We are living in London and renting - while we have a good LL who charges a decent rent, the news and the fact that estate agents are charging significantly more for flats in the same building is adding to the massive anxiety I get for six months a year about whether we will be made homeless. We have some family and health things going on at the moment which is further underlining how difficult it is to not be able to properly plan more than a year in advance as you don't know whether you'll have to move, or how difficult it is when you live five hours by train or a nightbus away from somewhere you now have to visit more often.
We can't afford to buy in London, unless it was shared ownership, which I'm not entirely sure is a good option. I don't care about the property ladder or building up equity, I just want to put down some money for a place that will be ours and not have to move again unless we really want to. We don't have or will have kids, we both have jobs which would allow us to move out of the city as long as we can attend our London offices in person once a week or fortnight - colleagues of mine are currently doing this and I've been asking how they've been finding it. And I've lived in London long enough that I would be more than happy getting to know a new city, especially if I feel I'm able to relax a little more on a day to day basis. We want to make a home there rather than the temporary feeling of renting which makes you feel like you can't really get yourself involved in the community and get to know it, even if part of me worries that we're just moving London's unaffordability problem to a different community?
DH is quite keen that any move would be to another city - neither of us drive, I want to live somewhere which has its own thing rather than being a dormitory community of London (plus buying/renting in the traditional commuter belt is not much cheaper, especially when factoring in train costs) both of us want the potential to change jobs rather than keep our current ones if we decide to do so which makes Manchester, Liverpool or Leeds/Sheffield seem like good places to start. I lived in Manchester for a while, but Liverpool looks like a good option - family were from there so I feel a bit of an affinity, it's cheaper to live there, it has a good feeling about it that makes me feel it could be a good place to settle. DH is happy with a similar size flat as the one we rent just now, I would be too, but the leasehold thing makes me wonder if it would effectivley feel like renting with the extra restrictions and potential hikes in cost. I don't have a problem with somewhere needing redecorating or having to plan to replace the kitchen over the next few years etc. but we don't have the skills to do anything major, we'd have to pay other people to do it for us.
I don't even know where to start looking other than 'where's near the station' or which areas are realistically an option to get to the train first thing. I think £100k would be a good realistic starting budget to look at in terms of a mortgage that's realistic for us to get and pay off quickly (we are 41 and 45) whilst also leaving us space to pay for other costs and room to weather any rate hikes and still live our lives, but it's hard to say until we start properly planning. There are lots of houses by Anfield that are well within that but I keep seeing people say it's a dodgy area - I never know what that means given that what people consider 'dodgy areas' near us in SE London are a) ones we're probably priced out of b) seem absolutely fine to me c) often seems code for 'working class' or 'too many chicken shops' - it's more that my experiences of Victorian terraces is that they're generally massively damp that puts me off!
This is a long-term thing to think about whilst we keep adding to our deposit funds, making ourselves look like good people for the bank to lend a load of money to, and dealing with other stuff, but any advice? Thanks and sorry for rambling, I'm just overthinking as usual :)