Do you have to be a millionaire to live in the country?!?

[dreamsofacres]

There are so many reasons I want to live in the country. The main one is that I crave privacy and peace. A house with no neighbours.
Don't care about the state it's in, a fixer upper would suit me fine.
But around my area were talking millions. Any plots of land for sale come split in half so you have a direct next door neighbour.
I'm seriously looking at doing it in about 5 years when the DCs are no longer at nursery and we don't have fees. I own a house now but I don't think it would grow too much in equity.
I just can't see a way of doing it without winning the lottery.
I'm trying to get myself in the best financial position possible and have started doing prolific , but no joy on Appen or anything else.

But we had to move from the south of England to the north east of Scotland for it.

Lincolnshire seems really cheap, I have just been looking at houses there, it’s not for me but you could be lady of the manor there for not much money.

Move to France? Lots of expats selling up and you can get massive houses with land for under 100k.

Shiny you must be dreaming. The days of 30k houses in Wales are long gone. Unfortunately, many houses in Wales are being bought up by wealthy incomers for second homes. This is leading to the destruction of local culture/communities and diluting the Welsh language.

Just make sure that if you buy a run-down agricultural property and intend to extend into the adjacent land that you have purchased, it isn’t designated as agricultural land, meaning that planning permission is refused, as happened to my new neighbour who moved from London. Also that the price you pay reflects that. Unfortunately, I think that the farmer who sold it to them saw them coming.

“run-down rural property”

We moved from a 3 bed semi in Hampshire to a 3 bed detached house with 2 bedroomed holiday cottage in the garden in Pembrokeshire, just over 5 years ago for less money. Our nearest neighbours are 1/2 mile away and can't be seen from our house. We have fabulous views all around us, and almost an acre of garden. The nearest town is 8 miles away, and takes us just 15 minutes to get there, whereas in Hampshire the nearest town was 3 miles and it quite often took over an hour to get there! We have numerous beaches within a 30 - 40 minute drive, and absolutely LOVE it here! However, sadly will need to move soon, as I was disabled when we moved here, and my husband used to be able to care for me and run the holiday let, but sadly, he's now become disabled himself, and we can no longer run the place and cope with the garden as we would like. You're obviously relatively young, so I would highly recommend going for it while your children are small, as they really can have the best childhood in a place like this.

[quote dreamsofacres]@ShinyMe I would rather be fighting off mountain goats than dealing with other people [/quote]
Same here. We keep goats and compared to people next to us when we lived in urban Leeds, they are a joy. And I'll add Wakefield to that too.

Depends where and size/condition of property. Plenty of run down houses on a bit of land, if you want acreage then it's £££ unless in a cheaper part of country. I lived in a cottage and it was affordable on one medium salary

What's your budget @dreamsofacres ?

If you want to live in rural South East you do need a bit of cash, yes.

@ClareBlue oh GOATS normally are lovely. We used to keep Anglo nubians and they were wonderful.

When you have 40 wild mountain shaggy goats - males, females and dozens of kids - descending en masse to eat your garden and knock over your walls and try to headbut your dogs... not so much.

There are loads of beautiful houses in the country in Scotland for very reasonable prices. You can’t be looking very hard.

Depends what you mean by ‘country.’ If you mean rural, then we live in a tiny village where you can walk to views like this in 15 minutes. We are a two bed midterrace though and, despite the current price hikes, it would cost you £140/150k.

Doing prolific surveys isn’t going to get you where you need to be.

You need more income streams. Have you looked at matched betting? Reselling? Transcribing?

I live in Somerset and you don't need to be a millionaire to live in the country here. But you do need to have a car.

@Speakuptomakeyourselfheard I really am sorry to hear that 

I'm early 30's DH early 40's. we have two DC under 4 who both attend nursery so currently the bulk of our wages are going to the nursery, hence the 5 year plan.

Our budget is max £300k and that's pushing it.

To be honest I haven't looked in Scotland or Wales. I've kept the search to the north west, mainly Lancashire but only today did I think there's nothing keeping us here now COVID has made us remote work.

For the poster suggesting NI, my husbands family is from Belfast, he still has family over there, it's an option

@Daisychaincarrot I've looked at matched betting but it seems too good to be true. Reselling, you mean like clothes and things on eBay? I've done that and it didn't go very well! I don't have any formal qualifications for transcribing which I thought was necessary

No, plenty of cottages in unfashionable places. Look in less pretty villages. Look for tatty houses that need work.

My last three have needed rewriting, repointing, insulating, new doors and windows. Each has had a large garden, distant neighbours, peace, a view.

I love making neglected houses habitable again. It's not terribly child-friendly though.

*Our budget is max £300k and that's pushing it.

To be honest I haven't looked in Scotland or Wales.*

Scotland has plenty of cheap rural places, I paid 220k for mine, I live mega rural though which you probably won't want to do with kids, but there will be plenty that are close to villages or small towns.

Well obviously YABU to ask that as if all places in the country cost the same! I moved to a rural area in a different part of England, partly in order to be able to afford a bigger house because it's cheaper here. I live just outside the Lake District. It's fab!

Are you in Cheshire? That is expensive.

Go to Flintshire, just over the border in to Wales and near Chester, but very cheap.

You won’t get much in Wales for £300k that isn’t in a flood zone or with any prospects of decent internet for the foreseeable. Some properties look cheap but be very wary - they are cheap for a reason.

We are in North Northumberland, bought our 3 bed ex-forestry commission workers house for 100k. Medium size garden. No gas, only open fires for heating when we moved in though we've put a stove and back boiler in.

It's only feasible if you drive, can deal with things like being snowed in, no local shops etc.

I would really consider NI having read your post. You can get something gorgeous here for £300k if you can sort work out. We moved from Bucks and found schooling, doctors etc much less subscribed. We even managed to find an NHS dentist for the first time in our adult lives! We can be at the beach in 20 mins, mountains in 45 mins, Belfast in 20 mins or Dublin in a couple of hours. It's a great place to raise kids though I do suspect we will go somewhere a else once they've fled as I quite fancy living in a big city on continental Europe before I shed my moral coil

For now we are enjoying oodles of space, quiet and the kids love having the run of the place. It is a bit of a pain getting stuck behind a tractor or horse on the way to work but the traffic is certainly nothing like the A404 so I feel cool as a cucumber compared to my previous life.