Finding somewhere to live

[dominate2010]

Hi

I have a two year old and a 3 wk old baby and we are looking to move to somewhere in Hertfordshire but are finding it a bit of a nightmare finding a suitable area thats within our budget. We are living in a one bed flat in North London so we are looking for a more affordable area where we can buy a house.

My husband works in the city so we need somewhere that has reasonable transport links to London. Our budget is £315 max and we dont want to move too far from my folks who live in Borehamwood.

Can anyone suggest an area in Herts other than Borehamwood please? We decided against Borehamwood because of the lack of choice with schools (to make things even more difficult for ourselves we are looking for Catholic scools) We've looked at St Albans, London Colney, Shenley but the areas are too expensive or the roads we can afford are really rough. We just want somwhere thats pleasant to bring our kids up in but its so difficult!

Im not too sure what other surrounding areas are like, not sure whats chavvy and whats not...

Does anyone live in the Watford area? if so whats the nice bit and what are the schools like?

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Have you looked at Potters Bar? Easy to get to Borehamwood, good schools and transport links. Lived there for a very long time and still miss it after 6 years!

Hi

We have had a look on Find a Property but to be honest i don't know the area at all and its all a bit daunting. Which bits are the nicer parts? And by that i mean not to rough and child friendly? (sorry dont mean to sound snobbish, but we've have trouble with neighbours in the past and really don't want to go through all that again!)

Thanks

None of it is dire imo. Personally, if I was looking there now I wouldn't go for the area around Oakmere School or the Cranborne estate (both ex council estates) ... that sounds dreadful too! All the primaries are good, the Wroxham estate is nice and Wroxham School is excellent but you do need to be pretty much on the doorstep to get in. If you want to ask me about particular roads, you're very welcome to pm me if that helps. It must be really hard when you don't know an area. I would say though that you do need to go and see the schools as you won't stand a chance in getting into a lot of them if you are living on the other side of town, so you do need to know where you want to be.

Hertford? There is an Outstanding Catholic school there called St Joseph's, great commuter links and a nice, quiet town. x

I live in Watford and we love it here. There is a lovely sense of ommunity even though its quite a large town. The amendities are fantastic, as are the transport links. Lots of green space too. There is a great catholic school at the top end of Watford called Holy Rood

I was going to suggest Watford too. It's much nicer than I ever realised - it's got lots of amenities, great shops, a huge park with a lake (Cassiobury), good transport links with London and elsewhere, and a huge range of housing from the very expensive down to the very cheap and everything in between.