Hello Mumsnetters, I am new on here and I could do with your kind help regarding where should I relocate to? Yes I am a guy – I have seen so many threads about properties on the web from Mumsnet that made so much common sense and were honest, I felt I wanted to join and ask for help - I hope that you don’t mind? :-)
I’m a guy about to need to relocate away from my family home and I’m in an area that I have grown to love, it a village in Surrey named Shepperton. This is not something that I want to be doing and I am forced to due to the breakdown of my relationship and because as a cash buyer, I now cannot afford a reasonable detached house with a garage anywhere near my family home, family or friends. That’s life.
Here’s where I need your help: I would love to integrate into a new community where there’s a reasonable standard of living and I can walk to local shops, reasonable public transport and hopefully be near the sea or countryside and in an area that is welcoming and relatively safe. That’s what I have here in Shepperton. Sure, it’s not the best area, but it’s definitely not the worst area :-)
Starting a new life in my early 60’s is leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed on my own, and while I have wanted to live near friends in Kent (Whitstable / Seasalter / Canterbury or Hastings. Or relatives in Arundel). Trouble is with Covid in this example, it kicked all those areas off my wish lists with DFL’s buying places as soon as they could realise they could get away with working from home and buying in those areas for less money that their London homes were worth.
Supply and demand went crazy quickly. I think I went a bit crazy when I saw what happened and was powerless to react.
Prices went through the roof rapidly! My budget was static. I saw increases of £75k - £125k per house in some instances. Offers well above asking prices, sometimes sealed bids were common. Gazumping reared its ugly head. My newer dreams gone.
Looking on Rightmove & On The Market I have saved 100’s of detached houses or detached bungalows with 3 bedrooms and a garage and garden for around £275k cash from months of refining my searches. It absolutely must have decent fast Fibre Optic connectivity and decent mobile phone signals for EE or Vodafone for work. Yeah, I know “he’s fussy isn’t he” :-)
So many areas. I don’t have the time to visit so many areas to take a look. I am really busy on so many fronts. Once I have narrowed it down with your help, I will visit for a few days per area. This is where I could really do with your input. What fits my requirements in your own experiences?
I have looked online in so many areas. I have no experience of any of them, and it’s daunting not knowing any of these areas to live in from - Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Pembrokeshire, Norfolk, Devon, Lancashire, Cornwall, East Anglia to Monmouthshire and others I probably omitted.
Can you please help?
Thank you so much for your kind help in advance.