Good oat flat white in Surrey

[Quiteindecisive]

Help friends!
My partner and I are currently live in Newington Green, Islington with our 18m and 3.5yo sons. We love the area but want a bigger flat / house and the possibility of one day owning a house - not possible for us in this gorgeous and incredibly expensive area!

We are debating moving out of London to Surrey - keen for a 3 bedroom with garden flat or house, a sub 15 minute walk to a train station and less than 1h door to door commute to Central London (Oxford Circus and Bank - we work in office 2 days a week). Ideally we would have at least one great cafe and pub within walking distance. We also want a great state primary school.
Neither of us are from the UK and don’t know Surrey at all, except for what we hear which is that it is a great place to raise kids while still working in Central London. Our budget is up to £2,500 to rent and ideally sub £800k for detached 3 bed home if we were going to buy at some stage in next year or so. What areas would you recommend we explore? From our searching, looks like Coulsdon, Epsom, Warlingham, Sutton, Cheam, Surbiton, Thames Dutton and Orpington are all interesting. Our boys currently go to a Montessori nursery so it would be amazing if there was one available too. We are feeling the pressure as understand we need to have our address locked in for end of state school application process in Jan. any help much appreciated! <3

It sounds like I need to be open to a 1.15 ish commute each way.

Surely to get that commute from Guildford you are going to have to live extremely close to the station. And obvs the fast trains need to link up with your work times. I think door to door in 1hr 15 is a little optimistic

Do not assume that if you are further than walking distance from a railway station, you can park in a residential street. That is impossible, they all have restrictions.

Shere, Cobham, Esher, Farnham and probably Epsom and Guildford are out of your budget if you want 3 beds, detached and 15 minutes walk to a station.
Surrey is very expensive, people think that because it’s a bit outside of London, it’s going to be cheap.

@Quiteindecisive Ooh that's a shame- its a cracking rental! We live in Bath and we've got one that's a cracker too- they do come up!! it's a lovely little area in Farncombe , leafy and handy -

Did you look at this one too OP?? 4 bed and detached

Walton and weybridge are nice too

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138501980

East Surrey is a tiny bit cheaper and easier commute into London. Oxted and Reigate would be the obvious choices. Banstead also worth a look. Caterham and Coulsdon are not quite as chi chi but closer to London and so quicker commute and heading that way. Caterham on the Hill has a Filtr coffee shop now too. Warlingham and Woldingham are a bit older and stuffier imo and not much going on. Most people in this area have cars like myself and so I live in one of these places but spend time in all or most of them in a given week. I spend a lot of time WFH in coffee shops in all of them apart from Woldingham. Oxted and Reigate are the only ones where there's enough to do on your doorstep without a car though.

West Surrey my fave place is Cobham which has the nicest high st and loads of independent coffee shops (plus a Fego, which I love, as does Banstead) but you wouldn't be able to buy anything in your price range there (footballer territory).

With older kids that play sports your weekends are spent distributed amongst the whole of Surrey anyway so there's plenty of opportunity to sample nice coffee shops. One thing you will notice though is there's nowhere to get food or a takeaway much after 11 compared to London which still drives me mad! And the nightlife is much more subdued, teens go to Epsom or Reigate for a couple of clubs but otherwise it's into London if you want real nightlife outside of bars, pubs, restaurants. Quite doable though on trains and uber to the bits of East Surrey I mentioned.

I only go into the office once a week (Bank) and it's less than an hour door to door. LB or Victoria (no Waterloo but can change at CJ if needed)

I'm not sure where you get good oat flat whites in Woking, however there is a fast train in from there to Waterloo which takes 30 minutes. It's quicker than my train journey in from a Zone 4 suburb!

I'm not sure you will find what you're looking for in Surrey with your current budget.
Have a you thought about Coulsdon? Good links to London and cheaper, or Sutton?
Or a two bedroom or maybe not detached?
I think you will have to change either price, location or spec

My vote would be for Guildford too. Independent coffee shops, parks, good schools, easy 50 minute commute to London. Farnham a little further out but has all of the above, and a great artsy feel.

You'll get a lot more for your money in Hertfordshire. Take a look at St Albans, Hitchin and the other places on the fast line to Kings Cross. It's very convenient for both Bank and Oxford Circus.

But, as a couple of others have mentioned, door-to-door, it's more like a 1hr20m commute to Bank.

@AirportAssassin I'm not sure you will get much in stAlbans for £200k either!! The OP can only go to 350k if she gets a job paying ok and you don't get that much in St Albans for that either- plus much higher commuting costs- I've lived there twice and it's as much as south west London these days for cheap flats with higher commuting costs -

@AirportAssassin ignore that- wrong post!!!

Guildford is a long, inconvenient commute

Yep, East Surrey is a much better commute into London. I can get a train to LL or Victoria that takes 30-40 mins. They did dick around with the scheduling after COVID but it's heading back to normal now.

@Crikeyalmighty I agree £200k is definitely not enough for St Albans or Surrey!

I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation! You're just probably not going to make it door to desk in under an hour (unless you live on top of the station)

Guildford to Waterloo 37/38mins, then Waterloo & City to Bank.

Hardly the most convoluted commute in the world!

Have you looked at Woking or the villages around? Worplesdon / Mayford / Horsell / Send / St John's areas might be worth a look. Worplesdon has a station too. There's Horsell kitchen and Kiwi and Scot for coffee. It's a quick commute to Waterloo and you're not far from Guildford and some lovely countryside, whilst it's more affordable than Guildford and the Surrey hills.

I assume pp is thinking of the other Guildford station (London Road) which does take about an hour or longer with 17 stops. From the main station trains only stop at Woking.

@Mildura indeed- Guildford is a great option. The main issue is I guess that a lot of the family houses aren't that near the station. I love Guildford - if being near the station matters maybe Godalming might be better (love that too)

I think basing a property search around the availability of nice pubs and cafés is perfectly reasonable. It tells you a lot about who else is living there and what their tastes and priorities are, which is a good shortcut to knowing whether you could fit in, find what you need and be happy. Another good shortcut is to look for places where the incumbent MP is someone you would have voted for.

I haven't got much to add over and above what people have already said @Quiteindecisive but fyi Sanderstead is a dry area by ancient byelaw, i.e. no pubs, despite meeting some of your other criteria.