Another family priced out of London......No idea where to move to next. Help please.

[Taymount]

Hello - I know that this is probably a hot topic at the moment but we are really flummoxed. If anyone could offer advice on places to investigate. I have to children 3 year old and a baby. Would ideally like a 3 bed but could make do with a 2 bed. Budget - a modest 250K, however we need to rent for 1 year before we are able to buy again :( We have looked at Hastings & St Leonards , Long commute but nice property's. Woolwich. Medway - Rochester which was nice. We are considering a trip to Folkstone. Can anyone recommend any other places to visit. We want a place with a bit of community and personality...we don't want something too suburban on the outskirts of London. Would prefer a complete change if we have to move. We have even considered commuting from Yorkshire but at 900 pcm for travel it is a bit much. The commute ideally would be 1h30 or less but for the right place maybe longer. Please could anyone suggest nice affordable towns commuter distance from London which are nice for families. THANK YOU!! I look forward to reading any replies xx

What happy piglet said
If you train into near your office and walk, you will save around £700 a year for not using the tube.

Start from your place of work and go from the mainline.

Rugby or Banbury, both one hour ish commute and you can get four beds in your budget easy

I'll throw Bedfordshire another shout out too. We moved here in Feb from West London and absolutely love it. DH commutes from Flitwick very easily - beautiful countryside, lovely market towns and villages, fantastic pubs! 250k will easily get you 3 bed here

Bedford? A little under 40 mins to St Pancras on the fast trains (or the slow trains go via Farringdon, Black Friars and London Bridge).

Something like this

Really depends where you work - if it's City, I would say Essex, Colchester, Chelmsford etc. Lots if lovely places on the mainline to Liverpool st.

If you're more central then look at where comes into Euston, ie, Beds like Leighton Buzzard, st Albans etc.

Rugby; 56 min into euston, fast frequent service
Loads of beautiful villages and towns near by
£250k would get you a fetched house
Market Harborough; 1hr into st pancreas, half hourly peak sevice hourly restvof time. lovely town, aldi sains and waitrose, more expensive for houses but you'd get a 3 bed. Semi with a little work needed or a larger 3 bed terrace
Loads of people commute from both

In Ipswich you would get this in a good secondary school catchment

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31944906.html?showcase=true

I second Canterbury, I really want to move there. Keep an eye on rightmove though as I know through work that the property belonging to the mod are going to be sold off at a fairly reasonable price as the barracks has closed down.

Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough are all on the East Midlands direct train route to St Pancras, and you can get a very decent house for 250k. As others have said, it really depends which bit of London you need to commute to.

South Norfolk.

Your budget would buy an amazing house.

We downsized from London. Sold our house for 350, bought house in diss south norfolk for 200. Used the rest to extend and decorate. :)

Good schools, good train links - diss to London 1h 30 mins by train, 2 hours by car. We love it.

Pulborough or Billingshurst in W Sussex?

Are you sure you want to be that far out? If commuting everyday for 1.5h or more one way, it is going to be that easy...

I always recommend that people rent in an area for 6 months before buying - you have nothing to loose if you rent out your London property - and you avoid a potentially costly mistake....I would have lived in another village to where I am now -- but I didnt know about it at the tiem

Try Luton - yes, I know but it is near lovely Chiltern country, Dunstable Downs, easy commuting, an airport, access to the motorway network right outside the town, Stockroom Park, good aquatics centre and lower house prices than the likes of St Albans. Diverse community with brilliant ethnic food shops.

Lots on Rightmove

Stockwood Park, not Stockroom!

Worthing

Thanks for your suggestions Happydutchmummy - We visited Canterbury on Sunday and it really is a very nice town and definitely one to consider. DH needs to get into Charring Cross or Victoria - Charring X preferable.

Just a note of caution about Canterbury (and Kent in general). Kent has a selective secondary education system.... you might see this as a positive, but it's worth bearing in mind.

Depends where work is!

We commuted into city so for us it had to be commutable to London Waterloo, ie Southwest Trains, ie south-west direction commuter town

I am in Ramsgate, lots of DRLers here and commuters, it is just over 1 hour to Stratford or St Pancras (I don't know the price).
Good things for family with small children here:
Lots of excellent primary schools, beach, lots for young children to do in school holidays. Waitrose! Westwood Cross shopping area - convenient and just 10 minutes in car.
You could easily buy a nice 3 or 4 bed semi or terrace in Ramsgate for less than £250 ( a lot less depending on what you want).

Downside - Anywhere in Kent - Grammar school system means poorer education for kids who do not get into GS or independent schools. About 20% go to GS. I think there are 3 state secondary serving Ramsgate one is outstanding and one is to be avoided at all costs, I don't know about the third. We are in the catchment for 3 grammar schools and kids in this area just need to pass the Kent test to be guaranteed a GS place. This is not so in most of the rest of Kent.

There are some good things like it is cooler here in the hot summer, we usually get sun when everyone else has rain, it is warmer here (on the coast) when it is freezing in land. DRiving around Thanet (that is Broadstars, Margate and Ramsgate) is easy and it is easy to park everywhere.

If money was no object personally I prefer Canterbury on the same fast train line (about 14 miles away). I am more of a city person. BUT I think you get a lot less property for your money in Canterbury and if you drive there is a traffic and parking problem there.

Yay, so glad you liked canterbury. I love it here.

Things I love about canterbury

It's safe
Beautiful parks and plenty of playgrounds
Lots of cafes/restaurants
Lot of activities for young children (check out the beaney library, trampoline club, kingsmead playgym, gulbenkian theatre, etc)
young adults are catered for too (there are 2 large universities here so I figure that when my dc become teenagers there will be lots of things on to keep them entertained)
It's close to the seaside (herne bay or whitstable)
It's got 2 zoos nearby (howlets and wingham)

Things I don't like about canterbury

The rush hour traffic
First 2 weeks of September is freshers week at the uni and it is chaos in town!

Your dh can get to charing cross in 1hour 30 mins from canterbury west on the fast train to Stratford then dlr. However it's far more expensive than the direct slow train from c.west which takes 1hours 45 mins. From canterbury east the trains to Victoria take 1,35 hours.

As his commute will be pretty long I'd really recommend finding a house no more than 5 minutes walk/cycle from the station so it doesn't take him ages to get home.

Feel free to pm me if you have anymore questions or want any info.

MrsTaraPlumbing Thank you for your comments - I am interested in Ramsgate and Margate too as potential areas. We will visit at the weekend. What you mentioned is interesting and good to know re schools and property available in our budget etc.

A few points about Margate. Like most seaside towns I am sure it has good and bad points. Mullins Caribbean restaurant in the old town is definitely a good point!

There are some lovely properties in Margate. I don't know about the schools there. It is often said that there are very high proportion of privately rented properties let to the very poorest people. With all the associated problems. It might look nice on a sunny bank holiday but the rest of the time it feels very poor and decaying.

Margate is not on the fast train to London line - it ends at Ramsgate. The nicer areas of Margate for homeowners are probably the Avenues & Palm Bay at Cliftonville and Westbrook towards Garlinge.

In Ramsgate nicer places for families to buy are West of the town, Westcliff, Southwood Gardens, Nethercourt - close to the primary schools - Ellington, Chilton, Priary and Christchurch. Nce houses near the station (for easy walk and commute) look towards Ellington Park.

The actual town centres are dominated by pound shops. Westwood Cross shopping Centre is central to the Isle. And I hear the Loop Bus route is very efficient if you are a bus person.

The slow train to Charing X takes forever from here so investigate the reality of the journey before spending too long looking.

Hey - Thanks again for your Margate tips. We drove down there yesterday and feel like this is the top of our focus area now. Margate did have a feeling of being a little run down and poverty stricken - but it also had the bear bones of being a wonderful place once again. The High street was very sad indeed....it seems such a shame. I am a little worried about the commute for DH but he keeps telling me not to worry about that! We will visit again and I will look up the places you have highlighted! We will be renting for a year anyway so we can fully get used to our new area. Thanks once again. :)