Areas in London to buy Property for a young couple planning a family

[potatonation]

Hi everyone,
this is my first post here so I would really appreciate any advice/help/information you can provide!

We're a young couple in our early 30s and we're looking to buy our first property in London (min. 2 beds). No kids yet but that would be in our plan in a couple of years so essentially I'm trying to understand which areas of London are good to start a family.

We currently live in Highbury/Islington and we love it here and would prefer to stay around but I think this ties up to the question of good schooling - I'm having a hard time to figure out if this is a good area for that (and if so, when people say good schooling, what are we referring to? Private/State etc.?)

Otherwise what are some other areas we could consider?

• Our budget is ~700/800K
• Area: would prefer to stay in or close to Z2, ideally in an area with nice park/green areas and good schools (primary/secondary)
• Commute/travel: we both work from home, so for the time being commuting won't be an issue. However, if there's a need to go to the office we would need to have access to Piccadilly/Victoria Line and we also travel a lot so being a place where we don't have to change a lot of lines to get to major airports would be a plus

Generally speaking, we're both "city" people - we love Highbury because it's calm and quiet but close to the high street and everything.

We tried to visit areas like Richmond and Wimbledon to just see how they are, especially since online they were mentioned a lot as potential areas. They're both lovely but we couldn't see ourselves living there as we couldn't feel the "city" vibe..

Apologies if this sounds like a lot - we're not from the UK, so we're finding it a bit challenging to navigate this, especially because London is very big! Appreciate any suggestion or guidance!

Thank you in advance!

Walthamstow
tottenham
Crouch End
stole Newington

id stay in north London if that’s an area you already know I moved to Tottenham as was eventually priced out of Walthamstow where we rented

its full of young families now and getting better / no idea about secondary schools and don’t really care as only have a daughter about to start primary next year and a baby so will worry about that later

id have loved to stay in Walthamstow but got a much bigger place for my money in Tottenham

Primrose Hill

North of the Thames have FAR more tube stations and 'potentially' an easier commute around London. East London is historically cheaper than the west. Places around Victoria park or along the Regents canal might suit? Victoria Park Village? London fields area? Around Columbia road? If you both WFH, and don't need to go into central London often, you'd get FAR more for your money moving out of zone 2 though.

Walthamstow is good if you don't intend to use a car. The one way systems and parking problems locally are awful. They discourage cars.