DH and I have been considering moving to Bristol/surrounding areas on and off for a couple of years now, but starting to want to make more of a firm plan now that we have started our family.
Currently situated on the boarders of Herts/Bucks, where property prices have gone silly. We have been lucky with investment up until now, but are increasingly being priced out of the market for anything bigger than what we have now, so we want to get more house for our money elsewhere. Our ties to where we are currently are my parents, who provide childcare for our 2.5 year old 2 days per week (childminder the other days). My father is a good 25 years+ older than my mum and has really declined health wise in the last few years. Over time, I’ve taken on a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of trying to manage his health/get appropriate care. I don’t think he has many years left (86 currently with progressive heart failure and a recent, serious auto-immune disorder diagnosed to boot). I’m very conscious that I want to be around to support, that my mum will soon be a relatively young widow with not a lot of close family nearby and that the two days they have my son does really boost my dads spirit and gives him something to look forward to in the week. But also equally conscious that those reasons mean we are putting our own life on hold to remain living in an area with a very high mortgage and not much disposable income to actually enjoy life after all the bills go out/renovations to current house are done.
DHs family are based in the south west. His brother is in Bristol itself and his parents in Plymouth, so moving more to their end would give them more time with Us as a family. At most, they come to see us once every 6 weeks or so for about 4 days, and don’t feel very involved with our son due to the distance.
We are looking at two options at the moment
a. Move to Bristol/surrounding areas in to a properly that we can buy with either the grounds for an annexe on site for my parents to move with us or space to build one. Total budget for that option would be around 1.25 million.
b. Move just ourselves, but smaller budget of around 900k. Moving by ourselves would probably need more of a draw to offset the guilt in leaving my parents (ie more along the lines of we have found our dream home rather than just something that will do for a standard house. Ask for this would be minimum 5 bedrooms, separate studies for both me and DH to WFH, ensuite for the master bedroom, decent garden, kids playroom, features like big window glazing/bifold for indoor/outdoor living etc.
Happy to look at 5-10 miles outside of Bristol depending on amenities and what our price range would get. My husband lived in Bristol for a long time around 12 Years ago, so he has quite set ideas of what he remembered are ‘good/bad areas’, but I’m well aware things will have likely changed a lot from his time and may not be the car any longer. Not bothered about being near to a train station as much, but good schools, restaurants and local shops within 20 mins drive would be preferable.
is it do-able? And if so, what kinds of area should we be looking at specifically on rightmove?