Potentially moving to Essex NEED HELP!

[Sam3571]

Hello my husband and I are currently living in Medway but are looking to move to the Essex area. Dh works on the Underground and I’m looking to get a job in London too so we would like to live a little closer, specially as we both get free travel on all TFL services.

Looking at houses around £350k - £375k for 3 beds, parking, nice garden and closer travel links to London by train and motorway links back to Medway for visiting family.

Schools wouldn’t be a huge issue atm as we don’t have any children yet.

We have been looking on Rightmove in the Hornchurch, Gidea Park, Brentwood, Harold Wood and Billericay areas but we don’t know much about these areas. Also are happy to consider elsewhere if suitable. DH was told by his colleagues at work to avoid Dagenham, barking, Romford, rainham, grays and Basildon.

Any recommendations?

Hutton is near Shenfield station on TFL line- there are massive expensive houses but also ex LA houses which are obviously more affordable. Schools are excellent too- for the future. You’ll get a 3 bed with a garden for your money there.

Billericay is also more reasonable than Brentwood. Good luck.

Hutton is right by a12 junction off m25 so good links too.

Romford is fine; I live near Mawney Road primary school, just under a mile from the station, no issues walking home from the station at night. The surrounding roads are quite nice, lots of young families as the primary school has a good reputation.
The town centre gets busy Friday and Saturday nights as there's quite a few pubs and clubs there, but there's plenty of quieter places to eat or go for a drink outside of that area if you don't want to go clubbing. We tend to go out in London instead and either get the last train back or jump on the night tube to Newbury Park and a short cab ride or night bus from there.
Romford station is about 20 minutes to Stratford and 30 to Liverpool Street, so a relatively quick commute from zone 6.
You can get a nice 2 bed or a 3 bed needing a bit of TLC for your budget. Gardens tend to be a decent size, and you cam get a resident parking permit for about £30 a year on most roads, so there are options if you aren't set on off-street parking (we have a permit and can usually park outside, or very close).

Hornchurch/Rainham area ( not being too specific!) zone 5/6 on the underground network with access to c2c , A13, A12, M25.
Lots of green areas (country parks) yet commutable to the city.
I agree with @AwkwardPaws27 you can get a nice 3 bed ‘doer-upper’
With garden/garage/driveway for your budget.
We purchased in the area 7 years ago and found when looking, a lot of homes up for sale previously owned by older people who had passed or gone into residential homes, so the doing up consisted of modernising structurally sound large family homes.
My advice...don’t write off an area till you’ve visited and seen for yourself!
Happy Hunting!

Brentwood has been overrun by towie mania and boutiques, I lived there ages ago and couldn’t believe the change when I went back there recently.

Gidea Park, Shenfield and Hutton are nice.

Oh wow thank you for the responses everyone, this is really helpful!

Okay So it looks like the general consensus is that our budget will buy us a nice 2 bed semi that can be made into a 3, or can buy a 3 bed that needs a fair bit of updating.

And the areas to consider with more green spaces etc are: shenfield, Hutton, Billericay, Hornchurch, Gidea Park and (Romford as long as it’s outside of say a 1/2 mile radius of the town centre.)

I imagine in all these locations there will be local amenities like a cafe, shop, doctors etc... and a drive to a supermarket within 10-15 minutes.

Are there any fitness centres nearby that has a swimming pool? I imagine there are gyms near all of these places but I love a good old swim.

I found this house, looks pretty nice. Could potentially made into a 3 in the future. What are your views?

House no. 1

If youre willing to go a tiny bit further out, have a look at Wickford, just one more train stop on from Billericay. Good schools, lots of green and £350 k would probably get you more like a 3-4 bed place

Most area outside the Romford ringroad are fine (very few houses inside it anyway), the roads off of Main Road, Victoria Road and Mawney Road are quite nice, lots of Victorian and Edwardian semis/terraces.
London Road and it's offshoots are a bit more industrial and run down, I personally avoided that bit when we were looking.

Do you need to be in walking distance of a station?
Worth checking parking fees etc if you need to drive. I found our budget didn't go far in Brentwood within a mile of the station, we viewed a few tiny 2 bed cottages but they were selling for £360-375k (2 years ago).

Wick Ford and billericay are lovely OP. billericay has a lovely little high street with the train station at the end, nice restaurants and pubs, good supermarkets and a couple of different gyms.

That house looks good- it’s on a fairly busy road though and not particularly close to a station.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-69934507.html

This has 3 bedrooms with great country views. It would be a walk to the station though

Once again Thank you to all contributing to this thread, this information is really really helpful!

Yeah awkward paws ideally within 1-1.5 miles of a TFL/LU station (this would keep us active . Shenfield, Brentwood, Gidea Park would probably be perfect seeing as Crossrail is coming, though admittedly later than scheduled.

That way we could both take advantage of the free travel perk we receive and wont have to pay any additional train travel like we do currently.

Yeah being on a busy road isn't ideal but if the house is set back a little bit like that one is then it is okay. I think off street parking is absolutely essential though due to us currently not having it where we live and absolutely hating it. We actually got a parking ticket once for parking outside our house even though there were no permit bays left!!!!

Oh Wickford, not heard of this place before, thanks oh hey and vintage. I would have to research the season ticket costs and journey time from Wickford to find out if we could seriously consider it. OH gets 75% off a NR season ticket too but I wouldn't get any discount.

But your right Zippy those views do look really nice!

I am from Basildon - don't live there. Avoid Basildon, Grays, Tilbury, Stanford-le-Hope aka most of the C2C line imo.

C2C - Benfleet, Chalkwell, Leigh - nice areas
Liv Street line - Shenfield, Billericay, Rayleigh - all very nice

Some of those areas are v. expensive - my friend just got a 2 bed terraced house in Brentwood for £350k...

Do not live in Wickford. You can PM me for reasons I won't put on here.

Found this in Hornchurch, ticks most of the boxes.Can you tell I Dont like the idea of moving straight into a project

House 2

What dya think?

Laindon would be a really good place to buy at the moment as it’s about to have a brand new high street and re-development. But now and property prices will more than likely rise once it’s complete. The dunton fields/Radford Park estate is really nice.

I was about to say Basildon, but I specifically Laindon.

Loads of nice new estates gone up recently and and you'll get a lot more for your money than the other areas you mention.

I also know Medway well and IMO Basildon is much nicer although people look down on it.

The link doesn't work, can you post it again?

Friend of mine lives in Saffron Walden. He commutes into London in 50 minutes and it’s a nice town. Quite family friendly and close to Cambridge.

I mean this kindly, but you are very unlikely to find a 2/3 bedroom house with off-street parking in gidea park for £375k or less, unless it needs major work (full rewire, new heating system, not just cosmetic). The RM2 postcode is very sought after.

Most of RM11 is good, some of RM12. We steered clear of the Elm Park station area as DH didn't feel we'd be as safe there. Hornchurch feels more Essex, Romford is becoming more like east London.

Although Crossrail isn't officially here TFL run the rail line and we already have the new trains about 30% of the time.

Oh yeah it doesn’t seem to work, that’s weird haha.

Well we’re not set on Gidea Park, I’m just listing areas that have been suggested to me that are affordable, nice to live in/bring up a family and close to tfl services for our commute into London.
Obviously if it’s a more up market area as you state, then we will not be able to afford this neck of the woods.

awkward paws found a few more close to brentwood too.

Brentwood property 1

Brentwood property 2

Brentwood property 3

Hornchurch project

Hornchurch

The houses look good. You could consider cranham (affordable part of Upminster) too or Upminster Bridge area.
What about this?
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52886934.html

Or this

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-78267323.html

The hornchurch project one is a really nice location and house - but it needs a lot of work. You'd have to work out if you had enough to buy it and pay for the works.
The airfield estate in Hornchurch is ok, with a nice big park nearby, if the district line works for you travel-wise.
The Brentwood ones are nice. Worth checking how far the actual walking distance to the station (as opposed to the straight line) is. We're just under a mile but it's been bleak walking this week with the weather.

Best of luck, feel free to PM me if you have any questions about Romford or Hornchurch

Or

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74269199.html