Hi,
We are a couple in our 30s with young children currently living in the South East. Where we live is lovely (we are already in a small, very pretty, semi rural village with a great community feel) but probably among the most expensive places in the country outside of London. I am a hospital doctor and my husband WFH, so we could work from more or less anywhere in the country and make the same money - living where we do is beginning to feel needlessly expensive.
We have long considered realising our dream of working less and living "The Good Life" / giving our kids an idyllic countryside childhood on a chunk of land somewhere quite rural, and for a long time thought about achieving this in South Wales.
My parents own their house outright which has become enormously valuable over their 40 years of ownership, and are willing to combine their now considerable resources with our somewhat more meagre ones so that we would be in a position to jointly buy a dream property (eg a multi generational one with a house for them, and a house for us, and a generous amount of land etc).
(The context behind this is that my sibling lives with my parents and has a developmental disability so part of this is about future-proofing for my parents' potential frailty. The idea being my sibling will have a comfortable and secure future living in close proximity to family, my parents would have a wonderful retirement with their grandchildren and us close at hand, and my husband and I would have a better lifestyle, in effect benefitting from a large inheritance (hopefully long) before my parents' time is actually up. Without such a plan, it feels that the care of my parents and sibling is all going to fall on my shoulders with my parents an uncomfortable >1 hour drive away in a house that's increasingly unsuitable, and with myself and husband still working lots to make ends meet).
Obviously this whole plan involves a scary level of commitment, and the feeling we've got to get it right first time and choose the "right place" as it's not like selling up and moving again would be straightforward if it didn't work out. We are thinking of doing this when the kids are still infant school age. My parents aren't keen on Wales (or anywhere to the North of London for that matter), they want somewhere "sunny" eg they want the South West. We've loved holidaying in Devon and Cornwall but I understand living there can be very different.
There are so many potentials it's a bit paralysing (!) but we'd be looking for the right multigenerational property (which can be few and far between), in or very near to a friendly village with a good primary school, a short commute from a hospital (with an A&E), a short or reasonable commute to a decent secondary school and not in an area totally devoid of anything to do as a family (where we live we are already used to driving often 40-60 mins for a day out, or 20 minutes to the nearest town with a swimming pool, so that's not such a problem but don't want to be much more remote than that and would like sports clubs and lessons for kids, stuff like that).
At the moment our attention is focused on North Devon (maybe a bit inland to avoid the most tourist-overwhelmed areas) and have found examples of the right sort of dreamy multigenerational properties in that region within our budget (not looked in great detail though yet). But where would you be looking at in our position?
We really appreciate how lucky we are to even consider all of this, and your help / suggestions. Thank you