what can 600k buy in a commuter town from London?

[Steth]

Finally realised i'm fooling myself and that we will not be able to afford the house we want in the area we want soooooo I desperately need your advice on where we can live that is still commutable to London? We've looked at Harpenden - way too expensive. Had a quick look at Guildford and Godalming. We love period properties. We'd like 3/4 bed, ideally detached and with a decent garden. We can travel about an 1 - 1hr30mins to get to London.

Am I still being ridiculous with our budget?
Thank you all!

this is also under budget in Sevenoaks, just over a mile to the station and very close to a primary school that parents actually do rent houses near in order to get their DCs in (I'd thought it was a myth that people did this, but apparently not), but lacking in period features.

As others have said, another couple of stops out to Tunbridge Wells and your money goes even futher.

East London sounds interesting but I don't think I will ever convince my DH to move south of the river :( What is it with Londoners and their North /South thing?

Tonbridge might be better than Sevenoaks - bit less expensive and very good schools.

How about this?

In Faversham, Kent which is on the High Speed rail link to St Pancras (1hr04mins)

Same area but different type of property

Also, here's one in Chiddingfold which is just outside Godalming

Also, what about somewhere like Amersham ? Or Canterbury ?

There's LOADS of commutable areas in an hour and a half from London with plenty in your budget, so you shuold find something!

I was going to say the same as kellamity. It really matters which London station you are prepared to travel into, and how complicated your journey is from that point. But an hour from paddington buys a lot of house in North Wiltshire. There's a Five bed detached thatched cottage for sale in my village. You could even live in Bath.

Surrey/Kent border area?

+/- 30-45 mins into London Bridge, and nice area with good schools.

if you search out a bit into some of the villages (eg down to Edenbridge, Lingfield, Woldingham, even East grinstead) then you will have a good selection of houses to choose from.

Have you looked at Warwick? Train to Marylebone is less than 90 minutes and there are lots of small towns close by, Stratford, Kenilworth, Leamington.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29993980.html?premiumA=true (A bit over budget but everyone haggles these days!)

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37530815.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-21016851.html?premiumA=true

Wiltshire is out of the question for London Bridge.
Do have a look at Forest Hill and Crystal Palace, or Epsom/Ewell.

I know you said you'd be prepared to move out to a 1 hour commute, but there's no point doing that if you don't have to - the difference between a 45 minute door to door commute and a 90 minute one means that your DH would spend two entire weeks in extra commuting time each year. It also makes it extremely difficult for you to go back to work when and if you want to.

We can travel about an 1 - 1hr30mins to get to London

In which direction - north would take you to Birmingham and surronding West Midlands, Rugby is an hour.

Warwick has delightful period property and is a lovely place to live. Train station in town and one out of town and a station in Leamington.

Off to look at ladykoo's links

Completely agree with the others - do have a really good look around SE London if London Bridge is where your DH needs to get to and make sure you really do want to leave. We just pulled out of a house move at the last minute which would have taken us to the TW area and we were citing all the reasons you give as to why we wanted to leave town. But we opted to stay (we're in Peckham Rye; 12 mins to London Bridge) and I'm so glad we did. DH has minimal commute; we've got a great house in a lovely area which I love, etc etc. DH's work has really ramped up in the last couple of months, which was unforeseen, and I think a 1h10-1h20 commute each day would have totally done him in had we made the move out. My twins are now 2 and I'm thinking about going back to work at some point - so glad we're in town where that will be a lot easier.

this to me is period, it is 7 minutes walk to the station, the castle is 4 minutes walk and it is in the heart of the town so no car needed for a week at a time

Try Hither Green, Ladywell and Brockley - on direct line to london bridge within 20 mins

Here's an example in Brockley

m.rightmove.co.uk/quickPage.html;jsessionid=DD5145A7E9EAEEAA64490817BC10EF6E?page=8&cc=html5%2Fhomepage.html%3Fpid%3D13417254%26goto%3DRESALE_PROPERTY_DETAILS%23details

I'd go for Farnham! Great schools - state and private - an hour from Waterloo and lovely Georgian properties if you want to live in town.

We made the move to Tunbridge Wells 4 years ago and love it. However, I am now a SAHM, which I wasn't when we first got here - I found the commute and juggling the nanny (and her unreliability) too stressful! It's a great place to be though - close to London, the sea, the countryside and it's much better value than Sevenoaks, although they have a plethora of outstanding primaries and a dearth of secondaries. We have the opposite problem - too few places in very good primaries, but fabulous secondaries.

Bucks

Or this

If it's London Bridge then Tunbridge Wells is perfect! It has a Carluccios & a Cath Kidston, schools are probably ok too.

Although I still think you should join the SE London gang, it's far less stabby than North London

ooh, I rather like this Tonbridge, between Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks on the train, still less than an hour from door to London Bridge station (about 40 mins train journey), close to very good secondary schools, 4 beds, detached, and £120k under budget. (Would go well towards doing something about the fire place.)

Another vote for the Cambridge area, the fast train to King's Cross takes 50 minutes and the Liverpool St train about 75 minutes. There are about 4 trains an hour from Cambridge to London.

If you're prepared to be a little out of Cambridge you will get more for your money, like this

Cornish "If it's London Bridge then Tunbridge Wells is perfect! It has a Carluccios & a Cath Kidston, schools are probably ok too."

- well that's my diverse shopping needs sorted then. Seriously, I thought I'd love TW when we stayed there with a view to buying. But it's so crowded. Parking's a nightmare. To live anywhere near the station you've got to live in a very crowded part of town which becomes even more crowded at the weekends. And when we were looking although we could get a BIT more space for our money compared to our 12-min-to-LB commute location in London - it just didn't feel worth it. We felt like we would have been moving from London to.... a smaller, more parochial version of London. That started us looking at much more rural places, which led ultimately to me thinking that actually, we should just stay where we are. What a total waste of our time and money that particular property search was, OP - don't make the same mistakes we did!

BTW - if you look at stations not on the direct line to London Bridge, do factor in getting to London Bridge time. Mind you, if he can walk from London Bridge station, I'm guessing he could also walk from Liverpool Street Station, so perhaps just look at areas that are on fast lines from those stations only - I'd say if you're going to move 'out' then you should aim to be 1 hour door to door, including driving to stations in the mornings. Also look at the frequency of the trains in the mornings particularly. That some stations only have a train every 20 minutes can be a bit of a shock to "London types" moving out - well, it was a shock to me anyway!

dontmindifido DH does ride a bike so that could be an area to look at - thats a lovely property, you could do a lot with it.

eurochick would need to be walking distance to a town/village as I dont think I fancy having to drive everywhere when I need a pint of milk etc.
sparkle I never considered Wiltshire before as I just assumed it would be too far.

DH and myself need to sit down and discuss our preferred areas and then start actually doing viewings. I get sooooo excited looking for houses

You'd get a 3-4 bed in Harpenden. We moved here in 09 & when we looked we could have got the same for our money (£650k budget) in St Albans (nicer bit), Berkhamsted, Amersham

We love Harpenden.