Hi all,
First-time, frustrated poster here. My fiance and I currently live in Surbiton and we absolutely love it and never want to leave. However, it looks impossible to size up here.
It took a long time to sell our one-bed flat, and although we have finally accepted an offer it's much less than had we sold pre-covid. Our budget is therefore much lower than we initially thought, meanwhile house prices have skyrocketed and the number of properties coming up for sale has plummeted even since about mid March it seems. We have offered asking price on two houses, but each has gone to sealed bids and we've been outbid.
Our buyers are in a huge hurry and I'm terrified we will end up homeless. We are massively widening our search area but can't find anywhere we can afford where we feel we will be genuinely happy.
We're 30, pre-kids though expect to have a baby in this house so primary schools are a consideration but not secondary as we will likely relocate further out in 10yrs. We love life in Surbiton with lots of nice pubs, independent restaurants, coffee shops within walking distance, and don't expect this to change any time soon. We also have a dog so love having green space and the river on the doorstep.
I work from home, but my OH commutes by motorbike to Isleworth. He is very keen to keep his commute below 45 mins and with minimal motorway. Sadly, this rules out places we love like Guildford, Farnham, Reigate, Dorking, although all our friends are in SW London/Surbiton anyway so would prefer to stay closer. We're not ready for village life.
All the semi-affordable areas that are commutable for my OH we don't love (eg Isleworth, hounslow, New Malden, Chessington), while the places we like, we now can't afford at all/there's nothing for sale - Surbiton, Teddington, East/central Molesey, Esher, Claygate, Kingston, Thames Ditton, Weybridge. It's infuriating that on Rightmove I have 8 pages of saved properties (all in budget) in these places from the past six months while we were trying to sell (and obvs all now sold).
We're now looking at Hersham, Walton, far west Molesey, Epsom, Ewell, West Byfleet, Addlestone but we're not very taken with any of them having spent various weekends visiting, especially as we'd still be maxing out our budget (and paying SD).
Our requirements are: three bedrooms, or two doubles with potential to extend, garden and off street parking. And here's the clincher - our absolute max budget is now only 485k.
Is there anywhere I haven't thought of where we can tick our boxes for this, while not totally losing everything we love about Surbiton?? I'm starting to think not, but worth an ask! TIA