Relocating to London from Asia/US -- where should we stay?

[EverythingAllAtOnce]

Hello mums, hope you’re all doing well!

My partner and I are making a big move to London after five years in Asia and previously in the US. We have a lively 3-year-old son, a newborn on the way, and a friendly family dog, so we’re looking for a 3-bedroom rental with space for a nursery and some outdoors for the doggo. We’d love to be within a 40-minute door-to-door commute to Euston station, where our work will be.

Our budget is a (hopefully!) generous £3,500 per month but any tips on saving a few hundred would be helpful since we're expecting a new baby.

We’re considering neighborhoods both north and south of the river: Islington/Angel, Camden/Crouch End, Hackney, Putney/Wandsworth/Clapham, and Greenwich/Blackheath. Hampstead would be lovely but I fear that with today's rental prices it's out of our budget.

We’re trying to balance family life with enjoying London’s amenities—great neighbourhood restaurants and cafes, plenty of activities for the kids and easy access to shows and sights. Areas with outdoors green spaces, a vibrant community feeling and decent public schools for our older one who'll turn 4 next year is what we're after.

We’ll arrive in late November and we plan to use December to find a place to move into by early January. Since we’re abroad, visiting in person is pretty tough. If you know these areas well, we’d love to learn what you like about them, any sections or to avoid, what schools will be positive and any tips for finding properties outside traditional methods.

Thank you so much for any advice or recommendations!

Hi there, I live in Islington so I can talk a bit about Islington and Hackney. You should also look at Stoke Newington, slightly further north, which can be cheaper for the space, and at Highbury. There are some lovely big green parks - eg Clissold Park, Victoria Park - in the area.

I’ve lived all over N1 for the last 9 years - near Angel station, near the canal, near De Beauvoir and now up past Canonbury station nearer to Clissold.

N1 is a village, and it’s lovely seeing familiar faces around. I walk pretty much everywhere and almost everything I want is within 5km. For things further afield, there’s the Victoria line at Highbury station (which will take you to central London in 10-15 mins, and Euston in 5 mins), northern line at Angel, and the overground at Canonbury / Dalston. My area is filled with great cafes and restaurants, but is friendly for families too - lots of mums and dads with kids and buggies around. It’s also very diverse, both in terms of the local London population and lots of people from all over Europe and the world.

Schooling wise, William Tyndale school in Canonbury is your best bet, but it is very popular and you would need to rent in its (small and expensive) catchment area. Canonbury is a lovely spot though and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to you as a base if you can find something affordable. But I don’t know so much about the public schools here (my kids are at a private school).

if schooling is a determinative for you, I have friends who chose to live in Kentish Town for the schools and they are meant to be excellent.

hope that helps a bit!

Thanks so much for sharing. A walkable village vibe with a diverse set of people sounds fantastic. Tbh, we haven't found anything we love in our budget around Islington just as yet so thanks also for the recommendation to look more in Kentish Town.

Another area that has popped up in recommendations from friends is Golders Green which seems nice with its proximity to parks and green spaces. Would love some first-hand thoughts on the area?

Really hoping that the market might cool off a bit along with the weather because at these prices I think Walthamstow is about the closest we'll find something we love!

Euston is on the mainline so fast trains, perhaps look further out, your budget would rent a great house, plus higher fares and still money to spare. Prices can be crazy in inner London!

Thanks for this! Any areas you'd suggest which have some of the urban flavour of density, diversity and being easily walkable? The number of neighbourhoods going further out increases rapidly and we'll barely have a few days to check them out before starting an intensive search.

So I did some searching for commuter towns with a quick train ride to Euston and looked at Milton Keynes, St. Albans and Leighton Buzzard. Turns out that they're either not much of a saving after factoring the hefty train tickets (4.5k/year/person!) or you have to have a car and drive everywhere which we both prefer not to do.

But maybe I missed some obv ones in my search? Thanks for the thought, it was worth a bit of searching.

Balham as an alternative to Clapham. Nicer than Clapham these days (arguably), lots of nice cafes and restaurants, Waitrose, Tooting Common, Wandsworth Common. Lots of families with young children.

Schools: get close to Telferscot, Honeywell, Belleville or Henry Cavendish

I live in Queens Park, NW6. It has a lovely vibe and really quick into Euston on the Overground, like 10 mins only 3 stops.
Full of families fromm all over the world, popular park, farmers market etc. Great primary schools. Secondaries bit meh but my kids doing ok.

I think the savings come more when you buy to be honest. The issue you have leaving London is ‘the vibe’ St Albans is the best from a commuting perspective (and it’s a nicer place than LB or MK) at it has a lot going for it but if you are used to living in a city it will feel less diverse and culturally a bit more conservative .

Golders Green is a fair bit further out and an older crowd, feels more suburban than Islington. I lived in Highgate until recently which was fantastic. There’s a great state primary called st Michael’s there (if you mean state school when you say public… oddly public and private are both often used to describe fee paying. There are great fee paying schools in Highgate too though). It’s right next to Hampstead Heath and you also have Waterlow park and Highgate woods close by. It’s less socioeconomically diverse than Islington, for example and a fair bit quieter (lots of pubs and cafes but no nightlife really) but lots of people from lots of different backgrounds (that are just all typically quite well off!). You might struggle with budget depending on the location. We rent out our old flat which is a big 2 bed, for a little over your budget but it’s right in the centre of Highgate in a beautiful building so would be expensive compared to other 2 beds. Muswell hill could be worth looking at. Not sure about the schools there though. Or Crouch End? These were both places we were considering when we couldn’t afford to buy a bigger place in Highgate 😂 we ended up moving out to another city in the north.

How about East Finchley? Excellent primaries (Coldfall and Martins), northern line to Euston, close to Hampstead Heath. Your money will go a bit further as well compared to the other N London places on the list.

Angel/Camden- the north london places you mention would be best location wise

Greenwich/Blackheath- a pain in the ass to get to Euston from

Clapham- the northern line is absolutely jammed at rush hour for this commute! I wouldn't recommend it having done it.

Putney- pretty far away from Euston?

I agree with PP maybe look into Stoke Newington. And I'd persevere with searching in Angel as it's so lovely round there!

Alternative locations- you could look into places on the Thameslink to St Pancras (a 5-10 min walk to Euston), like Herne Hill, lovely villagey area in south london?

Look at Crouch End, specifically the area around Coleridge school. That’s where we relocated to after living in Asia.

By the way, “public schools” doesn’t mean what you think it means. You need to say “state schools” or it will confuse people.

“Public school” means an elite private (fee-paying) school in the UK.

Highbury is really lovely, short commute to Euston and the City and some decent primary schools (Joan of Arc, St Thomas). Plenty of access to green space and that budget would cover a decent rental.

I agree with the suggestion of Queen's Park. I really like it around there.

I used to live in Finchley. It might be worth a look. It is about 20 - 25 mins by tube to Euston.

It would be worth a look and you would get something in your price range.

Lots of shops and cafes on Ballard's lane, a couple of supermarkets and on a good bus route which is a much better view than the tube.

It's a fairly diverse place, there is Victoria Park and I believe an arts centre opened a few years ago.

I know you said you do not want to drive but if you hired a car you are not far from the M1 to drive north.

Don’t move from Asia to Milton Keynes or Leighton Buzzard. Your soul will die.

With 2 kids and a reasonable income you probably will end up having a car eventually unless you have very strong environmental reasons for not having one. My husband was very anti having one when we can back from Hong Kong but he’s completely come round to it now. We never use it for commuting though.

Of all the suggestions here, if your budget will stretch to Queens Park, that would be the one

Whoops, thanks for that! Yes, I meant state schools, still have to get used to public meaning private ;p

Thanks so much everyone for the recommendations and the valuable tips on commuting. We've been scouring Rightmove and Zoopla for homes in Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Balham also. Every once in a while a good place opens up so we're keeping our fingers crossed that something good will come up in November during our hunt.

Haven't searched in Queen's Park as yet, will definitely add that to the list!

A couple of other areas which have come up in our searches are Tooting Bec and Dulwich. Dulwich seems pretty decent with trains up to St. Pancras but we find mixed info about Tooting. Are the northern parts up near Balham good for families? How would Tooting compare to an option like Wimbledon?

Thanks!!! Our souls will be eternally in your debt 😄