Where to live on 3m

[ItsPissingDownAgain]

First world question: where would you live in london on a 3m budget. Low income otherwise (!), kids in state primary, we like diversity, zones 1/2, parks, ease of travel (ideally bike but if not then public transport)

Butter, 80% of people in our part of central London don't have cars. There are some very good state schools. You walk everywhere, there is a lot of free entertainment and some very good parks.

I am getting the feeling that very few on this thread have actually raised DC in central London, and are just airing prejudices.

£35,000 with no mortgage is plenty.

Yes, what makes London expensive is housing costs - high rents and mortgages on expensive property. The OP has no housing costs (except the enormous overheads of a £3m house, obv) .

I actually find London cheaper than other places - certainly food costs are much cheaper than where my extended family live, unless they travel miles to a big supermarket. Plus travel, because so much is walkable, and public transport costs.

For CSG, Bartholomew Road is a good bet.
Solid Victorian villas between the school & Kentish Town shops.
Also excellent NHS clinic at end of Bartholomew Rd.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/map.html?locationIdentifier=POSTCODE%5E621461&maxPrice=2500000&minPrice=1000000&numberOfPropertiesPerPage=499&radius=0.25&propertyTypes=detached%2Csemi-detached%2Cterraced&primaryDisplayPropertyType=houses&includeSSTC=false&viewType=MAP&mustHave=&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&viewport=-0.141886%2C-0.129955%2C51.5432%2C51.5477&keywords=

@GoodQueenAlysanne
That’s possibly the most stunning house I’ve ever seen !
Gorgeous... a lot of hoovering right enough . I’d be hoping for some help .

Yes we never had a car in London

It’s a different sort of life

I liked living there even when we had very little money

It can be done. In fact, millions do it

@amc8583

Is this even a thread? You need financial advice not mumsnet!

Certainly appears to be a thread. I'm pretty sure it's not a football or a hot dog...

This is mad. No-one sensible would live off 35k abs live frugally while splashing £3m on a house. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.

@Dustyhedge my rabbi's house is worth £3 million (of course she bought it for far less as she is 60) and she seems quite frugal to me as her salary is quite low by London standards. She isn't selling her house any time soon. Is that mad?

I think the OP has clarified that the £3M won't leave them without additional savings that would be available for emergencies, work on the house, big purchases etc.

It sounds like the £35k will only be needed for normal day to day living expenses, which is probably fine without housing costs or expensive lifestyle choices.

I agree with onlychildandhampster. Our house is not worth £3m but is worth 5 times what we paid for it 20 years ago. By the logic of this thread we should be selling up and buying a mansion in Hartlepool.

Actually we will stay put. We are frugal, our mortgage is almost paid off, and central London is a brilliant place to live, especially who’s DC have flown the nest and we have time to do stuff. (And as I said before, was a good place to raise children.

People who only visit or work here often don’t realise how quiet and villagey it is at weekends. And lockdown brought the silver lining of cleaner air and less traffic noise.

onlychildandhamster At 60 in a long-term home no I don’t think that’s unusual but it sounds like the OP has a young family and is choosing to live frugally despite having a lot of wealth. That’s what many people can’t quite get their head around.

@Dustyhedge can only speak from my community but there are young jewish families who have inherited v expensive million pound houses in Golders Green and still choose to live there despite the fact that they would have far more disposable income if they moved somewhere cheaper like Borehamwood and Edgware. And they have to live v frugally due to the many children .Those houses are passed down from generation to generation to ensure that they stay in the family and community.

Thats the thing with London, a lot of people see it as a financial centre but actually there are communities who have lived here a long time. the fact that a house in their community is now £ 1-3 million is shocking yes, but that doesn't mean they want to stop living there if they have the means i.e inheritance.

The most house for your money is definitely in South London. There are some beautiful and huge 5 beds in Zone 2 South London close to train/tube and loads of huge parks/ green areas. We were sorry to sell ours but we had to leave thanks to DK’s job

I think lot of PP really haven't lived in London (as another PP says). It is a great place to live with very little money and with children. There are an enormous number of parks, free activities, festivals. museums within walking distance or a short bus ride away. There were 3 different Sure Start centres within a 15 minute walk from my house, and loads of other community centres etc. You absolutely don't need a car and there are loads of school friends and playdates on your doorstep if you attend a local school. I loved it (and will return). We left London as our SEN child needed to attend a specialist school (only one of it's kind in the country and actually we wanted a change). I love living in the countryside too... but I would have hated to be here with babies/very small children, forced to use a car to get anywhere etc. I also miss having so many different kinds of friends and bumping into people when you are out and about.

I would have thought a car was more of a disadvantage than something to aspire to, unless you have parking spots at home, work and other places you need to go.

Congestion charge, traffic, lack of parking, high insurance rates would all make running a car in central London inconvenient and expensive.

Plus with affordable public transport that actually provides a functional service, not having a car is not such a hardship. You can always hire if you need to for holidays etc

Grimbelina

I appreciate what you are saying about country folk not understanding the benefits of city living, but by the same token maybe you don't fully understand the benefits of rural life with small children.
I grew up in a rural enviroment. I moved to the city as a young adult and loved it, but when I had children I wanted them to grow up in the countryside. I wanted them to be able to run out of the front door, in safety and feel the thrill of independance at a young age- as I had done.
Miles of vast open space, acres of native woodland.
It was a safe community. In the absence of surestart centres people relied on their own resources. Small villages often have a surprising amount of activities. We had yoga, coffee mornings, baby toddler groups most mornings, a few musical groups. Every month a cèilidh would be held in the local village hall, with live music- I would know every single person attending.
Small village life was safe, my kids would run out to the woods and play in a group with other local children with clean air and no hazards from traffic. All the adults would look after other children and watch out for safety.
Play dates were unheard of, children would run out and knock of the doors of their friends, gathering a bunch to go look for conkers or visit a classmate who was handrearing the smaller lambs in the ktchen.
A small village meant a small country school, often lessons would be taken outside on warm days.

I know there are benefits for children in the city, but there are also benefits and huge freedoms for children in the countryside.

speakout

I also lived rurally until I left for University... so rurally in fact that there was only one other child around my age nearby and my mother had to ferry me around for years.

Your experience is rather different to mine and SEN complicates things further. A disabled child may well not be able to access the kind of childhood you are describing... but in London so much more was accessible to them. Possibly even more importantly, they met a much more diverse group of children including other children with similar issues so they felt much more included and less isolated.

I had a wonderful childhood in many respects and my children now have aspects of that... but I definitely don't think their London experience is 'lesser than'.

London is really a series of small villages and many families happily live in their 'village' and children do just knock on doors and meet their friends, chat to neighbours... the park replaces the woods. It didn't feel significantly less safe either.

@speakout

DH and I both grew up mega rurally.
I had the ideal village life with ponies and dogs and fields to run around in.

But the defining feature was being in the car all. The. Time.
30 min drive to school, 30 min drive to swimming lessons, 30 min drive to brownies.
I didn’t do many other clubs because they either didn’t exist, or my parents couldn’t face yet another half hour drive to get us there.
Cinema trips were a twice a year luxury because that was a 45 min trip!

By the time I was a teenager, I was bored out of my mind. All me and my friends did was drink cheap cider or smoke cheap pot because there was literally nothing else to do.

DH’s experience was largely similar but with fishing instead of horses, and booze stolen out of their parents house because he didn’t even have the luxury of a friend with a dodgy older brother who would buy booze for them like I did...
But there was either nothing to do, or it required a long drive to get there.

It’s a stark contrast to our DC in zone 2 London.
School, swimming, a huge adventure playground, free tennis courts, free cricket nets, an athletics track, a boating lake, a zoo, a 30 acre wood with forest school - all within a short walk of our house
The museums and landmarks are 30 mins away

We are completely adamant we will stay in London to raise our family because I genuinely think it is safer place for teenagers than the casual drinking, drugs, sex alternative if we were in a rural area.

And best of all, I can walk to the pub and meet my friends for a couple of glasses of wine when I’ve had a bad day.
My parents rarely did, because it meant one of them had to drive..!

@CatAndHisKit well I am a bit unsure what's happened. I guess that lockdown has made me really enjoy being at home and walking in the local area, and it has made me want more! I want a bigger house, a bigger garden, and more countryside to explore, and I can't afford that in London.
I could afford to live somewhere coastal and come back for weekends to go to exhibitions and visit all our old stomping grounds.
I am over 50 so will have to think about where I want to retire to, and London is so very convenient, we might end up back up here. Maybe a genteel little flat in Blackheath!
London is amazing, but I feel like I've had enough of it for the time being, and would like a break...

Why not buy this castle?

search.savills.com/property-detail/gbedruedr190005

RoSE yes, I understand - I thought you meant London has changed in a way. I keep hearing that boho areas are diminishing and not what they were and people are now looking for that in Devon!
I've felt the same - like I needed a break after being in London for 20yrs, but it was more to do with ever increasing crowds - 10yrs back it did feel quite cillagey in places, but later on it's just relentless crowds everywhere, transport slower as aresult, plane noise. So I went to Bristol for a couple of years - a great place but wasn't a 'keeper' for me, I thought people were too introverted for want of a better word, I mean stivjong in their small groups rather than mixing.

I'm now in the Midlands - I've only moved with a view to being in London every month for weekends, but of course last year was a washout. I would def go back to London if I had a lot of money - like you I was tired of the lack of space in a flat even though it was an upmarket area, I live in a house now (not detached but good size),
So I think I would go back at some point, but not to live anywhere tiny anything tiny - but I would be happy with a large top floor 2-bed in good area - which is £££ so unaffordable atm.
It's mainly the cultural stuff/events and buzz (at times) I'm missing. I'd want to have a bolthole somewhere scenic out of London though - so its all a theory so far.

*villagey, not 'cillagey'

I love that castle on that link.

[quote RoSEbuds6]@CatAndHisKit well I am a bit unsure what's happened. I guess that lockdown has made me really enjoy being at home and walking in the local area, and it has made me want more! I want a bigger house, a bigger garden, and more countryside to explore, and I can't afford that in London.
I could afford to live somewhere coastal and come back for weekends to go to exhibitions and visit all our old stomping grounds.
I am over 50 so will have to think about where I want to retire to, and London is so very convenient, we might end up back up here. Maybe a genteel little flat in Blackheath!
London is amazing, but I feel like I've had enough of it for the time being, and would like a break...[/quote]
I think we all end up missing what we have compromised on. I have been incredibly grateful during lockdown that we live rurally and have a dozen very different and beautiful country walks from our doorstep. They have kept us sane during the last year.

But I miss London so badly. I don't want to retire to Devon and come to town a couple of times a year to see a show. I want to live in London and go to galleries and theatres and concerts every single week, to try out new tiny cafes when they spring up, and visit different markets each week, to hang out at free festivals and open air cinemas and lidos in the parks in summer. To walk through streets where people from all over the world work and socialise happily together. To know I can find like-minded souls to hang out with. Where we are now is white and Daily Mail and curtain twitching.

I still think London is the most vibrant city in the world - certainly the best of all the ones I've visited, and I can't wait to get back to it. If I could I'd retire to London, but DH wants the country and London is too expensive for us to afford anything more than a flat or tiny ex-council house, so we will probably end up in the countryside.

But it doesn't have to be one or the other. There's a whole world between London and rural Devon.

Why not live in or around another large city where you can afford a decent sized property in a nice area and have access to all the cultural stuff, cafes, bars and restaurants, parks, lidos etc etc as well as countryside and quick access to London for day trips or weekend breaks if you can't afford to live there full time?