minutes to Birmingham New Street station.

This was followed by Cannock which has an annual combined cost of £7,933.53 but a much longer travel time of 59 minutes.

Stoke-on-Trent had the cheapest annual mortgage cost of £5,000.78 but the highest season ticket cost of £3,272, totaling £8,272.78.

Further north, Hindley was found to be the best location for Manchester with an average combined cost of £6,883.38 but a 58 minute travel time to Manchester Town Hall.

Wigan followed with a yearly cost of £6,887.38 and a slightly longer travel time of 59 minutes.