Ballater/Braemer doable or too expensive?

[Treesandsheepeverywhere]

Hi, anyone know/live in or around Ballater or Braemer please help.

We are planning a move with a 300k budget for possibly a detached/semi 2 bed.

Is this realistic and which place is better?

Londoners all our lives with lots of country breaks, so love the countryside but have only ever done 2 weeks max.

Favourite places are Northumberland, Lake District & the Yorkshire Dales.
Love outdoorsy activities and are both big walkers and cyclists.

YABU - Boring villages with nothing for that budget.
YANBU - Go for it, you may find a gem and learn to love the different pace of life.

What about being closer to the A9 for getting to places? Newtonmore and Kingussie are lovely, have that rural feel without being so remote.

We won't mention we're from London 😅.

Never heard of those, will look into them too. Thank you.

The other thing to bear in mind is that there’s no train service to that neck of the woods so you’re reliant on driving or buses and it’s still a good distance to Aberdeen airport. It’s a very different ball game going on holiday for a week to living that lifestyle full time all year round. There’s many beautiful areas that would be less of a culture shock from London life.

We have lived in Deeside for 9 years. We are pretty outdoorsy and love the summers. As previous posters have said, winter can be brutal. Aberdeen is an hour’s drive away for us so work opportunities are limited. Schools are not well funded and some have had not so great reports. Childcare is limited. However, I walk my dog every day and still think how lucky I am to live here. I am glad spring is here though!

You’re getting a lot of negativity OP.
Life is for living. If you’ve considered it thoroughly then do it. Definitely rent for a year though. If you hate it, you can easily move on to the next place.

Conversely - in the summer it gets dark at 11pm and light about 4am!

Good local transport - hourly bus into Aberdeen where there are great travel links - airport, train station and ferries to the islands.
Quite a number of great independent cafes and restaurants in the area. Just further along - about 12 minutes drive from Ballater is Aboyne - the doctors' surgery is amazing - a call back usually within a couple of hours and I've been seen same day for non-emergency.

Good art scene - a number of art workshops locally.
Fantastic countryside - the Deeside Way, the River Dee and its fishing. Lots of hillwalking and Munro bagging.
No where near as many midges as the west coast.
Gorgeous scenery - great place to live and like anywhere there are downsides as others have mentioned.

Look at ASPC and Right Move.

What’s going on with The Fife Arms @Herdinggoats?

Can you take the time to explore a bit more of Scotland to see what suits?
A London acquaintance of ours has just moved to a stunningly pretty ( quite English looking!) village called Dirleton near to North Berwick. Country lifestyle but not remote with Edinburgh close enough.
Whole East Neuk of Fife is full gorgeous places.
Perthshire is wonderful too.
I've always fancied Nairn - very temperate climate for Scotland due to Gulf Stream.

Completely off bat, but if you want a suggestion why not try the ‘other Deeside’ on the Cheshire /wales border.
you’d have all the benefits of being semi rural, access to hills/mountains/sea, but still be in easy reach of culture if you needed it - in Chester/Liverpool/Manchester.
property is very affordable too.
this is one picked from rightmove that might give you enough ‘rural life’ but without being too extreme.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140845988#/?channel=RES_BUY

We moved from near a city in the midlands to western Aberdeenshire three years ago. From a house in the town centre to a very rural home in what is considered a very difficult area even for the local farmers.
If you are willing to embrace it, and you really do love the quiet and amazing scenery, then why not? Oh and we got 2acres and farmhouse with outbuilding for £300k.

An hourly bus service is not good local public
transport 🤣🤣

It really is for rural areas!

Dirleton is lovely @EvelynBeatrice but not particularly affordable,. I don't think there's anything on at the moment there for less than £550000. There's also a lot of new estates being built (and all through east Lothian to be honest) without the services necessarily being in place yet.

It most certainly is for country areas.

I lived in Devon and we had a once a week bus service.

I’m from Banchory originally, what about some of the outlying villages? Finzean, Strachan, Crathes etc. Aberdeen isn’t a small city but it is compared to London!

Some hope 🙏, thank you. Did you move from a big city?

Thank you, looking into fishing as a new activity to try.
Aboyne been mentioned a few times so will look there too.

Encouraging, thank you and what a bargain!

Thanks, that would be like sticking to Dorking as would give us access to London life with rural life on our doorstep. But even that isn't rural enough, hence looking into Scotland.

I moved from Brighton to the tiny village of Fortrose on the back isle (just north of Inverness) when I was 13. It is absolutely wonderful.

I get that totally. DH and I love love love Skye. Holiday there every year. But would not want to live there, the winters would drive us bonkers I think!

Might Inverness area appeal to you?

I agree with PP who suggest renting for a year to try out the lifestyle. Rural life is not for everyone and living remotely is very different from visiting on holiday.

The last time we were in Braemar in summer the midges were unbearable (have spent a lot of time in the west highlands and not seen anything like them). We could not use the garden of the house at all and were bitten to death packing the car at the end of the week. We could only go out on windy days but were there in a heatwave. It’s a very nice place but I wouldn’t want to live there, too small, too far from anything. While we were there the internet connection for the village went down for a few days as well.

@Yorkiepud2614 , wow, that's a big leap! 👏.

@KimberleyClark , thing is, every single time we visit, we wish we lived there.

I get the practicalities may be very far removed from our expectations and have spoken to DH about that then turning it into a not so special place.

A lot to ponder from this post.

@NeedToChangeName ,

PP have suggested renting, we've sold our London flat and currently renting in South West London but feel ready to commit somewhere.

Had looked to move by early 2020 before covid put paid to that. So we're over it all now and just want a forever home.