Where do you get more for your money? Horsham/Wallingford

[Wheze]

we are moving out of London and just trying to figure out which commuter area to move to. Thanks in advance. I’m a Northerner so clueless!

And which do you think is nicer?

I only know Horsham and it’s very nice, half a million would get you a decent four bedroom house.

A quick search for both areas (for 3 beds, 1 bath) seems to show that Wallingford is cheaper for roughly similar properties. But, Horsham has a station (to London Victoria, 1hr); from Wallingford you'd have to drive six miles to Didcot Parkway (around 20mins on a good day) for a train to Paddington (40-55 mins).

Both nice enough towns, depending what you're looking for. It's probably best spending a few weekends poking around both places, including doing the train journey.

The main intel I can give you on Wallingford is that it has a gold standard Waitrose. More seriously, it’s also got lovely river walks, a nice little library, a very sweet independent bookshop, and a large antiques shop. I know nothing of Horsham.

They’re quite different areas? As I’m sure you’re aware. So unless you literally only care about number of bedrooms etc, probably worth thinking about e.g. would you rather have proximity to Oxford/the Chilterns, or Brighton/the South Downs/the sea? The vibes and probably the type of people will be different. Oxford is a small medieval city, would be lovely if it wasn’t so frequently overrun with tourists, will offer a good programme of classical music, literary talks etc, brainy international people, chances for candlelit concerts in college cathedrals if that’s your thing, but also is very small, arguably a bit uptight. I don’t know Brighton well but I’d guess livelier and better for clubbing and probably a more bohemian/alternative vibe but probably also frequently overrun with tourists. Proximity to the sea would be a big thing for me but it depends how you feel about that. Do you need to think about schools/potential future careers opportunities for kids etc?

They are quite different areas and directions.

Wallingford is very nice but not on a mainline train line. If you like that area you'd be better off looking at Twyford or Didcot or Reading for mainline. Or Henley or Pangbourne if you don't mind changing. Or just look along the Liz line.

Horsham also has the Thameslink, which is good for the City, connections north and the Eurostar.

Horsham has a Waitrose in the same building as John Lewis home shop!

Controversial, I know, but that wouldn’t be a selling point for me. In my experience Waitrose branches embedded in John Lewis stores are comparatively poor. By contrast, very large standalone Waitrose branches, such as Wallingford’s, usually include very useful capsule collections of JL Home ranges. Also, Wallingford has Champions, an aptly named old fashioned hardware shop offering a very good (and affordable) range of cookware, including handy things like paper liners for loaf tins and so on, a fairly extensive selection of toys/puzzles/Lego/stocking filler type gifts, gardening goods, and general hardware. I’d much rather do my home shopping there than in the JL in Oxford. (By the way, I don’t live in Wallingford, and I’m not sure why I’m hard-selling it on this thread, but Champions genuinely is one of those provincial treasures that survives in spite of Amazon and co simply by being really, really useful).