Moving from North London to Kent areas

[Femster]

Hi,

We are currently living in North London and are looking at buying our first property. We have 3 Children, aged 10, 2 & 9 months. We are toying with the idea of buying a 3 bedroom with a budget of about £270k max.

We are exploring the option of moving to Kent areas, having looked at Maidstone firstly but from there we are seeing lot of other areas that seem to be quite good.

So I guess my post is for advice about where to search as it's getting confusing just looking at property websites.

1. Good Schooling
2. Safe and family friendly areas (low crime rate)
3. Decent commuting times

Hello! Look for a town on the high speed link. Ebbsfleet is dire, so would avoid. But there's Gravesend, Rochester and the other Medway towns, then it stretches down to Maidstone, but also Canterbury etc. It's an expensive commute though.

Thanks. I don't mind the commute price I guess as long as the family are happy and in decent schools.

I hear a lot of bad things about Medway towns, anything wrong with them?

If you're looking at Medway, the nicest town is Rochester. Strood is okay, the town centre isn't great but you're right next to Rochester. Avoid other Medway towns...

Commute can work out to be £400-£500 a month for Ebbsfleet, Gravesend, Medway... it goes up further down the line you go...

You could get a decent 3 bed house in Medway for your budget but there are some areas you need to avoid given you want somewhere safe to bring up your DCs. There are some good primary schools and several grammar schools in Medway.

It all depends on which part of London you need to get into. The high speed line goes into Stratford Int and St Pancras. It is much faster and there are stations served from Ebbsfleet, Gravesend, Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and beyond. If you get on after Gillingham or at Ebbsfleet you will be standing the entire journey. Other London stations served are Canon St, Charing Cross, Victoria and Blackfriars (with all the others in between). Again you are likely to stand for the entire journey if you get onto the train after Chatham, and many of these journeys are 1 hour +. The rail fares and parking remain roughly constant as you move away from London, with the train fare getting cheaper and the parking becoming more expensive (its a nightmare!)

Many of the schools in the Medway towns are good, but in popular areas like Rochester they are over subscribed and you may find it difficult to get your child into the school you desire. The range of secondary schools available is quite broad, you have mixed, single sex, comprehensive and grammar (where children take the 11+ / school entry exam in Sept of Yr6).

When we were looking for a property in Medway we looked at the distance from the train station and parking. Close to the train stations the parking is often permit holder only, and many residents regularly complain about how awful the on-street parking situation is.

Good Luck, I'm sure you will find something lovely. Feel free to reply and ask more specific questions, I have lived in the Medway towns for many years.

EmRowe3...Thanks for the reply.

I should have updated the topic but we found a house in Lordswood Chatham, right next to Walderslade. We are in the final stages of the purchase. Like you said the only real issue is that it is 3 miles from the station, so we will have to work out a solution for that but the buying price was very reasonable considering we don't have much work to do on the property.

The other hiccup we have had is that we missed the Medway declines for Grammar schools last year (we didn't know we would move to this area) and we were not allowed to apply for any Grammar schools. This has meant we had to settle for another school.

Thanks for the replies.