property advice from mums in / around home counties

[strangerthanfiction]

HI, dp has just landed a job (hurray!) near Trent Park in London and we're hoping to move from our depressing council flat in SE London to somewhere in the North. We don't know the area at all and I've been googling like crazy to get some ideas but thought I'd see if anyone who lives around the home counties / Hertfordshire might be able to help. We don't have much money and will have to rent. We need at least 2 bedrooms but our top limit will be £700 a month. So far I've seen the odd place in Potters Bar or St. Albans (the latter is a bit further out than we'd ideally like). Are we dreaming to think we'll find somewhere decent within that budget? Any areas which are ok to live in with a little toddler and not too expensive?

All advice gratefully received.

well i havent lived in WGC since 2001, and i lived over in panshanger part, but there was 2 mums and toddler group there, theres a fair few others scattered about. There is loads of redelovpment going on, loads of new houses going up on my old school site, a new primary school going up, so i'm guessing loads more facilities will be apperaing over the next yr or so. There is the lakes (stanborough,) which is nice to walk about, feed the ducks etc, plus u can try your hand at water sports. if u like ski-ing theres a dry slope as well, and gosling is pretty popular for gym, dancing etc.
Surrounding the town is mainly industrail, but once u get past that (very small i might add) then u get into the housing areas) The town is effecivly split by the railway. u have the most sought areas on the west side (quieter older side), then the other side of the tracks is where most housing is, and even the grim areas are still nice.

what i meant, everything is with-in 30mins of the town. unless u go to the outskirts, then u'll probably looking at 10-15mins most areas.

when are u looking to move? i might be able to send u the local property pages this week if u want. avoid putterills unl;ess u have a few million quid in the bank(the one with the swimming pool will be mine, actually, any of them lol)

i live in watford, my rent is £725 month for a 2 bed house. i sometimes go st albans to shop and use to go there a lot when i was younger with my mum, and i worked in hatfield once too

poor u tammy bear (working in hatfield). i neeeeeeeeed to move!!

i worked there for one day misdee only because i was made redundant. it was the longest day of my life so i quit lol

what were u doing there? did ureally find it that grim lol.

i use to work in pilot (clothes store) in watford, but then they closed the store down (b***ds!) so three of us were relocated to hatfield but it was terrible. it was too quiet and there was nothing to do except for keep looking at the time. we all agreed the next day to not go back because we all just hated it so much

ah the galleria. i rarely go there, except for the cinema.

St Albans is lovely; pretty city centre (very small for a city but has been one for hundreds of years due to the cathedral), nice shops, lovely pubs, decent restaurants, lots of history, good schools and houses. And 20 minutes from King's Cross. Hence not very cheap. I don't live there, but friends do, and we seriously considered it when moving out of town.

what about hertford the county town. I lived there for 6 years now in Australia. There is two train lines hertford north which goes into kings cross and hertford east which goes into liverpool street via enfield.. the town centre is quiet but there is tescos, waitrose, woolies, mcdonalds and mix of antique/gift shops. there is hartam common and public pool/gym within a 15-20 min walk for most houses. I think you could rent a two bed flat for 700 not sure about a house maybe more. Great bus service, and trains are only 30 min to london. Schools are excellent both primary and secondary. not as expensive as st albans! Location maybe better to get to trent park

oh yes hertford is nice. my friend chose to move there from a larger place as they felt they could fit into community life easily if they wanted as its small but not that small iykwim.

Thanks for all the info everyone. I guess we'll take a trip out to St Albans and see what we think / how expensive it is and go from there.

And finally ... I've picked up all this info about houses in Welwyn Garden City about houses to rent which are called 'cluster homes.' They're two-bedroomed but don't have any indication of sizes of rooms etc. They all look the same from the outside, square-ish, brown brick. Anyone know what these are? Are they very paper-thin / small roomed?

i looked at a one bed cluster home years ago. it was tiny!! it had a shared garden out the front and maybe a drying area out the back.

maybe the 2 beds are bigger with gardens. have a look at one. if u need info about 'good' areas then let me know.

emaio me your addy djmisdee(at)hotmail.com

and i'll send u the property times tomorrow. i'll mark out the ones in good areas u may want to look at if u wish.

misdee, are you sure you don't mind doing that? I should at least pay you for the postage. I'll email you my address this morning. I'll be mailing you from work but will send you my home email address as well. You're very kind, thanks.

i dont mind. the property pages just get browsed, i dont need them anyway. dont worry about postage, i'll sneak it in with dh ebay stuff later lol.

Anyway, i remember how hard it was trying to find a private rent place a few years ago in WGC. we ended up in stevenage as we just couldnt afford the places we really liked in WGC.

I don't know anything about Stevenage, what's it like there?

Thanks a lot for saying you'll post the property stuff to me, I really appreciate it. .

Hello strangerthanfiction. Sorry I don't have time to read all this thread and hope I am not repeating anything. I live in a village called Bricket Wood, it's in between Watford and St Albans. This is a lovely place to raise children, it's relatively safe to walk about, there are lots of lovely country walks and wild animals, and the schools are very good round here. I don't know where Trent Park is but my dh travels to work on the Thameslink, into the city, it's quite efficient and quick.

I think you could get something for that price around here. If we are too expensive or too far out, have you thought of Borehamwood? The prices are lower there but it's still near lots of lovely green places. And you can spot TV actors strolling down the main road (we even spot Eastenders people in our village).

And you could come to our meet-ups

Stevenage is ok, quite large new town (lots of concrete in the town centre tho). its about a 15min drive up the A1 from WGC. My sister still lives there, just round the corner from where we used to rent somewhere.

I have just had a quick look thro the property pages, and there is a few i think u may be interested in in wgc. One or two of them is just over your budget tho.

Thanks again misdee.

And thanks too to you anorak. We haven't really checked out Boreham Wood yet though it's on our mental list. And I'll now check out Bricket Wood as well. I'd love to come to your meet-ups!!

Hatfield is awful!! And I should know I was brought up ther It is the most depressing grey boring place I have ever had the misfortune to live. The town centre is like a ghost town it has real trouble between students and locals and the whole area is horrid I go back to see my parents - they live in the posh bit, toward Welwyn Garden City and their house is OK but I still hate it

WGC is a weird place, it is so 'designed' to work around and is very green. There are lots of nice communities but I don't really know it well. St Albans will be v.expensive as it is pretty, as would some of the other areas mentioned. Good Luck -

hiya STF, any luck yet?

I'm moving back to WGC on the 16th btw.