Should I Move to London

[Ilovechorizo]

Hi all. I would really appreciate some honest thoughts, particularly from those of you that live or have lived in London.

My situation is that I work in London in a job I really enjoy and an employment area that really only exists in the capital.
I live out in rural Berkshire and my 3 little ones are well settled in school but all aged under 7.
I thought I could cope with the commute but after 3 years I am sick of wasting 4 hours of family time a day on the train.
If we moved to town I could get home for dinner with my wife and kids, help with the homework.
My budget is about £450K, is this enough to ge a decent 3 bed house in an area where I would be happy to move my family from. I realise that in London this does not go far at all. Its a result of having a public sector job I love and not giving in to the risk of selling out and getting back on the corporate city rat race. The thought of moving them from a Berkshire village life to London and London schools does scare me a little. Please tell me that my fears are just preconceived misconceptions.
Any thoughts gratefully received!

IME unless you live next to your office then any London commute is around 45 minutes minimum.

£450k won't get you much in London. Where is your office and what mainline station is nearest? There might be good commuting towns nearby that could get you to work in an hour rather than 2.

If I was you I'd move in closer, there must be places in that budget within an hour commute. Don't move to Morden though, it's a shit hole.

4 hours a day for 3 years? I'm not surprised you're fed up! I assume that includes travel within London itself (tube, bus) as well as train to London itself.

We've lived in & around London for years, and we're about to swap a 25min commute for a 45min one which we considered our limit. I know lots of people do much longer commutes, but I have no idea how they manage it!

Anyway we found commutefrom & commuterguide very useful.

In your case you can probably massively improve your commute without moving into London proper, therefore keeping a more rural-ish lifestyle if that's what your family likes.

Which London station do you come into? Am sure you'll get a heap of suggestions once that is know

Im at Canary Wharf so I suppose I could look to Essex or Medway towns but I can'y say either of them particularly inspire me.
Also I dont think its worth going through all the disruption of a move to my family just to shave a bit off my commute.

You could get a house like this or this in Forest Hill, which is a nice area with excellent train links, and good schools.

Hmm, ok. So actually, although you are fed up of the commute, you specifically want to move to London. Sorry, completely misunderstood your OP.

Comfortably Dumb..thanks for the websites..really helpful

And a doddle to get to Canary Wharf! You could cycle it, plenty near me do.

Yes you can. Greenwich - get the Clipper Service every day to Canary Wharf - ten minutes. Lovely open spaces.

3 bed period house

whats Forest Hill like, I don't care about whether its trendy but safety and trains are paramount

cheaper period mid terrace, same area for 375k

Where are the areas where the civil servants, police officers, teachers etc live..they are the kind of areas I think I would be happy in (and could just afford)

No problem. I found them very useful.

IME all naice parts of London are near to not so nice parts. You just have to accept it.

Don't know Forest Hill very well. Greenwich is lovely, if you handle the tourists. Don't know about schools though.

what about Charlton, Shooters Hill, Eltham..is there anyone who can commetn on these areas?

With your budget and work in Canary Wharf I would look at SE London near East London Line as it gives you good commute and some decent, leafy areas.

I was going to suggest Brockley/Honor Oak/Forest Hill too. We live in the area and my OH works at the Wharf - the commute is easy and the areas are very family friendly (although they all have their "dodgy" estates).

I'm sure there will be lots of people who know those areas better than me, but personally I think you'll find better elsewhere.

If you don't know an area very well Zoopla has a Local Info tab attached to each house which gives stats which I found useful for getting a rough idea of the area (newspaper readership crass, but helpful )

i really appreciate all the comments. i know that in Lonodn you are never far from more interesting areas and I dont have a problem with that. In many ways I quite like the idea of living in a more mixed area than the completely homogenous middle class village where I currently am.

I was referring to Charlton, Shooters Hill, Eltham by the way. Xposted with Euro & littlecrystal

Chorizo, why not use the Advanced Search button to have a look at previous threads on Mumsnet on these areas? There have been plenty of them. I'll see if I can find one for you ...

Have you decided what is the maximum commute time you would be happy with?

When we started looking we were completely overwhelmed, so decided that first & used it as a starting point. It excluded loads of areas that we might otherwise have got bogged down in researching.

charlton/shooters hill/eltham - there are good and bad parts. some bit are very up and coming and you can get a good deal on houses. schools are a bit pot luck.

how about lewisham? on the dlr, and it does have some outstanding schools. some nice parks - close to greenwich and blackheath? or lee green? or woolwich - on the dlr (or soon to be) and reasonable housing?

I did like the look of various stops on the ELL, Lewisham, Honor Oak, Forest Hill down etc but I was worried that my budget was so low that it would not be enough for a house tha has to fit a family of 5.
I thought that maybe exploring the Crossrail route out into SE London was a better bet as more for your money now and thinking that Crossrail should bring about regeneration over the next 3 years?

and that Shooters Hill, eltham, Charlton was close enpough to walk/bus to Woolwich crossrail station..withouth being Woolwich (apologies to any Woolwich residents here)

Aldersbrook area of Wanstead in East London. Loads of teachers live here, lovely conservation area with lots of greenery, Wanstead itself very villagey/arty, good primary schools, Secondary school not bad, main line/central line to Stratford then DLR or a bus to West Ham and pick up the Jubilee from there.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-41874878.html

However because of all that it's pricey. The link above was all I could find in your price bracket - it's a doer-upper but those houses can be gorgeous, several friend of mine live in the area and the room sizes are good.

Wanstead itself and Upper Leytonstone are also v. nice, Leytonstone cheaper as it's in Waltham Forest rather than Redbridge and is perceived to be more downmarket (but has had shedloads of money pumped in around the Olympics and is fast up and coming) :

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39967859.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-27126981.html