Has anyone done this and can offer advice? Want to move rurally but no idea where to start

[Coffeecoffeeinmytummy]

We live in a pretty expensive area of the south east. House is an average 3 bed semi, nice but nothing special, worth circa £525k. We have approx £235k equity but still a mortgage of £290k over 29 years, which feels massive. Repayments are currently £1k a month as we fixed at 1.7% but this will end in 2025 and it’s just a bit of a chain around our necks. Always worrying about how high the interest rates will go.

We live here because of work. Not because we love it. There’s some nice areas and things to do but DH and I both grew up living semi-rurally and just want to leave our busy, congested town where everyone seems stressed and not that friendly. However we have most of our family living within 1-2 hours of us, all over london and the south, including both of our widowed mums in their seventies. We have two kids preschool aged.

Ultimate dream would be to sell and use the equity to either buy outright or with a very small mortgage (no more than say £40-50k). Somewhere semi rural, not totally isolated but away from the rat race. DH and I would both work part time, not sure doing what (we both work at universities currently). But where do we even start? And what about family? I don’t want to live my life wishing we could be somewhere else. We are lucky and have a nice life.

Has anyone done this? We can’t afford to live rurally nearby if we want to clear the mortgage, everything is so expensive. I’d love to live in Scotland but it would mean completely starting from scratch.

We moved from the south east to south Wales. Knocked 100k off our mortgage and have a bigger house with a much bigger garden in a lovely village surrounded by countryside but within 20 mins of a city.
It was made easier by DP being able to work from home 24/7 and I took some time out with DD funded by our equity and now have a good part time job. I've made friends through work, volunteering and my child.
Family visit and I go back to see them pretty regularly. It was hard leaving everything we knew behind but in many ways we're a lot happier and definitely less stressed, as well as it having changed our financial future. We couldn't have afforded to live in the countryside where we're from despite me growing up rurally and I'm so much happier not living in a busy town.
We started by visiting some places just to see then the idea sort of snowballed from there really, we started viewing houses and saw how much more we could get for our money elsewhere then that was the decision made!

Think of the places you're likely to visit most frequently. Then consider places close by that will suit you. Will the home counties work?

Do you both have siblings living near to the two widowed mums in their 70’s? If not, and I expect this viewpoint to be controversial, I don’t think you should abandon them.

@roseopose thank you it sounds similar to us. South Wales could actually work quite well. Do you mind sharing whereabouts you are roughly? You can pm me if you prefer!

@Strawberries2023 the Home Counties are too expensive to live rurally, nice villages would be more expensive than our current place. If we want to reduce the mortgage and live in a similar sized house then we need to move to a much cheaper area.

@HeddaGarbled for MIL my BIL lives very close to them. But for DM I am the closest family. However she moved here when widowed so have only lived in the area for a few years. I did warn her at the time that we wouldn’t stay here forever. I don’t want to now be chained to this area for the next 10-20 years just because she chose to move here too. However my sibling lives under an hour away london direction so I don’t think she would want to then live really far from them so I don’t know if DM would move with us or not.

Have you considered the Forest of Dean area? Really underrated, but absolutely beautiful and good value whilst still being well connected to Bristol, Cheltenham etc.

@Coffeecoffeeinmytummy I've sent you a PM.

I think you have to draw up a list of priorities.

How far are you willing to be from family?

Then, look within that search area for cities/market towns that appeal. I know you want to live rurally but assume you want cinemas, theatres, decent shopping, jobs within say 40 mins drive. Even if you don't care, your kids will when they're teens.

Then look at rural areas within 40 mins of that identified city/town that has decent schools.

If you need to narrow it down further, look at public transport or whatever your other priorities are.

But personally I'd use proximity to family as a starting point. No way I'd want to be six hours from my mum.

But £235k to buy outright, or £285k with a small mortgage, wouldn't buy you a decent 3 bed semi anywhere around here and I'm much further north than you.

I did just this. Sold my mortgaged house and am buying outright with cash in a much cheaper and more stunning area.
I’m NW Lake District - it’s dirt cheap, lovely community, stunning countryside, 10 mins into the National park, it’s 1 hr to the M6 and from there east to get to anywhere.
it’s the best move we’ve ever made. Because of this I was able to quit full time work and now study and park part time :)

I think you need to do some research and think about jobs and priorities here. We live semi rural, in a smallish village between two medium sized towns, one bus an hour 7-7. Our house is amazing but not "dirt cheap" at all, and still needs lots doing. Think about what you can compromise on (cost, distance from/type of jobs and family presumably top things to look at). You are very unlikely to be able to go mortgage free/light anywhere where you could stay near ish on those figures and have a house that will be 'forever'. We took ages to find what we wanted but are confident that massive amazing job offers notwithstanding we're happy here for at least the next ten years.

There are other things to consider. I laugh when I read the threads complaining about a neighbour's dog barking at 6.30am. Where I live, there will be poultry crowing from just before dawn, plus some noisy and sometimes smelly sheep. If it's a shooting weekend, the pandemonium of excited working dogs starts early.

In the winter it is dark and quiet. The pub may be closing for good. There is no shop and no public transport at all. I've lived here for 27 years now, but November to February can be lonely and boring. People can be very kind but in a small area they can also be tribal and narrow-minded. Feuds start easily. We have generally managed to keep ourselves out of trouble but my husband is on the parish council and sometimes decisions made can't please everyone and we have to live with people being upset.

If I had limitless money I'd be living in London midweek and stimulating my brain with art and exhibitions rather than just muddy fields.

Are you me?! This describes my life to a t except its me that's on the parish council!

stugs were you involved in the great cemetery upset? :))

No! Sounds like an absolute nightmare though 😄

Same here (Scottish central belt). And you would have moving costs too.

People do seem to assume you can buy a nice house for £2.50 in Scotland though.

I do know what living rurally entails, I’ve done it before. I wouldn’t want to live completely rurally, semi rural would be better suited to us for family life I think. We have only lived in the suburbs with kids so that would be the main difference. I’m aware there is often not much public transport etc.

i know there’s lots of nice places where you couldn’t get much for £300k. But 5 mins on Rightmove shows that you can definitely get a 3 bed house in lots of places for £300k, and some of those will be semi rural. But I’m just not sure where to start. I think I will make a list of priorities to start with like some people have suggested, thank you

@Coffeecoffeeinmytummy Have you considered North Devon? Your budget would go further.

Look around the edges of National Parks and AONB. Inside them the prices are likely to be high, but market towns on the edges or just outside can be far more affordable and have a semi-rural balance.

How about Warwickshire? Near Rugby for example?

Ooh the village I grew up in recently had a great cemetery upset!!

Why not start with the job? If you both work on a university, look at universities where you can be rural/semi-rural in whatever you feel is a reasonable commute. If you specialise in something then that may help narrow down the university.

Hamlet near me has sheep on the road & in people's gardens daily. Not for faint hearted. And we are 20 minutes from the city.

There are universities in rural/semi rural areas. Why don't you look at jobs in those and commuting distance from them?

However, places are often cheap because they are located somewhere with poor public services, low paid jobs and/or terrible transport links. Schools, hospitals, community and leisure facilities etc. all matter when you have small kids.

😆

If you've lived rurally before you'll probably be alright @Coffeecoffeeinmytummy. Our personal experience hasn't been great - I think we maybe went too rural!

We had previously lived in a rural village - our last-but-one home was in a Wiltshire AONB - (although both originally from small cities) and thought we wanted something a bit more rural/few close neighbours from our next move so we moved to SW Wales in 2018.

We were already mortgage free and actually bought somewhere smaller but with far more outside space. I admit that it was great during the pandemic/lockdowns, but we both realise now that - despite being very close to a lovely boutique market town - it was a huge mistake as we miss having culture (museums/stately homes mainly, as our last home in the Midlands was within walking distance of my favourite NT property) on our doorstep. For me, particularly, it's very lonely and dull during the excessively long winters.

So we've taken the decision to sell our painstakingly renovated rural house and move back to 'civilisation' (aka a market town in England) this year.

I've lived both city, rural, semi-rural & coastal & my advice is to avoid medical deserts.