Is it possible to live a country village life if you aren't rich?

[salviapages]

DH and I (together 11 years got together at age 14) have done lots of talking and soul searching and decided what we want is to live in a countryside village. Both raised in a city in Sussex. Inspired by another post on here today thought I'd post and ask...where is this possible??

We're from East Sussex so everywhere is expensive here but we'd be willing to live anywhere in the UK for the lifestyle we want. Both have jobs that can be done anywhere (teacher and dog walker). But as you can tell from our jobs, we don't have tons of money.

Is there anywhere in the UK where a nice country village life is possible without putting down hundreds of thousands for a 3 bed family home? How can we find where we want to start our family?

(I know lots of you will say we'll regret it with teenagers, we've considered this. May have to move when they get older but can still have over a decade of the village life we want)

I have lived rurally all my life and @YouWouldNotBelieve made me laugh.
But also OPs comments about selling candles and having a little bookshop did too, it's not a quint chick lit novel. You can have a normal job and live rurally. We have limited signal here and I'd say the most annoying thing is when we get texts in order to verify our account and we have to drive three miles to receive them!

@salviapages

Our budget would be about 220k. I think since COVID many more people share the dream we've had for years so prices will go up

Dog walker is currently doing courses in dog training and grooming as well to expand services and these also bring in more money than walking

I live in North Yorkshire and there is a massive demand for dog walkers (or was pre-COVID so presume there will be again). Our dog walker had to take us off her list as she was too busy with people who wanted regular walks and we only wanted adhoc ones when we couldn’t arrange for one of us to work from home.

It depends what you want from village life. I live in a group of 10ish houses just outside a village, and we have a massive sense of community. The children have a great amount of freedom and are always outside together. But, we have to drive or have a 30 minute walk into the village for the village store and post office. Or, the next village along has a few more pubs/restaurants, and the one after that has all the “proper” shops. So you have to work out what type of area you want to be in, even within a few miles.

£220k would be very tight budget-wise for anywhere nice near here though.

I think with the dog walking you might initially struggle to get going - where we are for example there’s one dog walker who is THE dog walker, the one everyone recommends and wants, and is always in demand. Several others have tried to set themselves up but they just can’t get the business and people can be very funny about “out of towners” coming and setting up new to the area. It might take longer than you think to get yourselves going- and that’s fine, just be prepared to take any job you can to keep yourselves going. I was a senior marketing manager in London and when I moved to Norfolk initially there wasn’t any work in what I wanted to do (luckily we owned our home outright so didn’t have mortgage or rent to worry about) so I just took anything I could to keep going - I ended up working in a rural bakery for 4 days a week on min wage, most of our customers were farmers and I learnt so much! I loved it.

Many villages currently have lots of new estates being in and around them. If you don't mind an estate you could probably find something and would be instantly part of a new community of "incomers", which is very useful to blend in quickly.
Chocolate box houses cost a lot more and often sell quickly to landlords keen to rent them out or let them for holidays.

We don't need a chocolate box cottage, really we're after a house with lots of outside space and that's near to the country. Wouldn't mind a new estate but the problem is they all have tiny postage stamp gardens! We want want nature and space more than a community

@jillycooperfun

I previously lived rurally for over 6 years. Never again. What are you implying?

@salviapages you need to look for ex council houses in villages. From what you say new
Builds won't have enough space for you.

Don't underestimate how long it will take to get to know the locals. Like another poster said new dog walkers around here never last very long.

Then there's the heating costs, might need to replace the roof on an old house, probably needing to update the rooms unless you want to live with a very outdated kitchen and bathroom unless you can find somewhere where it'd been modernised. replacement of light fittings and carpets. Re-doing wallpaper thats peeling off. Woodrot and damp. Living with a tiny boiler. If it's a small house with low cielings you wont get much light through the windows. Having to crouch to get through doorways. Hours travel in a car to get to a town.

[quote elbea]@Cheermonger auctioneers price properties like that low to draw people in, that will sell over guide.

You can get something like this in Cumbria - www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/82265607#/?channel=RES_BUY, it didn’t sell at auction. It’s an extremely isolated part of Cumbria though with a lot of poverty. Lots of the cheap houses in South Cumbria are rundown terraces around Barrow. I lived in the South Lakes and Barrow isn’t somewhere I’d wanted my children to grow up.[/quote]
Ha ha you’ve never been to skipsea then 🤣

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/116517404?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=buying&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=RES_BUY

This is what you can get in Northumberland for £275,00. Not sure exactly what your budget is.

There is a good Facebook group you could join called ‘Farms, Crofts, Smallholdings, Farmland and Forests For Sale’.

Most rural land agents use UK Land and Farms to advertise properties (for reference I am a Land Agent). You are better at looking for Land Agency firms like H&H and Bell Ingram that specialise in rural property. Your best bet is the islands for crofts but you’d be buying a tenancy. Mainland will be almost impossible currently if you want some land. This is the type of thing you’d be looking at for £260k - a derelict house with 2 acres in the remote Scotland.

Campsall and the surrounding areas in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Especially if you know people that way. Doncaster station is on the fast line down south also

I've lived very rurally, in London and in towns as well.

If I were you I'd rent for a year to make 100% sure it is the lifestyle for you. It all sounds great until you hit some of the disadvantages. Remember to budget for two cars, I'm assuming you both drive? If not, you'll need to learn.

I was going to say unfashionable Somerset. But surely it all depends where the teacher can get a job?

We live in a lovely rural village with a nice village pub on the Shropshire/Cheshire/Welsh border and paid around £200k for our 3 bed semi family home overlooking the fields.

Yes up north, parts of Yorkshire, teeside, and further north are reasonable outside of national parks. The better the transport links the higher the prices.

Scotland! Might end up being very rural though.. we viewed a few houses with very large gardens for 185k in Aberdeenshire but they were really out in the middle of nowhere

Look, I don't like letting people in on England's best kept secret but... the villages around Malvern are beautiful and reasonably priced. Shh.