Would you move to London...

[Tigger03]

Hi all,

Myself and DP (late 20s / early thirties) currently live in a nice area of the NW in a small terraced house. If we were to stay in the NW, family homes in the area we want to live are c.£500k (I know there are cheaper areas but we are fairly set on this as parents are located here).

We are weighing up whether to move to London for the next 5 years or so (pre kids) take advantage of higher wages and save up (we’d get a c£20k payrise between us straight away, plus more job opportunities). I’m well aware London house prices are much higher, but we’d be happy in a very small 1 bed flat whilst down there to save before moving back to the NW.

My question is, am I being foolish? We have a very nice ‘easy’ life in the NW and am I looking at London with rose tinted glasses?

I’d be interested to here from people who have moved to London at a time when most people look to move out - what was your experience?

Yes 100% but live super central and make the most of living in the heart of the city.

Don’t live in Greenwich or blackheath or Putney for you short London time. Nice as they are, if you’re here for limited time and have 1800 for a one bed you can live somewhere much more ‘london’.

I second @Waterdropsdown - I moved down to London from a Northern city (Not Liverpool despite username!) nearly 7 years ago with the plan of staying here for 2 years!
I am engaged now and despite our wedding being in my home city up north I doubt if we would move back up

Seems everyone has enjoyed making the move!

Which areas should I shortlist for my visit? We like eating out (prefer a wine bar compared to a nightclub vibe) and enjoy parks / food markets. Ideally would like to be able to walk to a selection of bars and restaurants, in a ‘pretty’ area.

Happy to commute up to 45 mins door to door for the right area.

Perhaps Islington or near Broadway Market/Bethnal Green area? Finsbury Park also ticks some of these boxes but is quite urban in parts. All are well-connected transport-wise. Good luck :)

London living (rent apart) doesn't have to be expensive. There are loads of amazing things you can do for no or little cost, especially if you get a travel card for commuting so it doesn't cost any more to travel around at night or the weekend

Just do your sums very carefully (eg taking into account high transport costs) to ensure that you really will be saving money. And have a rough plan about what you would do if a baby came along unexpectedly early - childcare in London can be crippling...

Have a look at Clapham, Balham and Tooting

Loads of open space, great transport with the northern line, overground and main line stations

Loads of great independent restaurants and cafes, and loads of gastropubs and bars

And easy access to Kings Cross for when you want to go back to the NW

£1700 will get you a 2-bed conversion flat on a good street

Islington, London fields, and South of River around South Bank and Borough Market.
Balham is ok
Stoke Newington is very cute and the roads by Victoria Park are lovely.
You might like Marylebone too as close to regents Park and primrose Hill.

I think a lot depends on where you are working. You can be quite central and it still take a long time to get to work.
Yep Bermondsey/Southwark is good for being v close to central London and lots going on. I’m a Clapham fan, not everyone is. Up north what about West Hampstead? I’m not sure that Marylebone would be in your budget.
I would make sure you get a 2 bed as then it’s easy for friends and family to visit and my opinion is that if you move away and have a lot of close relationships with people who you can’t see in a day you should get a place that has room for people to stay which doesn’t make you or them feel awkward (ie no one sleeping in the lounge and ideally a second bathroom).

Do it!

We bought a 2 bed flat in London, got married, had a baby. Then decided to move back, sold the flat for double the price, after 4 years and bought a big 4 bed detached house with a teeny mortgage back in the NW near parents.

We enjoyed our time in London but it was lovely to move back. My husband preferred his London job, I prefer my nw one but we are happy & our time in London have given us the opportunity to buy a house we would never been able to afford otherwise.

I may as well save the usual london-haters from posting:

London is smelly, violent, unfriendly and over-priced. You'd be stupid to move there as every other town and city in the UK is rammed-packed with museums, theatres, bars, parks and historic sights, all of which are far superior to anything in London.

it's a fabulous idea

don't underestimate your travel costs in London - they always take people by surprise

I work near Farringdon and it's a great area. Clerkenwell is close for bars/restaurants. The whole Kings Cross area has been totally regenerated and is really fab and buzzing.

Try and live somewhere where you don't have to travel far. If you're both working in central London, I really would not go and live miles away if you can help it. I travel in from zone 6 and it takes me over an hour a day and it's a right pain (but we needed to live here for the kids schools etc.). Once mine have left home, I'm definitely moving closer back in to the centre!

Clerkenwell is lovely - pricey pricey though, but I would suggest Borough, Greenwich or East Dulwich for more-for-your-money pretty places with buzzy nightlife, young couple vibe and easy access to the city.

there is an aspect of ‘if we don’t move away now for a bit, we never will’ so part of me is doing it for the change

I think that's a good enough reason to do it, regardless of any financial motives.

Farringdon is well connected, with Tube, Thameslink, and Crossrail coming. It's likely to be an up and coming area in the next few years. The Museum of London is due to move to Smithfield, and there's likely to be a lot of associated regeneration.

There's so much to see and do in London, and a lot of it is free, or not hugely expensive.

I'm in my 50's and the dcs are years 5&8 I plan to move to London late next year, we are originally from London and moved out a couple of years ago. But we miss the place too much, do I'm working on moving us back, once the divorce is sorted.

I think the chances are it would be good career wise for you both. There are just so many more opportunities to move around and gather different experience. I think you’d have to be careful with lifestyle creep (it is very easy to spend a lot on going out) and also think through what happens if one of you lands a dream job and wants to stay.

The thing with the NW is there are areas that are not dissimilar prices to some parts of London so you might not get too much of a shock in terms of housing costs.

I would definitely do it.

We moved down nearly 40 years ago and we have moved around the country. But in the end couldn’t really see us anywhere else in the UK.

Check out stations on the Thameslink line for an area to live. It goes through Farringdon and is fast Mon-Fri.

Or Stanmore. End of the Jubilee line. It is 10 minutes to Wembley when you can jump on the Metropolitan line and next stop is Finchley Road passing several stations and Jubilee line trains. Then back on the Jubilee or stay in the Metropolitan line.

Elstree and Borehamwood on the Thameslink is zone 6 so you can use your oyster card

Cross rail , which opens next autumn, has a big station at Farringdon. Look at that line.
Lots of rentals in your budget. 2 beds outside zone 1.
£450k is a 1-2 bed flat budget.
London is incredibly varied. An area that suits one won't suit another. Choose an area with more than one commuter link so if a line goes down, there's an alternative. Choose somewhere you won't need a car.
I love north east London.

In London the kind of house you say are £500k are double or more, and that's in a rougher area! Generally apart from a few specific occupations that are only in London, you can never earn enough "extra" to compensate for house prices. My house is in a nice area etc but at £400k I can only trade it for a flat above a kebab shop in London and dh's salary would only go up £15k approx, I would struggle to make any more once fares are taken into account- we crunched the numbers and stayed in the Midlands where we are not struggling at all

Consider looking at
Ilford
Wandstead
Leytonsyone
Woodford
Stratford
Clapton

Less infra-dig, more diverse and real, much cheaper too. North East of the river has Lidl and Aldi. And markets, proper ones.

Bus and tube is a doddle with oyster, traffic is always a sod.

Zones 4-6 are much cheaper to live in. Don't bother with 1 unless your Uber minted.

If you really want zone 1, then around the Barbican or GOSH, old street's become too Google with silicon roundabout and all that. Gosswell roads not too bad, but a bit further up you hit Islington.

I'm from the NW and, unless you have a profitable family business backing you, it's what is done to buy those £500k homes in nice parts.

Just to throw something else out there is to ask if you have considered living abroad for a few years. So many families had the DH working in the Middle East and Far East while the Dw stayed home. A few friends had parents who had saved up by living abroad and it worked really well for them. DH and I have done the same and only reason we haven't returned is because the healthcare and education available here for our DC is a million times better compared to the UK.

Want2bSupermum I think you have lived abroad for too long.

Why would the op need a family business backing them

Kentish Town is on the Thameslink, close to Hampstead Heath, not far to Highgate Woods and what with Thameslink, Overground and tube there are also buses that can take you into the West End in less that 40 mins if you don’t fancy a tube. A taxi home from an evening out when feeling indulgent is between £10-20 depending on traffic etX.

olivers I grew up in the NW. Pretty much all my friends from school left the area to make their money to buy their nice home in the same village as their parents. My business is building homes or renovating them in the area I grew up. I rent some and have sold others. I rent to people like the OP who can't afford a deposit to buy in the village they grew up in. They want to be close to their families and this facilitates it. The alternative is to do what the OP is considering.