Family friendly rental areas in London

[Siarie]

Hi everyone,

Me and DH currently live in central London but we've only been living here for a year. Due to circumstances we need to be flexible so buying isn't an option and rental currently suits our needs at the moment best.

We live in a two bed apartment around 1500 sq ft which suits us just fine right now. However we are expecting our first baby next year and while we could easily accommodate the new addition I don't feel that where we live is really family friendly enough (Canary Wharf).

We picked Canary Wharf as DH works in central London but I don't like the noise of living centrally and currently DH commute door to door is about 30 mins. DH is happy to extend that though so that we can move but with such a huge amount of areas to pick from I'm some what left unsure where is best.

Rent wise we pay around £3,500 - £4,000 a month now and ideally would want to decrease this if paying more for comutting in perhaps to £3,000. Key things for me is a family friendly area, 2/3 bedrooms, easy access to central London or Waterloo train station.

I know some areas that have come up on TV (good old location, location) places like St Albans? We've had good recommendations of south west London in general and Hampstead has popped up a lot too.

We're looking for somewhere we can settle in, it's likely we will be in London for years to come. I suppose schools will come into play eventually too.

Treadsoftly very good points, right now we could afford around £500k but London prices are so crazy that it's hard to picture us buying here at all. Possibly instead we might buy to let in areas back in the SW England that we can rent out, once schools become more of a consideration then we would need to limit the movement although I wouldn't be against moving primary schools. I'm hoping the sheer amount of contracts in London should cover that and DH has desirability with his certifications , but we've got five years or so until then and things change so it's hard to say where we might be.

Definitely want to try out some areas in the mean time, it's very difficult because London really is very dauntingly big. So far I've liked most of the rentals linked so feeling quite positive that places we would like are out there.

Work wise I do the admin for DH's business but it doesn't take very long (approx a day a week) and can be done from home. So I won't need childcare on a day to day basis, do you still need to register early for when they start school at 4/5years?

And hey mini pie!

I agree with everything TreadSoftly says.

You'll need to apply for schools when the child is three - pretty much all schools in London are oversubcribed, so there's very little leeway on this.

I'd start looking at where you want to be permanently.

Dulwich. I'm moving there from Fulham to afford a house rather than a flat.

On a mobile so can't find the link but there's a website linking commute times from place of work to local stns and vice versa.
I'm sure Barnes is lovely and I know Richmond / St Margaret's is but imo it's a sod of a commute to Canary Wharf. If living in a specific area will prevent/deter your husband from taking contracts there it will limit his job market. Crossing london on a Sunday pm is horrid but you have to balance it against his overall flexibility for work and his willingness to travel.
Crossrail might also give other options you haven't considered.