Formby is noce - smallish centre and a largish residential area. However, you won’t get a house with a view of beech unless it’s very tall as the sand dunes and pines block the view. So it’s flat and roads and that’s about it until you walk down to the beech
Southport is a has been seaside town. Some areas of town are scruffy and run down, and as with most places there a lot of empty shops, charity shops , nail bars etc. a great shame as the original Victorian architecture is there and a bit tunbridge well fallen on hard times. But it also has the tacky kiss me kick bit on the beech side, and everything in between. But there’s a ton of housing stock going on for miles down roads that all look the same to me (not in a bad way , just broad residential roads with a mix of Victorian, edwardian and post war houses) so I always get lost and can never find the same way twice 🤣🤣🤣.
there is Crosby which is newer to liverpool - that’s smaller and not a lot of distinct anything going for it.
Then there’s places south of Southport as suburbs that have posher reputation like birkdale and ainsdale. but again you won’t see the sea due to sand dunes
you need to realise that the whole coast from Crosby to Southport is sand, and sand dunes predominate. It is actually impossible to park along the sand dunes between south end of Southport all the way down to formby - it’s actually hard to access by anything but foot and a lot of it is SSSI - quite rightly
if you really want nicer seaside towns look at wirrel - places like Parkgate, west Kirby, hoylake are nice ish towns and you will see the sea and be able to access more easily.
I live near ormskirk. It’s prey flat and within a major market garden area all the way to coast due to its geography. But it is well placed and villages around it as goodish links to liverpool, Manchester, m6, and coast but also an hour to Lake District etc. on a clear day I can see some pennine hills so that’s nice. Formby is 20 mins from me so easy to drive over and access the beech, dunes and forest there. I don’t go to Southport much (once a year?) as would go by good links on train to liverpool .
you really need to visit-the sandy beaches look great on paper but in practice are hard to get a view of for almost all houses in the area, and can be very hard to even access