To be so clueless about London

[rehomeme]

I've lived in London for most of my life, mostly north of the river. Post-childhood, in variety of mostly unsatisfactory places, either very small and up loads of stairs and in a decent neighbourhood or with more space but in middle of effing nowhere. In the other cities that I've lived in, both in the UK and abroad (US, Berlin, Cape Town) everything about housing has been much easier!

We're looking to move house from a small 3 bed house in Shepherd's Bush (which we own) to anywhere in West/S Weat London or maybe even Metroland sort of suburbia, provided DH can get in to the Tottenham Court Road/ Holborn area within 45 mins, ideally in 30 mins. I need to commute twice a week to Oxford and accept that might take a couple of hours driving, but still need to be on west side of city, OR within easy reach of Paddington.

What we're looking to find is a big garden, 80 foot + (ideally more) and not very narrow. (Not the sort of 16 foot skinny but long garden you get with some Victorian terraced houses.) Three bedrooms would be OK, four would be better. Not too many stairs (DM stays with us a lot and has mobility problems). Maybe a flat in a big house?

We have a child in reception and a toddler, so also keen to find somewhere with good primary schools. (The reception child currently goes to a private school so that's an option, but would prefer state.) Most of all, a good sense of community. Where we lie now is relatively expensive but basically a triangle of four streets of small Victorian cottages bounded by a massive shopping mall and a main road, and the population is totally transient.

We would ideally spend under 2m but could spend up to 2.5, which I realise is a large budget (much larger than we have had before). That's why my cluelessness astonishes me. We inherited some money and thought we would be able to move somewhere we really liked, given that we were going to spend twice as much money on a house. But I am failing to identify anywhere! The main areas I've been looking at are the Alphabet Streets in Fulham (but gardens small), East Putney (ditto) Queen's Park (but schools seem rubbish and nice houses are getting out of our price range), and Ealing (lovely houses but area seems pretty soulless and centre is grim).

People of Mumsnet, I am truly grateful for ideas. Tell me about where you live, if you love it.

This is just an stealth post. Why are you asking Mumsnet when you have a slew of estate agents with extensive experience willing to help you?

What's the unreasonable bit?

Near Turnham Green Chiswick /Hammersmith borders.

For southwest London, I would suggest Barnes , Richmond or even Twickenham (it’s a 20 min train journey in to Waterloo or a 3 min train to Richmond to switch to the underground) We are in one of these places and it’s good links in to town and good housing with great schools (local state are all outstanding and local private are excellent).
2.3 would get you this

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-92636645.html

Same for Richmond but with benefit of tube and train

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71516223.html

Op you would be better buying a lovely 150k house in Scotland, you both give up working and you can be with your small children 24/7! Live off your house sale and the interest generated! Spending 2.5 million on a house is crazy, you'll be spacing away to pay off mortgage and miss your children growing up! In my opinion, this post is madness!

Op - if you're paying 2.5 million you should want a private garden - not a nice communal one! 2.5 million!!!!! Communal garden? ! I can't believe this thread is for real?

Slaving away not spacing! Hahah

The commute from SW London to Oxford is not great (I did it for a year from Putney and then Wimbledon area). If you're driving, the traffic's often very bad and if you're taking public transport, you have to trek round to Paddington. Might be ok if you were living very near the train/tube, otherwise it's a bit of a pain and I always had to leave at least 3 hours for it.

You really need West London or further out in that direction. I have friends who live in Ealing and love it, but maybe that's not enough of a change for you? There's some beautiful houses there in or just over your budget, but I think you do have to be careful about where you buy around there (though I'm afraid I don't know the ins and outs as I'm not from there):

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-78382604.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-94206059.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-81060196.html

The garden's the sticking-point...How big is big enough? I'm programmed to think anything with space for a trampoline is huge, but if you want a vegetable patch, greenhouse and football pitch, you might have to look further out.

I grew up in Wimbledon so love it, but to get to Oxford by car would be an absolute nightmare. You need to get to the M25 or M4 and both can take over an hour. The A3 gets really busy and if you try to avoid it and go through Roehampton/Brentford/Kew, you get stuck in that too. Tooting would pose the same issue. However, it does only take 30 minutes direct to Paddington on the District Line. My mother has a large house in Wimbledon (loads of stairs) but the garden is the size of a stamp.

In that area, Wandsworth/Chiswick/Hammersmith would provide a better commute to Oxford by car, though Chiswick would be a roughly 55 minute commute, whereas Hammersmith would be more 30 to 35 minutes ish.

There will need to be a compromise somewhere. Your comment of wanting a large but not skinny garden made me chuckle as it describes mine. I'm in an Edwardian terrace, and mine is 90 foot long but about 16 foot wide.

If you are prepared to sacrifice having ANY private garden to live in a flat, would you not then consider a smaller garden to have it private for your children? That seems like the most reasonable compromise as it makes sense to keep commutes as easy as possible, not compromise on stairs for your MIL health or bedrooms for her to stay. Your DC won't care if your garden is wide, skinny, 80 foot or 40 foot. Mine are 9 and 7 and they're either on the trampoline, on the slide/climbing frame, or hanging over the fence to talk to the boy next door. We had a 150ftx40ft garden when they were the same age as yours. They only used the 40ft closest to the house. They never went further than that really. A friend locally has an insane garden. Wraps around the house and they have a ride on mower. Her DC use the section that houses the trampoline and play house. Never bother with the rest of it. Its lovely but a lot of maintenance.

Should have said Chiswick will be 55min for your DH.

I am sure I posted this last night but it seems not to have appeared on the thread. Use a professional house hunter. Yours is the exact sort of search they exist for. London is vast and with your budget you can afford a decent property in all but the most expensive areas. Mumsnetters are all going to have favourite pet areas and so the suggestions they give you will become overwhelming. So just find one good relocation agent and give them the headache. You can certainly afford it.

Have you looked at the Bedford Park conservation area near Turnham Green
tube? Some (not that many) of those houses have big gardens and the location works (especially for late nights, as that’s when the Piccadilly stops at the station, which makes it a lot quicker than trundling along on the District line).

you could get a lovely house in Kentish Town or Tufnell Park see here for that. Which would be perfect for your DH, and your children (good state schools in LB Camden ) but less so for your commute to Oxford.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-67880568.html also here]]

[[

It’s a different world. Lol.

Op I think there isnt really that kind of housing stock you seek, within your budget nearer Central London (especially the garden) + given your location constraints... in SE london where I live you could find the house but not your location needs. Places like barnes, wimbledon you might not even get to holborn in 45 minutes (also a pain to drive to oxford).

I'd go with Ealing or west hampstead and you might need to wait a bit for the right property to come up.

Personally with a child I'd be looking at Berkshire or Buckinghamshire, you'll get massive houses for 2.5m there but you could spend under 2m and definitely get lovely gardens further out of London (since it seems important to you) and relax the commute criteria

Yabu

If you got SE London you could get a 6 bed detached house, rather than a flat.

@rehomeme
I think it's worth calling the agents in and around Wandsworth Common. Bellevue Road is a 5 minute walk from there, home of Chez Bruce etc, worth going there and getting a feel for it. Try Rampton Baseley, they are very helpful.
I'm no estate agent but today market is a very different type of market, ie fears of Brexit plus a global recession/depression in the pipeline.
Point being, I don't know if you could get it for £2.5 but I do think there are deals to be done depending on why people are selling. Cheeky offers are being made and also being accepted. Some houses are being priced unrealistically high. You never know.
Those roads (Loxley, Frewin, Lyford etc) are all lovely, decent gardens, some are large but plenty in and around the 2000-2500 mark so not too enormous but decent footprints/gardens with lots of lateral living rather than the skinny terraces/tiny gardens of Northcote and Fulham.

Thanks so much everyone. Apologies to people who feel annoyed by the post; I'm getting lots of great tips from others, though.

I know someone who lives in Grove Park in Chiswick and has a ridiculously nice garden. That would be perfect but there are very few houses on her street and none are for sale. I am really looking (practically) for street by street advice. I've noticed that sometimes houses backing on to allotments or (maybe less ideally) railway lines in zone 2 have much larger gardens than the surrounding ones. It is this kind of country in the city thing I'm looking for, ie a big peaceful garden with a wide variety of shrubs and plants where my children can spend whole weekend afternoons roaming round, and I can lie on a rug and read and we can eat outside. I lived in a small flat once in Notting Hill and made a huge amount of use of the communal garden, but I'm not quite sure how welcome children are in these...

I don't want to live outside zone 2/ borders of zone 3. I have always lived in big cities, I like cities, I like nightlife, people-watching, the theatre, shops, restaurants, lots of people around me, and being close to everyone I know. I don't want to live in Edinburgh, rural Scotland, or any other lovely place in the countryside, thanks very much. I want to live in moderately central London and to have a bigger garden. That U bit is how hard this is to achieve (without being stupidly rich, I realise we are very lucky) because of the way the city is built and, now, protected! We are a much smaller household than a 19c family plus maid, so we don't need such a big house or so many rooms, but we would like more garden.

If possible I would like to be able to cycle into town or take the bus rather than the tube. Ealing really doesn't appeal, sorry. Bedford Park would be good, I think, but all of the houses (many extremely nice, in Bedford Park estate, and getting out of our price range) seem to have small gardens. And it's starting to be a long cycle ride. South of the river I don't know well enough. Barnes is lovely but would be a problem while Hammersmith Bridge stays closed. Trains to Waterloo are pretty useless if you want to go to Oxford. But anywhere in south London near a station with a short journey to Paddington would be fine; I think Lambeth or Waterloo would be fine commutes, but I don't know the areas at all. Kensal Rise I will keep looking in. Wandsworth is a good suggestion, though not sure about commuting west. Maybe somewhere in east London via crossrail to Paddington?

I think you did get a lot of unfair stick rehomeme. If staying Zone 1 I would suggest not just looking with access to Paddington for Oxford. You can now get to Oxford from Marylebone too. Slightly quicker journey and Marylebone is much less chaotic than Paddington.

(Paddington and Marylebone are very close to each other though so might not make much difference really)

Chiswick?

I live on Castelnau in Barnes and wouldn’t recommend it. Barnes is not on the tube, there’s one main line train station just outside of town, and only one road leading into London which goes over a bridge which is closed indefinitely. The traffic jams are insane. Beautiful area and great community feel but commuting is impossible.

@rehomeme

Thanks so much everyone. Apologies to people who feel annoyed by the post; I'm getting lots of great tips from others, though.

I know someone who lives in Grove Park in Chiswick and has a ridiculously nice garden. That would be perfect but there are very few houses on her street and none are for sale. I am really looking (practically) for street by street advice. I've noticed that sometimes houses backing on to allotments or (maybe less ideally) railway lines in zone 2 have much larger gardens than the surrounding ones. It is this kind of country in the city thing I'm looking for, ie a big peaceful garden with a wide variety of shrubs and plants where my children can spend whole weekend afternoons roaming round, and I can lie on a rug and read and we can eat outside. I lived in a small flat once in Notting Hill and made a huge amount of use of the communal garden, but I'm not quite sure how welcome children are in these...

I don't want to live outside zone 2/ borders of zone 3. I have always lived in big cities, I like cities, I like nightlife, people-watching, the theatre, shops, restaurants, lots of people around me, and being close to everyone I know. I don't want to live in Edinburgh, rural Scotland, or any other lovely place in the countryside, thanks very much. I want to live in moderately central London and to have a bigger garden. That U bit is how hard this is to achieve (without being stupidly rich, I realise we are very lucky) because of the way the city is built and, now, protected! We are a much smaller household than a 19c family plus maid, so we don't need such a big house or so many rooms, but we would like more garden.

If possible I would like to be able to cycle into town or take the bus rather than the tube. Ealing really doesn't appeal, sorry. Bedford Park would be good, I think, but all of the houses (many extremely nice, in Bedford Park estate, and getting out of our price range) seem to have small gardens. And it's starting to be a long cycle ride. South of the river I don't know well enough. Barnes is lovely but would be a problem while Hammersmith Bridge stays closed. Trains to Waterloo are pretty useless if you want to go to Oxford. But anywhere in south London near a station with a short journey to Paddington would be fine; I think Lambeth or Waterloo would be fine commutes, but I don't know the areas at all. Kensal Rise I will keep looking in. Wandsworth is a good suggestion, though not sure about commuting west. Maybe somewhere in east London via crossrail to Paddington?

I don't know where to start...you have so many elements in your criteria...

You said you are "looking for street by street advice". That's the clearest thing I've seen from your posts.

Well with your 2.5m budget why not actually pay someone who can give you that advice? Seriously.

Someone like Garrington would be brilliant for you. You could tumble out all your 'concerns' and criteria to a patient representative from their firm, and they'd be able to tell you about properties that actually aren't ever going to come onto the market.

Garrington or their equivalent could actually target Grove Park in Chiswick for you. You could have a dedicated search person. They could save you money along the way, in that you're not having to deal with overvalued properties from estate agents, you have a broker acting in your interests etc.

Of course, doing that isn't as fun as getting some Mumsnetters worked up due to your budget etc. So if that's more important, please crack on, ignore my advice.

N.B I am NOT a property broker or have any connection to such people.

I was making a joke OP sorry it it came across cheeky.

I'm literally just outside london. It's a lot less stressful here. No hustle and bustle but still a busy town. If I had 2 and a half mil I would definitely be considering outer london. London is becoming more dangerous. I lived there for a while but left to bring up the children with my Dh. We are still able to come for family outings to natural history museum and whatnot. But I'd rather be outside london. You would honestly get a lot more for your money of you moved to outer london even areas in Surrey and hampshire or Buckinghamshire. But I remember you said something about needing to be close to your husbands work as well as Oxford.
I hope you get yourself a lovely home to put your stamp on it where you and your family will be happy. :)