If you had around 250k to buy a house...

[yellowellie]

Where would you buy?

We're selling our London home and going to rent here. With our equity plus a mortgage we want to buy a house which we can use as a holiday home and also Airbnb when we're not using it.

We're thinking somewhere within a couple of hours drive from London, near to a train station and some shops / cafes etc, and somewhere gorgeous, where lots of people will want to holiday.

Maybe Cotswolds, or somewhere coastal?

Ideas appreciated!

Suffolk or Norfolk

Little bit further but I would say Devon coastline.

You could get something in / around Poole / Bournemouth for that, although you might be better off getting a flat. It’s absolutely gorgeous down here and very popular with the tourists!

I think there's a big difference between renting a house out for housing, compared to holidays. There's got to be a lot more admin, cleaning, maintenance etc with the latter, are you prepared to spend the time travelling back and forth prepare a holiday let for the next set of visitors, or will you be paying someone local to take this on?

How many bedrooms would you need? There are 1 bed flats for that price in some areas and 3 bed semis in others.

I think you would need to to be more than 2 hours away from London to get anything decent. 2 hours is an acceptable commuting time these days so anywhere that near would be suffering london-influenced price inflation.

You can get from London to Bournemouth in under 2 hours on the faster train services. This was our budget and we got a 2 bed terrace last year that was very nicely done up and would have been perfect for holiday lets etc. It is doable.

I would second those saying Dorset. I'd be tempted to go a little further than Bournemouth or Poole if you can. Check out the train lines and stops on the way out of Waterloo to Wareham, Dorchester and Weymouth, and also Sherborne (different line).

Ramsgate or broadstairs

You won’t be able to tick all those boxes with your budget

Norfolk broads - you can get a two bedroom house with garden for £250k