Hoping to buy in Kent this year

[Smoothieyummy]

We are looking to buy our first home. We both live work in Canary Wharf and want a good base to commute door to door under 1 hour into central London /Canary Wharf for work. We just got married but are planning for expand our little nest. Call me crazy but I wanna make sure the area we move to will have good independent school and grammar school, yes I like to plan well in advance!

Our budget is

Dartford went through a low period when Bluewater was first built, it took a lot of business away from the town centre and for a number of years Lowfield Street has been an eyesore because of boarded up shops purchased by Tesco to build a supermarket which never happened. Now Tesco has sold the land and it is expected that residential property will be built on that site and Dartford has improved its shopping areas with Prospect Place. It has improved with better transport, the park, and new developments. Friends who live in Dartford are happy and don't feel the need to move. Its real strengths are the excellent rail and road links and some of the schools. Imo it will continue to improve and will increase in popularity as long as London remains the main source of employment for Kent residents, purely because prices are still affordable in Dartford and there is room to build. It is difficult to know yet if Brexit will lead to recession but if that does happen in the near future then negative equity is of course a possibility and is only helped by staying in the property long enough ride out any recession.

DBC are fab and there's a real community spirit in the dartford. I think the building of Paramount studios theme park in swanscombe will be great news for the area. Lots of jobs, hotels, restaurants etc

leeloy88, reading through your requirements in your first message, you should not dismiss the Tonbridge (Sommerhill by Redrow) option . They have good three beds in your range of 500-550. Also if you are looking for independent and grammar schools, there are plenty in tonbridge and around (sevenoaks and t-wells). Travel will be well under one hour. Also considering you do not have much time to explore, this will be a very safe move.

Hi GardenofEngland, thank you for the advice. Yes I have looked at Sommerhill green and it's very lovely, their 4 bed is a slight stretch to our budget but affordable. My only problem of Sommerhill is it's quite far from town and a little bit middle of nowhere (some people may like it I know, but we prefer to be closer to town). Its on my top list however, as it has a lot of potential and one of my close friends lives nearby as well so it's always a plus.

I've started to look further out and can see that Redrow (I love their new heritage collection homes) have 2 development in Marden, very close to the station. I'm planning to drive down this weekend to check them out.

What are people thoughts about Marden?
www.redrow.co.uk/developments/highwood-green-marden

We live in Marden, not on the new developments because we haven't got the budget, but the village is awesome! Very nice community, lots on for families :)

We're on holiday leeloy, otherwise you would have been welcome for a cuppa :)
The West End Tavern does nice food if you need a bite :)

@ByAllMeansMoveAtAGlacialPace

you mentioned there is a "short cut" from this location to the train station. Can you please elaborate a bit more as I wasn't able to locate it when I went there last weekend?

many thanks

breddi if you walk through Overy street, you see a Wickes: walk through the car park and you'll see some steps to a walkway, walk through there and turn right and the station is 30 seconds from there

Hi @breddi, was just wondering if you made a decision about moving to Dartford ?