If you had £500k to buy a house near Brighton, where would you choose and why?

[CobOnTheCorn]

DP would like to live in Brighton but I'm not so sure so my compromise is somewhere close by. Say within 10 miles.

I don't know the area that well so we're going to spend next week in Brighton and take a look around a few areas. So, where do you think we should visit?

mrspink there are some great houses there. When I look at rightmove it's a bit overwhelming because so many towns/villages come up and I've no idea what they're like. And I can't visit them all!

post I do really like what I hear about Lewes and we had pretty much settled on that as our preferred location but then we couldn't see any properties with big gardens. Hence widening our search. If I could find a house with a big garden in Lewes that would be a very good stating point.

Rodmell is quite small, only a few streets but the pub is the centre of the village (like most villages ha!). It's very countrified, you'd need to drive into Lewes for any amenities other than beer/fresh food and my Sister bemoans the fact that dominos won't deliver.

There are a lot of commuters in the villages along the C7 (my Dad inc.) a lot of young families too, I didn't know there were so many in Kingston till they all turned up for the jubilee party!

Ok, Rodmell might not be for us. What is the C7 Rug?

Sorry, the C7 is a road that links the coast road to the A27 at Lewes. There are loads of little villages along it all with their fabulous flint churches.

Some of the villages can most definitely be a little cliquey, especially towards people 'down from London' I'm thinking of Alfriston specifically. But to be fair to them the place is bloody overrun this time of year.

That worthing property is about 2 minutes walk from my house so i pass it at least once a day. It is a really nice road about 10 minutes walk from goring station and close to The Mulberry pub which has a lovely garden if you have children and does some nice cheapish meals.

Thanks again Rug, I'll check out the C7 and the villages along it.

Lewes or Steyning

Steyning is pretty limited for secondary schools. It has Steyning grammar (which is not a grammar school) or you will have to travel. A couple of my sons friends live in steyning and travel to Goring for secondary school.

I go to Worthing and buy that house in mrspinks link! Gorgeous - apart from the current decor obviously.

It is indeed a lovely house...it has a utility room and a pantry!

It's along train journey to London though, not sure DP would love the pantry so much he'd suffer that commute.

shoreham is very nice too

I'd go to Lewes I think, but then again village life isn't for me.

Or Hove/Preston park in Brighton, and put up with the small garden.

I think your starting point should be the length of the commute rather than the location/size of garden.

We looked at a house in Sea lane when we bought this. We even offered on it but the seller pulled out as they decided not to move after all. The sea is at the bottom of the road and the lovely sea lane cafe with their ice cream and tea's.
My husband used to do the london commute from Goring and it is about an hour and a half depending which train you get.

TheJoyfulPuddlejumper we tend to go to The mullberry when the family come to visit as there is always something the kids will eat but my local is The Bull.

My sons went to primary in shoreham and if you are catholic there is a very good catholic primary that is a feeder for cardinal newman in hove.

Mine have outgrown climbing on the rocks but not the icecream

Length of commute will ideally be an hour or less. Not sure how to start from that point though. Don't I need some names of places that I can then research the commute?

Size of garden is not negotiable for me, otherwise I'm not fulfilling one of the main reasons for moving.

So, I now how a decent list of areas/towns/villages that I can tap in to rightmove, visit next week and research commutes to London and possibly even look at local job opportunities.

It's really helpful to have viewpoints from people who live in or know the area well. Thank you very much.

West sussex will be more than an hour commute.
Shoreham and Hove will be just over the hour so probably a good starting point.
If you want under an hour then you are going to have to look inland of Brighton.

www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/timetables/

is the train timetables for southern rail so you can work out traveling times into london

I second Shoreham and Rottingdean and they are both by the sea and closest to Brighton. Commute maybe slightly too long, though lots of people do it.
In Lewes I would look around Prince Edward Road and surrounding streets.It's the north end of the town, quite high up (no flooding!) and some of the gardens are a reasonable size.

most brighton trains are over an hour too (the only 50 minute ones are off peak, so usually no use to someone working normal hours in London). Lewes is also over an hour.

I commuted from Brighton for 4 years and found it utterly draining.

length of commute aside what about Hurstpierpoint? I think gardens will be bigger there.

I'll check out Hurtpierpoint...I'm also happy to look inland. Very tempted by Haywards Heath from a commuting point of view but as someone pointed out up thread ( post?) it probably isn't what I'm looking for in terms of the quirky, alternative vibe.