Where would you live outside of London for £550k?

[Pestoandsun]

Hi all

DP and I are looking at buying a house outside of London, commuting in to work a few days a week. I work SW London on Waterloo train line (about 15 mins from Waterloo), he works in the City. I would commute in about 1/2 days a week but probably could wfh longer term, he currently is in office 3 days a week.

We have probably around £550k to spend, ideally 3 bedrooms so we’d have room to have proper home office setup, we’d like to be somewhere with a bit going on, some pubs/shops. I’d like to have a small garden. Ideally walking distance (which could be 20 mins) to train station. It would be nice to be somewhere with quite a bit of green space around, good hiking. I don’t want to be right in the middle of a really busy big town.

We both much prefer period properties to new build.

Does anyone have any ideas or live anywhere like this?

Ideally towards Bristol or south direction if pushed. We’d be having children in next few days so probably good schools but don’t know much about that yet!

Thank you!!

Takes forever to get into Waterloo from Wokingham by rail!

Bishop Storkford? Might not be in budget....

Not with that budget

I think people are missing a trick with Woking. Yes, the town centre is a bit grim but there’s actually a lot going on in the community - year round family events - and I like the fact that it’s more diverse than you tend to find in the surrounding areas like Guildford.

But getting past the town centre, the surrounding countryside is beautiful and there are some lovely areas to live. Plus the transport links are amazing. It might sound boring but when you commute to London or want to get into town for social stuff (nearly as quick as going to e.g. Guildford) then it’s 25 mins and you don’t need to think about train times because they run every few minutes. And if you fly very much it is 20
mins to Heathrow T5 on a good day, plus Gatwick and City are also way options.