Moving to London-Advice needed please

[stupidgirlNo1]

I am in Newcastle,moving to London because of my DH new offer.No idea about London except sight seeing.Advice needed on good place to live and good school,since my DS is in YR now.

You'd be hard pushed to find a 3 bed house with garage for under £1k a month where I live in the south west (of England that is), let alone London!

Maybe go smaller and put stuff in storage?

Pretty much anywhere in the south east of London will have trains going in to waterloo East and Charing Cross you can walk from Charing Cross or get bus quickly from Waterloo. South East is the cheapest area of London, depends on which area but I think you would get a 2 bed in an ok area in your budget

Thanks for all the advice.We are looking into and will be deciding soon.

Garages are much rarer in London than in the rest of the country. Hardly anybody has one. A typical place will be a 2 or 3 bedroom Victorian flat, if lucky a house or with a small garden. If you need space, budget for renting self storage or a garage from the council. South east London is nice to live in, lots of parks, easy to avoid the dodgy areas.

One thing is if you are likely to want to travel back to Newcastle, position yourself north of the centre to be more accessible for getting north - the Friday evening traffic is horrendous.

Holborn is also on the Piccadilly Line and is very accessible by bus (Waterloo to Holborn is really quick on the bus).

Depending on where in Holborn he's working, it's easy to walk from the northern mainline stations (Kings Cross/St Pancras/Euston). This, together with Waterloo gives loads of options for commuter belt property but note that season tickets for travel are really expensive. You're looking at thousands for an annual pass from commuter belt, even a 3 zone travel card is about £1k per annum. Most employers do a loan so it comes out as a monthly deduction from the pay packet - not sure spouses would also get the benefit though (haven't at any of my employers).

When I worked in Holborn I lived all over the place over the years (mostly within London) and my commutes were like this:-

Docklands (DLR to Bank then Central Line)
Bow in Eastend (Number 8 bus all the way)
Richmond (Overland to Waterloo then bus)
Surrey Quays (Jubilee Line to Waterloo then bus)
West Hampstead (Jubilee Line to Kings Cross then walk or Piccadilly Line)
Crouch End (overland to Kings Cross then walk or Piccadilly Line)
Clapham South/Balham (northern line to Waterloo then bus)
Clapham Junction(overland to Waterloo then bus)

Most people would count a 45-50 minute commute about average and perfectly acceptable. Anything around half an hour is considered very good and anything up to an hour and a half nothing unusual (each way).

Also worth noting that storage within London is VERY expensive. We just rented a 10x10 space (about the size of a garage) for 6 months and it cost about £1000 in Croydon, it would have been 50% more had we rented it in Wandsworth.

I LOVE London but it took me a good 2 years to get used to it. Do come and visit and get the feel for different areas - do you want urban/funky/buzzy/boho/hippy/relaxed/villagey/family/old fashioned/historic/modern/monied/working class/laid back London and its surrounds have it all but it's all SOOOO different and with a tight budget (if that's what you have) you could easily end up somewhere v.grotty if you don't do your homework. Come back with a shortlist and the Londoners will critique it for you!

Good Luck!

Unless you live in the smartest part of newcastle you will presumably be used to the idea of urban areas with different characters.

I think you can get a 3 bed house with garden to rent in e17 near tube & train. Look around henry maynard primary if you have girls and plan to stay until secpndary as the girls school is well thought of. Look around pretoria avenue if you have boys as willowfield co ed seems an ok option. The area is very mixed and parts are a bit grotty even for london but it is well priced for its location and transport to/out of town inc 20mins on tube to kings x. Good luck

Thanks for the inputs,I am looking into it.It looks like a nightmare till everything comes round.I didnot feel pressure when moved from Aberdeen.But now

A lot of people renting in London are paying half or even more than half of their monthly salary in rent - it's a different mindset here.

When you look around make sure you walk down the street in the evening/dark as well as on a lovely sunny day and walk the route from yours to the tube/station so that you know whether you're going down well lit streets or dark alleys. That makes a big difference in your budget range because that is quite a low rent to pay here. If you're prepared to live a bit further out you might get something that's fine, but there are nice streets right next to really dodgy streets - it's much more patchy than Newcastle where you tend to have 'nice' areas which are all more or less homogenously 'nice'.

A car is a luxury item rather than a necessity in London. We have one and use it about three times a year. When it finally conks out we won't bother replacing it.