Open thread: If you moved out of London (to outskirts or commuter town) but still work centrally, where did you move and do you like it??

[sadlyrefreshingrightmove]

It's all in the title really! Have name changed due to potentially outing information.

Work in London (City) and looking to make a move. Impossible at the moment as the market is absolutely batshit crazy but hoping to do some research and visit places now in the hope that when (if) it cools down we have an idea of places to go.

Have sort of exhausted looking at all of the places we know, or near where we know, and am getting to the stage of just looking at a commuter map and trying to find dots on the map within a 1 hour commute of London that seems promising. So shamelessly asking for peoples' experiences. I don't think there's a perfect place that ticks all of our boxes so just want to know places to consider/rule out.

BUT if it helps the key things we're looking for are:

• Commute to city under 1 hr (any of bank/aldgate/liverpool street/cannon st)
• Good schools primary and secondary, ideally including state options but could do private for secondary. Kids currently primary age, have girls and boys.
• Safe and relatively green
• Enough of a town centre that you could spend half a day walking around, getting a meal, pottering around the shops, going to the park. A few good places to eat. Would love a cinema, theatre, buzz, great restaurants but these are nice to haves not essentials.
• min 5 bedroom detached house, with some character, within 1 mile of station and at least half acre plot. Budget £2-2.7m. Obviously would prefer to spend near the lower end of that.

Currently based around Petts Wood and I love the commute, the fact that it is green and feels very safe. Schools good too and the community is actually quite diverse for suburbia which I love. But the town centre is a teeny tiny bit dull and hard to find a larger house as the standard housing stock is 1930s semis and smaller 4 bed detatched.

Have considered moving a bit further out to Sevenoaks but prices are eye-watering and I don't love the town centre, it always feels a bit soulless to me. A few beautiful parks but just can't imagine being excited to get a massive mortgage to live there.

Please help! Just want to know some places which have generated happy commuters!

Carshalton Beeches is lovely. 29 minutes into LB and good schools including state options. Kingston, Reigate, Ewell, Epsom all nearby alternatives with varying sized town centres.

I'm not sure thus a search where you choose the location first. As has been said, houses close to the station with half an acre are few and far between. They do exist and many of the lovely places mentioned might have a tiny handful close to the station with huge gardens too.....but the question is whether they are for sale. It will be the case that a small number come up each year, but they could be in any of the places mentioned.

So, if the house has to have those features, it's probably not possible to specify the location exactly.
If there is scope for a bit of compromise on garden size or distance to station, it will be more possible to specify a location.

Personally, I think place is really important. We don't just go into our house and garden and never venture out. So for me, choosing location would actually come first. Especially when you don't know an area, renting for a period can be very worthwhile.

Perhaps think more about the vibe that is required and the location for journey to work. The budget is sufficient to get something great in pretty much all places, so choose location first. Then you can see what's available and once you know (having visited extensively or perhaps rented) then you know which areas you love and where you can compromise....ie the slightly smaller garden really doesn't matter, or being slightly further from the station is fine because the spot is prime for the chosen school and the garden is amazing.

Rickmansworth or Chorleywood

I would look at moving 1hour door to door rather than an hours train journey.

Maybe look up the Thameslink line

We’re in Colchester as well, moved out of London nearly 20 years ago. DH commuted to London daily until covid. Commute is reasonable, we are walking/cycling distance from the station. It is true that friends always comment how long it takes to get to us - they get to the top of the A12 and seem to be amazed they still have to keep driving. I generally point out that I know how long it takes to get to our house: exactly the same amount of time it takes to get to theirs.

I think it is great looking at a map and looking at places on Rightmove but how is your reaction actually going there.

We are moving soon and started to look at going further out.
I am already only just within the M25

We went to view a place about 30 miles away. It still had great communications links to London and on paper it looked like a potential.

I ended up having to stop the car because I was having a panic attack and ended up throwing up at the side of the road and coming home.
I know I had an extreme reaction but I really didn’t like all the fields.
Saw a flat much closer to Central London and I actually saw us living there.
It was quite grotty and the views were just of other houses and flats but I felt so much calmer.
We are now I think going to be moving further in.

Thank you so much to everyone for your replies - loads of interesting ideas and good points here.

To address the point that a lot of posters have made - yes it’s totally fair that our list is a big ask, and completely agree we might have to compromise and lose a few things on our list. Particularly with respect to a big plot but also being close to the station.

Big plot is probably more important to us as there’s a very strong possibility we will be housing at least one of our parents before our kids leave home and really want some space so we’re not all on top of each other. But we work long hours and just conscious of how much a drive to the station will add to door to door commute time. So hard! Maybe the answer is further in so shorter train but then could look for places which are further from station?

Pretty familiar with bucks as I grew up near there and definitely think you can get a biggish house near the station with good schools in Gerrard’s cross, Amersham, chilterns. Maybe not beaconsfield in budget. My only reservation is that as a teen I found them deathly boring to grow up in and my parents had to drive me everywhere. But maybe this would be true in most places.

I love love love blackheath but don’t think we would be able to get enough space there on our budget. Don’t love a townhouse for family life as vastly prefer lateral space and garden super important to us.

St Albans could work. Taplow for crossrail also a really good idea.

Visited oxted recently to get a feel for it and did like it - town centre small but pretty and had a nice vibe. Definitely somewhere we are considering.

I do agree with the poster who said don’t assume that just because you have a good budget you can have everything you want - keep on trying to explain this to DH! He wasn’t well off at all growing up and finds it very hard to accept the fact that we’re thinking of spending a staggering amount on a house (compared to what we thought we’d ever be able to spend) and it will still most likely be a compromise. But that’s inevitable.

Anyway just wanted to reiterate that I’m so grateful for everyone’s input, really appreciate it.

Not a lot of housing stock but Epsom and Ashtead worth keeping an eye on. You would get your wish list, they just don’t come up that often.

Couple of potentials, if you are happy to do a bit of work:

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/110837195#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/110546336#/?channel=RES_BUY