Made wrong move out of London. Help me get it right second time...

[backtothegrindstone]

The title says it all really. We moved out of London nearly 2 years ago to Dorking in Surrey. Its a pretty nice town, but we realised fairly quickly that it just wasn't the right fit for us, and after a lot of soul searching, we've decided that we'd like to move again whilst the kids are still young enough to get over it, with the aim of finding somewhere we can call home for good. There's nothing massively wrong with Dorking, but neither of us can imagine spending the rest of our lives here. There's just too many small elements missing and when you add them all together it makes one big reason not to stay. But I'm terrified of moving again and making the same mistake again. And there are just so many places we could go that I just don't know where to start. I'm hoping people could give me some ideas for places that might be a good fit for us, so I can start looking again?

We were really happy in London as we had a good circle of friends and a nice house, but we didn't really go into central London anymore and spent more and more time in our local neighbourhood. As more and more of our friends started to move out we had less and less reasons to stay and wanted a less hectic lifestyle for our boys. Now we've left, we are fairly sure we don't want to move back to London, but the move out has made us realise that there are a few 'city' things we can't live without that we're just not finding in Dorking. I'm hoping we can find at least most of them somewhere a bit greener and cleaner than London.

So negatives about Dorking for us have been that it's just a little too 'countrysidey' for us. We don't ride horses or have a dog or go mountain biking and we don't really feel like we quite fit in here. We've found the high street just a bit lacking in nice clothes shops and restaurants (especially non-chain restaurants, ideally ones that do brunch!), and it feels like a lot of stuff has closed down even in the 2 years we've been here. We've also really struggled to find a suitable house to buy here (we're looking for a 4+ bedroom detached period house with a decent sized garden within walking distance of the mainline station).

Ideally we're looking to move to a reasonably pretty and leafy 'commuter' town within an hour commute of London (preferably from a station with a minimum of 2 trains an hour) where you don't have to drive to do everyday stuff. Essentials include a supermarket, some decent cafes for brunch and lunch, some nice family friendly pubs, a private gym with a pool nearby, maybe a few decent boutiques and some facilities for kids like parks, playgrounds etc. Oh, and decent schools are a must. Other awesome bonuses would be access to Uber, a reasonable selection of takeaways, some decent bars/pubs and maybe a cinema.

Our house budget is reasonably health, and we're happy to go back within the M25 as long as it still feels green and leafy.

Am I asking the impossible?

St Albans does sound perfect on paper @GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal (love the name by the way). I think we were just hoping we'd find somewhere closer as it'd be a lot lot simpler - our boys are both in school already so the fear of not being able to find school places is pretty big. Somewhere nearer would mean being able to keep them where they are now, at least until places come up if necessary. Plus all the hassle of looking further afield to begin with! So I think we'll have to exhaust all the local places first and if we don't, we'll move on to those further afield.

I’ll be really interested in where you end up, @backtothegrindstone I’m not sure I’ve really got a handle on what you want so when you find it let us know! Good luck with the search.

But just regarding East Molesey..... you said in OP that you wanted two trains an hour and a commute of under an hour, and a 4 bed detached for 1.2m. Both of which EM offers. Just be careful not to do that thing of getting overwhelmed with choice and then discounting everywhere cos there might be something better put there when actually you love a place and it ticks the boxes. Best of luck x

There really aren't any period detached 4 beds with decent sized gardens of the kind we want in East Molesey @Tunt. West Molesey maybe, but certain not in the area within walking distance of Hampton Court Station. To get what we're looking for in East Molesey we'd be looking at closer to £1.5m. Houses are a bit personal I suppose, but to be specific, as a minimum we're looking for something built no later than 1935 with off street parking and a garage, and a decent amount of separation from our neighbours (ie a mature hedge and walkways to both sides of house) to give a sense of privacy. And ideally a minimum of 1/8 acre of garden though ideally more. We want to be on a quiet tree lined street and not on a busy road. Ideally we'd like a house that needs work so not unrealistic to expect a bigger property (we have renovated several so know what to expect).

Sorry, should have said, to do any considerable work we'd hope to spend less than our top budget. Top budget is very much only for a really amazing house.

Ah. Having read that, don't come to St Albans. You won't get all of that here on your budget.

Actually, having just had a quick look at Right Move, there are a few properties that meet that description. None very central though, and most look like they need work

Thanks Greebo, that's helpful to know.

If you're ready to think completely out of the box look into Birmingham. I moved here from London fifteen years ago and I'm so glad I did. It's an hour from New Street to Euston and £1.2m will buy you a period palace in the nicest part of town. It has everything London has (except the Queen and the hassle) and it's all packed into a much smaller place. More canals than Venice, more trees than Paris, largest urban park in Europe. Coming from London you'll find the traffic like Toy-Town and the air quality is the best in Britain (surrounded by huge green counties). Good schools, great little airport, lots and lots of ex-Londoners...

@backtothegrindstone we've just bought a house similar to what you describe ...
Tree lined street
Cul de sac
Detached garage
OSP
Built 1934
Mature hedges
Large garden
Etc

In a well regarded area with outstanding primary and secondary schools.
£290k - Yorkshire.

Come up north!

Thanks, nice idea (though I'm from the North and have no real desire to go back to be honest!) but we need to drive into London quite regularly as we often work evenings so it needs to be close, and can't move our jobs. We really do need to be around the M25 ring.

Fair enough! Hope you find what you are looking for

Well, maybe you'd like suburbia after all... Epsom, Cheam, Banstead, Carshalton Beeches, Kingswood... Epsom is the only one with a town centre and the rest have smaller high streets. Still in the zones so mega easy for central London but definitely doesn't feel London and countryside would generally be within walking distance.

Some examples:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-70826701.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-81934715.html

Also further east, places like Orpington are similar.

I doubt it's possible to be in an upmarket town close to the centre and countryside and have that sort of plot and even if then the budget probably won't stretch.

1/8 acre isn't that big - it's only a longish garden on a detached house. We could certainly do it here in Dorking (in fact could easily do it for less), and several local towns - Reigate, Guildford, Horsham etc. All nice towns, so doesn't seem beyond the relms of possibility elsewhere.

How about Kent, around the Bexley area?

Or South East London - Bromley, Chislehurst, Beckenham or Orpington.

Does this fit location wise?

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-56521968.html

Teddington/ Twickenham/ Hampton.

Plenty of green spaces but with busy high streets, and can be on South Bank in 40 mins.

I've just worked out my numbers. A garden 50ft wide and 110ft deep is 1/8 acre. So yes, not that big/tricky to find.

Move north to a smaller city? I have everything you describe except the period property and probably 1/3 of the cost of dorking. Oh and Uber is the best here, £4 to the city centre, gave up on buses! The only thing we don't have huge numbers of are high end boutiques but there's some. It's an hour and 2 mins on the fast train (1 per hour) and an hour and 14 mins the the rest mon-sat (4 per hour) and will be faster if they ever finish the electrifying work currently causing issues on weekends.

Ps the houses here are mostly on 1/4 acre plots, some are 500 years old, mines just under 100 years.

We left London 18 months ago and rented in St Alban's while we looked to buy, we loved Hitchin but there was nothing coming on the market that ticked all our boxes and the two that did we got outbid on.
We widened our search and ended up buying just outside Marlow. We love it for what we got for a terrace in Fulham we now have a 5 bed detached house and 1.5 acre garden! Our only regret is we didn't do it years ago.

@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal - I see from that other thread we are both in StA. I also recommended the OP to come here

Wrong thread!

Canterbury would definitely be worth a recce as high street, schools and commute time are all great. Though not much period housing stock on the market in your bracket at the mo...this was all I could find on Rightmove that would tick most of your boxes and even this could still probably do with a bit of an overhaul. Garden is definitely 1/8 acre though 😁 www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-74999480.html

@LurksNoLonger, I love that! Would snap it up myself if the commute was any better