To leave this rural idyll for the Big Smoke.?

[QueeferSutherland]

Am I?

I live in a wee village in Hampshire, minutes walk from an "excellent/outstanding" school, a short drive from friends & family, but DH & I are thinking of moving to London.

Neither of us have lived there, but it would be good for DH's job, and I'd like to be, well, nearer stuff.

Are we mad?

I don't know how HA's work at all, but there is huge demand for housing in London - it really is bursting at the seams in most areas - that is why private accommodation is so expensive. Can you swap easily if there are long waiting lists for housing?

[No idea what I am talking about, but suspicious that life is that easy emoticon]

I didn't realize there was such snobbery between different zones in London !!

i grew up and live in london and am trying to move out. yes there are some lovely areas if you've got £1m+ to spend. and yes there are some very good state schools, but you've got to be bloody lucky to get into them as they are massively oversubscribed and not necessarily in areas you'd want to live in.

personally i'd live almost anywhere rather than stoke newington/hackney, especially with kids

It's not so much snobbery - it's just a different experience of life. I have always lived in zone 3 or further out. Pre-children I was prepared to jump onto a tube or train to get into the centre, and I can really remember the relief of hitting King's Cross after coming back from the provincial town where I was a student.

However, you do need to catch the last train home, and you can't catch a taxi back in an emergency. It may be cheaper to travel into the centre if you are using a local train, but it isn't necessarily faster. Post-children, I can do a South Ken museum trip for about £10, but I am not sure that we visit them more than people who come up to London for a visit in the holidays.

One thing I would say is that I would be far more nervous of bringing up teenagers in a rural area than in London.

I DOUBT VERY MUCH YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO EXCHANGE A HA house in london. they are like gold dust,plus most are not invery nice areas.
a family house in a good area would easily be 800k plus.
i would stay where you are tbh.

Crime is jsut not a problem round here generally though admittedly I would never leave the house/car unlocked as my family do in the sticks. We lived in Barcelona before where I used to see pickpocketing on a daily basis - there's jsut not that sort of crime here.

Where we move to next will depend largely on decent secondaries and reasonable hosue prices - a four bedroom house round here costs upwards of £800k (and that's with no garden/parking) and I can barely think of three non-selective state secondaries in the whole of London. So we are heading out but I will miss it enormously and I think the children will too.

HA houses are very difficult to find. You will most likely have to have a flat.

I dunno about teh housing association issue, but I do think you lot who think you have to have an £800k house in order to be happy in London are a bit wide of the mark. Most people I know with children in London live in houses and flats worth far far less than that and are perfectly happy even if they would like a bit more space

TSC who said my DH is on megabucks?
FFS, he is a chef which is why he works such long hours. And his pay is shite.
We are renting from a HA because we cannot afford to buy a sodding house in Hampshire or London.

Tatty - LadyBiscuit said you had to have £2m house to have a decent house in London.
Guess I must be living a life of abject misery in a crime-ridden ghetto, then .

Queefer, my neighbours' house is HA. It is exactly the same as my neighbours on the other side (we live in a terrace) and they just paid £600,000 for theirs and have a Jaguar parked in the drive. I think its great that we all reside side by side with each other.

See, Namey, we don't have that in the sticks.
Everyone knows you're inaffordable housing. I've had some nasty comments because of it too from the local NIMBYs.

Gordon Bennett, Queefer, you're not seriously considering moving to Fulham to avoid Bodeny alpha-mummies? Don't you know that Fulham is Bodeny Alpha-mummy central?

Tricky dilemma though. Housing is such a problem in London - if you could get that sorted it might not be such a bad idea. Schools can be good, but helps if you are religious and have the necessary certificates to prove it.

Actually if the HA swap thing is an option I would definitely look into it. Ealing sounds like a good idea. And maybe some of the nice bits further out like Kingston.

Many retired colonels though Zephirine?

I'm a big fat heathen too.

I'm prejudiced because I loathed Hampshire so much - I lived there for something like 3 years and never settled even slightly; there were lots of lovely things about it, I even had family and one good friend there, but I was allergic to it for some reason. YANBU for wanting to move out of there.

If your dh is a chef he must have awful hours? I should think reducing the commute must be a huge priority, commuting is so miserable.

I think you can be happier and more miserable in a city than anywhere. I was happiest (and most miserable) in Balham - don't know what it's like these days?

I think you could find a swap there must be lots of people who would want to relocate to hampshire.Not sure about the vitriol re HA I think you are v lucky to be living an affordable housing That is everyones right and there should be more of it good luck whatever you decide x

I'd love to move to a quiet little village in Hampshire, if there wasn't the small issue of work :(

I don't feel I have a good quality of life in London at all, find the noise and overcrowding and general anti-social behaviour very stressful. But then I'm the sort of person who likes peace and quiet and privacy and lots of outdoors space, don't particularly care about shopping etc (would rather do online) and for going out would rather go to a nice dog-friendly country pub with real ale than trendy City wine bars and restaurants. Lots of people love it here, depends on your personality type.

RockinSockBunnies Woodrose Just for interest, how much does it cost roughly for a 4 bed family house (not on a main road) in Muswell Hill or Ealing?

Hi Pink Elephant. It really depends on which part of Muswell Hill you are in. The roads off the bottom bits of Colney Hatch lane are much cheaper than the rest of Muswell Hill eg ex council houses for about £450k. I'm not sure whether these are in catchment for Coldfall (primary) or Fortismere (secondary). Closer to Muswell Hill there is a modern development (Osier Crescent)with houses around the £500k mark. I know people who live there and their children attend Coldfall school. Muswell Hill is known for its Edwardian architecture and an Edwardian house in central Muswell Hill will be about £800k upwards. There are pockets of "cheaper" houseing (£600k upwards), though, in the N22 post code - Victoria Road, Clyde Road for eg. Depending on which end you are on, you are within catchment for Rhodes Avenue (primary) and Alexandra Park (secondary). Both are excellent state schools.

I was brought up in London, still live here, and can't imagine moving out. I love having busy, bustling life all around me.

However if I had children and not much money, I would probably not choose to live in central (Zones 1-3) London. The nice bits are too expensive, and the cheap bits are too rough (for non-streetwise me anyway).

Zones 4 and outwards might work well - quick train or tube ride into London for the museums etc, more cosmopolitan than the country, but leafier and with more decent state schools than the centre. For example Kingston or Sutton.

I agree that Fulham is Bodeny Alphamummy central, and very expensive. Great if you earn lots; probably not so great otherwise.

Streatham Hill is a nice enough area in Zone 2, great transport links, great sense of community and if you are in the right roads, access to Outstanding primary schools and 2 very good secondary options.

this house or here or here or here would all get you into Hitherfield or Streatham Wells primaries, there are numerous toddler groups, nice parks, and street parties in some of the roads!

There are also much cheaper 3 bed houses in ex local authority properties in close proximity to these schools.

My DCs love living in London, and visiting the coast and country for holidays.

Minipie - there are loads of good state schools in central areas! They can be hard to get into if you are not right on the doorstep, but it is a myth that there are no good state schools. They are getting even better, too.
Location, location, location is replaced by Research, research, research!

Not at all! London is a brilliant place to live and to raise kids. There are lots of good schools, museums on your doorstep, major sights and the home of government, they get to mix with people from all over the world and from all walks of life if they go to their local state school, and even lots of the private schools offer cultural if not so much social diversity.
I don't think you have to be mega rich to have a comfortable life here. Nor do you need to leave in a really posh part of London to not worry about crime. Gangs etc effect those who are in the gangs, not the mum walking down the road with her baby in a pram. We live in east london, have gone out all day with the front door not just unlocked but wide open and the only thing that happened was our neighbour noticed and so moved the pot of potatoes she was peeling onto our doorstep and sat there for a while til we came home.
If you like London and you sense it is a place you'd like to raise your family - go for it. There is a lot of myth about London - don't listen!

We've just left Fulham ;-) For the price of our 4 bed terraced with no parking/tiny patio garden, we got a big 5 bed house with double garage/garden/study etc 5 mins country walk to a great primary in Surrey. We loved living in London - we'd both been there since leaving University, so some 18 years - but we wanted a bigger house, a good size garden for the DCs to run about in, and a good state school we didn't have to get religion for! There are several good state primaries in Fulham but they are all church schools, and we're not religious. We did look at Ealing but same problem with many of the schools - that may not be an issue for you of course.

DH still commutes to Canary Wharf, and that's entirely doable - Waterloo is only 30 mins from here.

We loved London, but we'd just got to a point where we both wanted a bigger house, a garage, and DH didn't want to pay for schooling - so it was time for us to move out.