Liberal/ quirky areas outside london

[Southlondoner88]

Hi,

DH and I are planning to buy a house (would consider a flat if location was amazing) we plan to also start a family and our first buy will likely be be a home for about 5-8 years so looking to make a profit in that time (I guess that’s not a guarantee in this climate though?)

We don’t know many areas outside where we live as we’re from a different country and I was wondering if you lovely mumsnetters had any ideas of where to start looking.

We need easy access into London as we will need to commute Mon-Fri.

We used to live in hackney and Peckham and loved the vibe/ independent coffee shops etc but now live near oxleas woods/ greenwich and love the green space. Somewhere with a cross between hackney and greenwich would be amazing, does such a place exist?

We also want somewhere not too urban now we’re getting older, lots of green space, we like living near water (sea, rivers, canals) good schools and community feel. We were looking at Essex but don’t really know the area.

Our budget is 250-300k. Husband gets free transport so that will save us money so expensive season ticket although not ideal, not a deal breaker either. I’d love to find somewhere we can meet like minded people, not super rich like the people we meet in london but more normal earning, left wing folk. I work as a therapist so tend to gravitate towards charity workers etc but also into fashion/ music so have many friends in these industries too and would like to find these people if we move out. I worry the Home Counties will be too stifling for us as we are still quite young at heart but ultimately the main deal breaker is just a nice area with good transport links and things to do.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry hit send before I’d finished. If you look just on the London/Surrey border you might touch lucky on a flat in your budget and although the trains into central can be slow it’s very leafy and you have the river and Kingston.

Depends what you’re willing to compromise on or whether you’re able to stretch your budget a touch.

Good luck!

If you're moving out of London but still need to commute in 5 days a week and find Margate etc too far, then it's really gotta be the home counties, hasn't it? That's literally the commuter belt. If you go further, it's too far for you.

Brighton immediately comes to mind as liberal/quirky or parts of Bristol.

But 300k won’t go far unfortunately

I live in Colchester and utterly hate the place. It's a dump. I've lived here since 1998, and it has really gone down hill. There's been a big increase in crime and anti-social behaviour over the last decade. Basically, it's overcrowded. (I believe it's the fastest growing town in the UK.) You've got an old market town with the population of a small city, which means horrendous traffic and ghastly new build estates squeezed onto every bit of scrap land.

I'd recommend Chelmsford instead.

I think Leigh is a good place to start then @Southlondoner88. Especially since you’re happy to look at flats. There may also be other areas nearby along the C2C line that appeal.

Yeah I also wouldn’t describe Colchester as liberal or quirky as per OPs requirements

How many bedrooms do you need?

Assuming 2+, realistically you are looking at a flat rather than a house if it's sub-1 hour commute to London.

And you'll need to make some other compromises too - what are your priorities out of

• Shorter commute
• Leafy area
• Nice high street / local community

You can probably have one of those three, sadly.

@Southlondoner88 “And sorry l, didn’t mean to be rude about the Home Counties, maybe I’m being judgey, are there any Home Counties we could move to for our budget or would it still be just be flats in our price range?”

Apology accepted. Given that the Home Counties officially includes all of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Berkshire. Some people include Bedfordshire, East and West Sussex, Oxfordshire and Hampshire in there too, I would say that you are discounting probably the entire south east of England with the exception of Suffolk. I suppose it depends just how quickly you want to be able to get into London. I am not too far away from Wiltshire, which is definitely not Home Counties, definitely quirky and liberal, and definitely very very rural. Probably not the vibe you are looking for at all! I think you will have to be quite broadminded in what you will go and look at if you want to stay inside your budget in the South East. It’s not ideal, I know. Budget is the first thing I would put on your list of wants. Then whether you can commute. I would be putting quirky and liberal a long way down the list. You get bars, restaurants, charity workers, theatres - nice areas - anywhere. You will find people you like because you will move in those circles. Any given geographic area will have people like you there, you just need to find them among the rest of the people.

@GreenestValley 2 bed at least. Out of those 3, nice community/ high street would be top BUT if commute to London isn’t bad I could scrap the high street but then would like it to be leafy/ green. I guess I can’t really commute more than an hour or so if we are starting a family soon so maybe that’s the most important place to start actually.

You could consider some parts of Berkshire which would get you a 2 bed flat for £300k. Many parts of Reading would be affordable, some bits would probably not be “green” enough for you but the advantage with somewhere large is that there’s lots of groups and activity eg Green Party, charity groups, specialist interests about stuff like Extinction Rebellion or whatever other lefty stuff you might be after 😉 so if you looked outskirts of Reading you might find a nice leafy place but then the vibe/groups within easy reach.

Very unlikely to be a 2 bed at that budget sadly except in the less sought after parts of Borough which wouldn't fit the other criteria maybe parts of Chessington, Tolworth or Hook. They are all v close to Surbiton though which is about 15 min on train to Waterloo.

Bristol will be a nightmarish commute M-F into London both wrt to time and cost.
It’s also becoming less quirky with every club they demolish and replace with identikit high rise student accommodation block. As Twiglets1 says £300k won’t get you much either.

Yep pretty much the parts I was thinking of. Less ideal parts or a serious fixer upper.

Just wipe out you wishes and focus on your needs. You need somewhere to live that costs between £250k to £300k tops, assuming 2 bed +. Search on Zoopla or Rightmove and they will serve up the places you can afford. In better areas it will be a flat with a small boxy second room in another you may get a house. Remember the agents know their markets. Years ago I went for a 3 bed semi in the next up and coming area rather than a lovely 2 bed flat in a much nicer area and regretted it. My area didn't come up for 40 years! House prices reflect the community you live amongst

OP, it does matter where in London you and your DH work, because a one hour-ish commute will be half taken up with a tube journey otherwise.

Essex gets you into Liverpool Street, Herts into Kings Cross, Bucks into Marylebone etc (broadly, there will be crossover points)

Essex also gets you in to Fenchurch Street. Leigh on Sea would be Fenchurch.

Years ago I went for a 3 bed semi in the next up and coming area rather than a lovely 2 bed flat in a much nicer area and regretted it

I made a similar mistake, opting for a house in a not very nice area compared with a flat in a nicer area. Deeply regretted it. Location really is key.

Ah, thanks!

Is your DH's job London dependent? If not, and it's a job that can be found in other areas of the UK, in your situation and potential housing budget, I would be putting together a longer term plan to move to a different part of the UK that will give you more of what you are looking for. You are more likely to find a community spirit and access to green space on the outskirts of cities like Leicester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham etc.

Otherwise, you are going to be compromising on so many fronts that you really have to wonder if it's going to make you happy in the long term? Just a thought. Of course, if the job only exisits in London or you need to be close to family there moving furthe afield isn't really an option.

OP there's a very good podcast called Making Money (just open Apple podcasts/Spotify and search ) and they hosted Jason Butler on an episode about a month ago titled 'Rent or Buy'. It is well worth a listen, and the key points that I remember are:

• prices are softening and there will be e.g. BTL landlords selling up, so more will be coming on the market
• you have to treat finding the property like a part-time job. You can't just sit on a sofa with a laptop open.
• you have to keep putting in 'cheeky' offers (I think the logic of this is that eventually the vendor loses heart and will drop the price - certainly I've seen a lot of stuff sitting around and being remarketed at lower prices recently)
• it may be that it is not the right time to buy for you, but to carry on renting, saving hard and getting shot of as much debt as you can, so that you are ready to go when your extensive search efforts produce a likely candidate.

The cost of renovations has soared. So people looking to buy a fixer-upper in a nice location and changing the orange walls, avocado bathrooms suites and swirly carpets into something that ticks the boxes of the Hackney/Peckham/Modern Homes-loving crowd, on the kind of budget that will deliver a profit on resale 5 years down the line, are likely to be disappointed.

I think you are trying to take a rather birds'-eye view of a hypothetical market somewhere, and make a huge decision with very little knowledge. Also second PP's who urge looking further afield to different cities if at all possible - your budget is very challenging for the south east.

Bishops stortford? Chelmsford?

EG https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/130533071#/?channel=RES_BUY

@backinthebox yea I think quirky and liberal has moved way down my list now 😂 just somewhere decent to live and reachable to London within an hour, maybe 1 hr and 15, that has nice schools so our future child can have a nice start.

Bishops Stortford

Or Ware, Hertford, Stanstead Abbotts.
And a surprise entry-old Stevenage. But old town only. Not the rest of it.