To relocate up north

[StonwEd]

From East Anglia? Has anyone done it? Am I mad?
I’ve just spent yet another lovely week in the Lake District, greater Manchester and Derbyshire. We do this often although not as often as I would like due to very low holiday allowance.
Daydreaming a bit but also not really.
Kids all moved out, own my house outright, prob will sell for around £375k.
Enjoy my job but it’s crap money and hasn’t really got prospects but it is a field I’m sure I can get another job in and I’ve seen plenty of remote working jobs that are related (and better paid 🙄)
Husband is on board with this fantasy, he has a small business so can work anywhere.
I had kids very young so have lived in my home town all my life. Never left but always wanted to.
I’m 45 and I’m finally thinking it might be time. Financially as long as I get a job, we’ll be fine, and I’m so poorly paid as it is, shop or bar work will be fine to start with.
I’ve got a fair bit of savings and I’m thinking of travelling round the north for a couple of months, stay in local b&bs and to know some areas better before we take the plunge. I’d have to quit my job obvs but it’s a risk I’m starting to think is worth it…

And most importantly, where should we be looking? Want nature on our doorstep, but easy access to a town.

Try it, you can always relocate again.
Just make sure you buy in a decent area where the resale value of your property remains high. There are fantastic areas and very poor areas, and where you buy will shape your experiences and enjoyment.
I moved north, stayed a decade and then moved south again. I still often holiday in the north, but I love where I live now.
Research thoroughly. And remember it doesn’t need to be an irrevocable decision.

Lol 😂

Ridiculous

Dear oh dear, such ignorance 🙄

Oh are they? The entire North is poor is it?

I'd be looking at N Yorks, somewhere around J48 of the A1, specifically. There are some gorgeous villages.

I'm a southerner who loved living up north.

I found the North-east so much easier than the north-west because of the weather. Broadly, north is colder, south is warmer, west is wetter, east is drier. I was from the South-East and fine with the cold of the NE, or with the rain of the SW, but the combination of rain and cold in the NW is a challenge for me.

I am likely to have to live there one day and will be looking for somewhere which is so beautiful it still looks lovely in the rain! This is a big deal for me because I spend so much time outdoors. Twenty years ago my key-factor would have been about access to opera and ballet and galleries. You need to identify what matters to you, of course.

Quitting your job to explore the area seems risky though. It could take months for a purchase to go through, and for all that time you'd need to pay for your accomodation and for furniture to be in storage. You'd be in danger of burning through savings at an alarming rate.

I would do lots of investigating online, so that you can narrow down how many areas to explore. You can probably afford a much nicer lifestyle up there. You just need to be cautious when moving to a region you know little about - like anywhere else, there's good and bad.

The whole of the north is poor, dirty, unwelcoming and just a horrible place to live full time, especially those places that seem lovely on a quick visit.

(Northerner here, fed up of southerners moving up and then complaining about sheep in the garden, the stench at muckspreading time "shouldn't be allowed!" etc.)

I think this is a reverse!! How can any say that the whole of THE NORTH is poor. Maybe like me, 🙃we want to keep the nice places for ourselves 😉

Thisss !!!!

That's our plan in three years time. Leave the flat fens and go north.
You only live once so do it. What's the worst that could happen?
Good luck.

Where I live , we have lovely beaches, access to Wales and the Lake District, good schools … and three bed semi for £250,000. And no, not telling where I am 😉

Op lives in East Anglia, not Monaco!

Sure she can cope with the change.

What? The whole of the North? Behave.

‘The north’ is a pretty big area isn’t it
and yes we are all poor and uncultured and you can buy a house for 10p

or something…

To quote David Byrne in his song "Lazy" - "I'm lazy when I talk, I open up my mouth, Air comes rushin' out".

Wirral

I would do it, OP.

We live in Yorkshire and love it - I was born Yorkshire but have lived in various countries.

We live on a lovely quiet country lane but we have multiple lovely villages a stone's throw away. We can walk to Cannon Hall Farm (Channel 5 'On the Farm') in less than 30 mins and on to the lovely village it's next to, but then also drive to the centre of Leeds in 30 mins, too. And 30 mins in the other direction you'd be in the Peak District.

But we can also walk out of the front door and straight onto public footpaths through woodland, hills and fields, you can walk for hours without seeing a soul if you want that, or to a lovely country pub or restaurants, etc.

The downsides are relatively poor/sporadic public transport, the winter can be harsh - our lane doesn't get snowploughed for example, and you really need winter tyres in your car. Oh and you'd need to drive to anything much more than a local farm shop to buy anything.

Some other random options (I have no real idea what you want in a house or area! I just like browsing right move)

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143340449#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145721780#/?channel=RES_BUY (House might be a bit big, New Mills is much more commutable by train if you need to work)

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/146035793#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145694075#/?channel=RES_BUY

Or more to Sheffield side:

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/139002272#/?channel=RES_BUY

We did it. Suffolk to Cumbria.

Best decision I ever made.

OP some suggested places to base yourself for a holiday/research trips:

Delph/Uppermill/Saddleworth - all nice villages on the NE edge of the Peak District with lots going on locally and about half an hour from Manchester city centre.

Saltaire - World Heritage site/model village about half an hour outside Leeds, also accessible to countryside and local galleries etc.

Malton - Market town on edge of NY Moors, about 30 mins outside York. Yorkshire coast also accessible.

I know people cited Burnley as A Place No-one Wants To Live In but there's some lovely villages and countryside in the area, one of the country's best spas (Woodland), and it's not that far from many Booths branches, the supermarket that makes Waitrose look like Tesco.

I'm.off nxt year. County Durham here I come

Welcome 😁 whereabouts in CD?

Be prepared @StonwEd for this attitude.
I’ve moved around a bit in the south to coastal areas and the dislike and bigotry for anyone who dares to move away from where they were born is sometimes quite breathtaking.

I live outside Sheffield in a rural area. I would say house prices here have become astronomical in recent years compared to how it used to be (but I guess it’s the same anywhere!)- but 375k would still buy you a pretty nice house here.

We have lots of lovely countryside walks on the doorstep which is great for us as we have a big dog.

There are of course lots of poor/high crime areas in the city - but not everywhere “up north” is like that 🙄 FWIW I prefer it here to Bristol which is where I used to live. And it’s cheaper!

What?