Did you quit london? If so, was it because you were priced out or just done with city life?

[Daytripping7]

Torn about leaving London. Can just about afford to stay and live somewhere not-massive but in a nice, family area. But have been craving space lately! And less edge.

Why did all you London leavers go? Did any of you regret it?

We lived in a family friendly area of London, but found that the better schools were church schools with criteria of two years of attendance or early baptism - one of us is of a non-Christian faith (non-European background) and it felt borderline fraudulent to go through that rigmarole for a school where we would never have felt totally comfortable. The differences were quite stark:

School A - VA C of E school, Outstanding Ofsted
School B - Community school, Satisfactory Ofsted
School C - VA Catholic school, Outstanding Ofsted

All three were within 5 min walk of our home yet we were effectively cut off from attending two of them. So much for diversity!

We moved from Zone 2 last year to Zone 4/5 due to being priced out housing wise. It is more suburban but it's less polluted, we have a lovely terraced house with a garden (for almost a third of the price of the equivalent property where we lived) and all the amenities nearby. It is less diverse - most of the people on our road are white and have lived in the area for a long time but because it's outer London there is still diversity. It's safe and green. Schools are excellent (Grammar area though). The overground train takes 15 minutes to LB so we don't feel like we're missing out and just yesterday we drove up to St Johns Wood to do something and said on the way back that we were so happy to be going back to our quiet area. No tube line though but we're lucky in that we don't work in Central London.

Don't miss the anti social behaviour, crowds and constant sirens! I do miss the vibrancy but it's only a 15 minute drive to our old area for ds clubs, friends etc. I really wouldn't want to leave London altogether either. Apart from Brighton (and maybe Bristol - which is diverse but not as mixed ethnically or socially as London is in my opinion), there is nowhere I've found like it in the U.K.

I suppose if you're in North London you could look at Hertfordshire but it's expensive too and as a pp said, very homogeneous. Places like St Albans and Harpenden are nice but have that homogeneous vibe.

Moved out 8 years ago, my advice if you have kids is get the timing right, ours were in secondary by the time we moved. They were fine but we found it hard to make friends/fit in, our village has a primary but kids are bussed out to secondary school.
My DH ended up commuting back in to a london for work (not our plan) the train is really expensive.
We are just selling our house (I have loved our house) and I doubt I’ll ever live in a small village again.

Price

I craved open space and countryside. Moved two hours away but had enough in the pot for both a massive house in a lovely market town and a teeny flat in London. Made lots of friends, met my now dp and never looked back.

ProfessorRadcliffeEmerson I feel exactly that! All the brilliant things about london have vanished in lockdown, and not sure when they’ll come back.

I’ve been completely discounting religious schools too, maybedoctor.

I do worry about the homogenous thing, lightsabre. I grew up in a very homogenous, small village. Great as a child as I didn’t care about anything except playing outside in the countryside. But incredibly boring and stifling as a teenager (ANYTHING different about you was bad). It’s tricky because I love the idea of the community of a village. But I don’t know what the reality would be?

Reading this thread with interest.

I do think we need to be cautious about being unduly influenced by lockdown when the world is just not normal.

At some point presumably many will start commuting 4/5 days again and also want to start using neighbourhood facilities again (coffee shops, kids activities, theatres etc etc). It seems London is falling out of favour as many of the things that make London London have been closed.

But these aren’t normal times. I say this currently living in Z5 and also contemplating moving out to the HC but being very aware of my point above - so we certainly won’t rush in to anything!

Yes I left and regretted it and moved back after 6 years. Regretted it from the start really. I lost out massively on the house price rise in London which wasn't replicated in the place I moved to.

I just love London though, and love bringing up children here. I'm now thinking though (when they leave) that I might do what @Zenithbear did and split my equity over 2 places.

I left because I wanted to settle down and have a family. I felt like I couldn’t do that until I lived like a grown up and couldn’t even dream of buying somewhere In London on a salary of £50k ish moved out to Surrey, still work for a company in the city, so in normal times I get my fix of London

We moved from zone 1 to zone 6 about eight years ago and have no regrets. It took a while to get used to the commute as previously we could walk to work and to places we socialised, and I admit at first I did wonder if we had made a mistake, but since we've had children I see now it was the best move we could have made; as with rising property prices there is no way we would have been able to move here if we'd left it until now. We are near the river and lots of parks/green spaces with outstanding schools, but still within the zone systems so it's easy and not too expensive to get into town

I lived right in the centre of London, in zone one. I moved out because my partner hated it and was desperate to move out. I couldn't afford to keep the flat on on my own, otherwise I would have stayed - I'd rather have had a long-distance relationship than move out of London. I've never got over it, and I'm still heartbroken ten years on.

I quit London for Manchester. Love being in a vibrant, diverse city, London always felt too big, south of the river the transport was naff, I just really fell out of love with it.

We had to move due to DH's job. I don't miss living in London, but I miss working there, it's just much more motivating vs other cities I've worked in.

We are moving to East Mids now (not from London) hour train ride from London, not a cheap line, but as I will mostly be WFH and eventually only need to be in London 1 day a week or so it'll be manageable, it's insane the amount of house you get this way. Lockdown has certainly made me re-evaluate.

We were priced out. Planning a family, we both wanted a bit of space. We didn't necessarily want a huge garden and 6 bedroom house, but we did want some outdoor space and enough indoor space to have children, space for play, friends over etc.

However, for what we bought our decent sized 3 bed semi with an okay sized garden for we'd have got a 2 bedroom flat over a chippy in a less nice part of SW London and at least 15 minutes walk from any train/tube. We had been renting, but that wasn't feasible or desirable for us long term.

We have a couple of friends who due to finances were able to stay in London and while their houses are smaller, I do feel we could have been happy in them. But we couldn't have afforded them. So.

On plus side, we really do notice how much more crowded etc London is than where we are and we often comment when visiting friends that we're actually much happier with where we are. The lack of diversity in people, activities, food etc does sometimes get me down, but we're close enough to London that we are there often which helps. Like a PP, we are white but not from England (but we are English speaking) and it does get frustrating sometimes realising that we basically represent diversity at the DCs' school.

We left 2 years ago. We lived in a not-very-nice part of SE London and we wouldn’t have been able to afford the jump up to 4 bedrooms from 3. Instead we moved out, to a 4 bed detached house (left a 3 bed terraced house) and haven’t regretted it for a second. Nicer area, far less crime, good schools and much better sense of community. And it’s still commutable to London (DH was commuting 3 days a week before lockdown).

I moved to London to study, had a flat in Ealing but sold up and moved out at 24. City life was not my thing.

Children grow up - We thought about moving out of London a while ago - now DS is older I am so grateful we did not - there are parks

Thanks all! Yes my fear is that the kids will get bigger and actually want to be in London (teenagers), or that we’ll miss it when they’ve grown up and left.

Such a hard choice!

Harlesden is very white middle class, but St Albans is bigger and more mixed. Not quite London, but a mix of backgrounds and faces. For now at least.

@intheningnangnong, do you mean Harpenden?

“Like a PP, we are white but not from England (but we are English speaking) and it does get frustrating sometimes realising that we basically represent diversity at the DCs' school”

I think it really depends where you move to as the PP alludes to. We lived in zone 1, my partner is white, but not from England, and my kids were born abroad. Where we live now in the East Mids, half of my kids class is non-white and we love our town. It is very diverse. London isn’t the only diverse place. I think you just have to chose carefully.

I think lockdown will fundamentally change things re remote working as companies will struggle to push back if efficiency hasn't been affected plus it saves them money.

We are zone 3 & I do like it but it's very busy & so expensive. However because DH & I are both Londoners we don't have experience of living elsewhere plus have family very close which is helpful with small dc. I've never really liked the outer zones as they don't seem to have much going on & you need to travel for restaurants, shopping etc but I would be tempted by places like St Albans, Bristol.

I was born in South London and lived there until 1988 when we moved to Cornwall. Combination of reasons but the main thing was high property prices, relatively high crime and poor schools and busy roads. DHs company had a position going in the south west so he applied for it and got it. For the price of a 3 bed semi in fairly rough area of London we got a lovely 4 bed detached in nice area in Cornwall with good schools. Luckily DH had a good job and our children were 1 and 2 when we moved so young enough for schooling not to be an issue. I returned to part time work a few years later. Never regretted it although my family still live in the London area.

We live in an average family kindof area in zone 3. I’m desperate to move back to Devon but my dh works in the city and is not white so doesn’t want to go - he’s more concerned for our children on that point than himself. The thing is, other than for dh’s work, we very rarely actually go into the city or do ‘London’ things so it feels like a waste to be here when we could be somewhere better suited to our lifestyle.

I lost out massively on the house price rise in London which wasn't replicated in the place I moved to
AnnaNimmity me too! But how did you manage to move back? (well it's an intrusive question, but I mean, you were lucky to be able to).

I didn't feel like trading my flat in zone 1 to a fraction larger one futher out, as I needed the cash difference for other things, and I just craved space. Moved to Bristol, but if I knew how much prices will go up over the next 5yrs, I'd have bought a good size 2-bed (or even 3) in zone 2/3 and should have rented it out while myself renting in Bristol (even if I wasn't keen on renting).
I could have cashed in so much in 5 yrs that I could've bought a studio in London and a house (3-bed) in the Midlands where I'm now. Just what Zenith did - but who knew!