Areas to move outside London - cold feet about moving in London

[planforeverything]

Been in London overpaying our mortgage and saving like a dog for the past 2 years, all working towards buying a house, which we thought would be in Barnes.

Viewing another one this week and all of a sudden getting cold feet and want to think of some alternative areas and potentially move out of London. My husband has said the next place we move to he wants to stay for minimum 5 years but more like 7-8 and looking at the space we can get in Barnes I’m not sure I could stay for this long.

With our budget of £1.2m we still can’t buy the house we want, in the exact area we want and it feels like we are compromising on all aspects of what we want our house to be. I.e Looking at anything in Barnes that’s within our price range but in reality I don’t actually like any of the houses we have seen.

Can anyone recommend some areas that match our requirements below. I’ve spent an age trawling the internet:

• high street with some shops, ideally a boots, waitrose, some independent cafes, restaurants. Want to avoid village with 3/4 shops and having to drive everywhere
• pretty/quaint/nice town that feels safe. Marlow and Henley really appeal to me in this aspect as they are both so nice
• Within reach of London (ideally less than an hour) but DH doesn’t work in London and I WFH many days
• DH works at Heathrow and our family live in Cardiff so we’d prefer to be west of London. We use the M4 to get to Cardiff abd M40 to get to Scotland regularly.

Areas so far I like:
Marlow - if the housing stock was better I’d probably move here
Henley
Teddington - whilst it’s closer to London I do like it but have heard it’s getting overcrowded.

Other areas we like but couldn’t move to (so you can get what I’m looking for) West Bridgeford in Nottingham, Clifton Village in Bristol, West End of Glasgow etc

Ideally want a 4 bed Victorian detached or semi with off street parking and a big garden within less than 20 minute walk of shops and amenities.

Don’t have any children at the moment (and potentially can’t have any) so feel free to factor this out.

FastAway, I need to go and have a look.

OP, you also must must must check out Wokingham. Literally everyone I know is moving there, it keeps getting voted the best place to live, it apparently has a new boutique high street (with a Gail’s, so basically it’s like you’ve never left Barnes), amazing schools and a Waitrose if course.

Jojo, I love Cobham. I live in the Medicine Garden in the summer. And the Big Sainsbury’s is essentially my favourite solo day out.

We've not long moved to Shepperton and love it here! Has a lovely village feel but a nice little high street with a small Sainsbury's, independent bakers and butcher's and even a Costa. We're only 5 mins drive from walton on thames which has a decent shopping centre. If your DH works in Heathrow it would prob only take 20-25 mins to get there.

I live very near Teddington (think literally the next place along, around Bushy Park. We also have a Waitrose (local) and a high street with cafes, shops etc as you've described) and it's lovely. I'm currently on mat leave and go into Teddington a couple of times a week. I'm not sure you'd get exactly what you're looking for house wise for 1.2m though but certainly more than what you'd get in Barnes and I suppose there's bargains to be had given the whole Brexit situation. Most people here live here because it's very child friendly - I know you've said you don't have any and may not, so this might be a factor in your decision as you sometimes can't move for buggies on the high street so you'd have to be very ok with lots of kids/babies in your face if you weren't having kids, as I know some people want/need to avoid that sort of thing. I also find the high street very long and spread out at times which makes it difficult to walk. Someone made a comment about the road in Bushy Park - it's a several square mile area and no one really walks along that road, it's just for cars. It's often just been me and my baby for as far as I can see in the park, plus deer, far quieter than Richmond Park which is near to where we used to live.

Before we moved here we were seriously considering Wokingham, as someone else said, due to how pretty and family friendly it is but ultimately decided to get a smaller house and stay within the London boroughs. If you're looking outside of London then I'd seriously consider there. I looked at lots of places with a similar criteria - husband works around LHR and I work centrally so needed to have good transport links and we didn't want to be reliant on cars to get things.

I'd move to beaconsfield. Lovely small town. 13 miles to Heathrow 25 minutes on the train to London. Waitrose is there too!

Abingdon in Oxfordshire

Or a tiny bit less salubrious but more for your money, edge of Wantage in Oxfordshire

If you could bring yourself to consider a village very near Abingdon/Wantage then East Hendred is lovely. Search for images!

Gerrards Cross? There is a Waitrose apparently

Definitely Windsor. Has everything you want and good housing stock in your price range. We could get to T5 via the back roads in 20 minutes, and be on the M4 in less that 10 minutes.

Ickenham, next to Ruislip, but has more of a village feel. It’s close to the countryside, but also has great connections to Central London - Met. & Piccadilly lines as well as Central & Chiltern, (into Marylebone), easily accessible, all zone 6. You’d get a lovely detached property, but nothing Victorian. Northwood also has some amazing properties, but only the Met. Line from there.

Forget to add, there’s a Waitrose in Ruislip, 1 mile or so from Ickenham & also in Northwood.
A pp mentioned Waitrose in South Harrow, which I agree is undesirable, but only up the road from Harrow-On-The-Hill, which is lovely & on both the Chiltern & Met. Lines. This branch of the Met. Line has fast trains during the rush hour, which cuts down on the commute!
Pinner is also worth considering ; it has a beautiful old High Street & is in between Harrow & Northwood - some stunning properties here.

However, none of the places I’ve mentioned have a London vibe, although Harrow & Pinner are fairly multicultural. Pinner & Northwood have a sizeable Jewish community.

Hope that you soon find somewhere to suit you.

Only read first page but Thame, Oxfordshire would fit your criteria.

Agree try Windsor eg www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73064572.html

Farnham Common has plenty of lovely detached houses within your budget, nice woods at Burnham Beeches and easy access for Heathrow.

No station however though Slough station isn’t that far if you drive.

I love Eton but the housing stock isn’t great there (and it’s ridiculously expensive).

North Surrey? Weybridge? Epsom?

Harrow on the hill some parts of Harrow some,some parts of stanmore