Where to move out of london

[Londonescape]

Hi everyone,

My partner and I are in our late twenties and looking to move out of London in anticipation of having kids in the next few years.

We've viewed houses in Godalming, Reigate, St Albans, Guildford and are also considering Oxted, and Hitchin.

Our budget is up to £1.3m and the most important things for us are

• commute to London (one of us is in the office everyday )
• good place to raise a family
• access to green space/countryside
• ideally we'd like somewhere with a bit going on

Does anyone have any experience with the above places ? Would you recommend/not?

Thanks so much !

With that budget, Berkhamsted? Lovely place, great for families, near countryside and good commute to London

Harpenden

If I had that budget, I'd suggest Berkhamsted too. Absolutely gorgeous town. Also Hitchin is great... was there for the switching on of Christmas lights last night and it's got a lovely community feel.

Guidlford is significantly larger than any of the other Surrey towns you list, has much more going on and better train service.

We've raised our family in Reigate for the last 20+ years and it's been lovely.
Check a few things though:

• Reigate station is a spur with fewer trains to London. Redhill is the main station on the Brighton/Gatwick/ London line and the parking is a bit of a problem.

What are you planning to do about schooling? Reigate has some good state schools, but no grammar schools. Has some excellent private schools though. I believe St. Albans is a grammar school area? And there are some excellent state schools.

Reigate is great for access to the countryside though - straight onto the North Downs with lots of walking/biking etc.
There's quite a lot going on in the town with e.g. ParkRun, the RunReigate and RideReigate events as well as some summer events in Priory Park. Town is busy with lots of shops and restaurants.

I'd say Oxted is a bit sleepy by comparison.

Guildford/Godalming - also lovely, but probably a bit more expensive and again, check schools.

St Albans is a comprehensive school area.

Tunbridge Wells may be another consideration , which is a grammar school area.

I'd go for Guildford, we did Reigate and was lovely 10 years ago - but in my opinion has gone downhill. We love Guildford and will probably move there eventually.

With that budget, you don’t need to leave zone 2! These Victorian terraced houses are all in budget:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149385584#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/148922942#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149754212#/floorplan?activePlan=1&channel=RES_BUY

Lots of recs for Berkhamsted! We think it looks lovely but we'd have to be basically bang on the station I think as DP works in Chelsea which is a bit annoying to get to from there

Thanks so much for looking for these! I know we are lucky that we could afford in London but we are ready for a change of pace and don't want to raise kids in the city

This is really helpful! We visited Reigate last week and saw some nice properties and thought town itself was lovely.

Someone suggested to us that we get the train to Redhill then change lines, do people do that or is it a pain in the arse?

In terms of schooling, I'd plan for them to go to state unless an issue came up that meant they really needed private schooling. To be honest I'm from Scotland where there is much less options so still getting my head around this!

That's interesting, what do you think has changed about Reigate?

We did see two lovely houses in Guildford but both had significant road noise and worry that would be an issue anywhere close enough to the station

Surbiton/Kingston/Molesey/Teddington type way.

Or further into Surrey, Godalming/Hazlemere/Liphook

You can change at Redhill, especially if you want London Bridge. There are direct London trains for which carriages hook up with the mainline service at RH but go to Victoria. You need to be within walking distance of Reigate station as parking is limited and Redhill costs over £9 per day if you are early enough for a space. Primary schools are great but secondaries a more mixed bag unless you are religious. Lots of sports, music and drama groups in the area.

If i had that budget, I'd love to live in St Albans. We've also been looking there (with a much smaller budget) as family are nearby and we cannot find anything for our budget so we are staying in SW London for now. But it might be a pain commute for your DH if he's going to Chelsea. Where do you need to get to?

When you say, one of you goes to the office every day, is that hybrid between the two of you or is at least one of you commuting into London every day? Because that would drive my search. It has to be a damn good and fast service if it's every day. No good having a gorgeous home if the daily commute is grinding you down. Don't underestimate it

Have you considered Winchester or Alton? They both have superb schools and are lovely places to live.

Teddington is such a beautiful place to live and ticks all your boxes!

My DP is in every day and I do three days a week, I'd say concern about the commute especially for him is one of the main things stressing us out

We also love st Alban's ! Saw a few there a while back, not sure if you've also found there has been less coming on the market recently? I need to go to London bridge which is decent from at Alban's although I'm more likely to move jobs than DP and I'm in less often so prioritising his commute

If you’re ready for a change of pace, giving yourselves 8 days of massive commutes a week between you is a great way to make your lives more tiring and stressful with less free time. Moving out but doing office-based jobs in central London doesn’t make your life more relaxed. Quite the opposite.

You don’t say where you work but if your DP is in Chelsea, and you have a seven figure budget, I would choose somewhere nice on the District line. Wimbledon and Richmond both have a nice “not London” feel with loads of green space, but will leave your DP with much, much free time than moving properly out.

ETA: if you really want to move out then Victoria is the mainline terminus closest to Chelsea so you should probably pick somewhere on one of those lines. So Sussex, Surrey etc.

Personally I would pick Guildford/Godalming but would also maybe look at weybridge or Esher too . I've lived twice in St Albans 2001 to 2004 and then again 2012 to 2013 for a bit and still have to go quite regularly - I think it was way nicer 20 years ago if I'm honest. My big issue was I don't like anywhere around it, so we ended up going into London an awful lot of weekends, not cheap as it's not in zones - whereas the Surrey places had far nicer things to pop too on the doorstep I felt - I also felt the town centre was a bit lacking shopping wise and a lot of empty stuff -it's personal taste I guess but I think Guildford/Godalming are more 'me' I guess -

Id be commuting to London bridge but priority is the Chelsea commute.

Curious if anyone does the roughly 1 hour twenty commute and finds it manageable or if it's just destined to be miserable? From what I can tell oxted would give us the shortest commute of the places we've looked - does anyone do oxted to London every day?

Hi OP. We left London to have kids. Went from Zone 2 to Hertfordshire. We came back 4 years later with 2 kids. Several reasons but one of them was how hard we found it to leave little ones in nursery for long days. Door to door commute plus a nursery or school drop off can make it feel a real slog. It's no good saying your train takes 20 minutes from your local station to a central London station when driving to the station and parking may be a nightmare. I think it's St.Albans trains that are full after a certain time in the morning so you have to get one even earlier just to get on. Also the car park is huge. It might take 10 mins just to walk from one end to the platform. It all adds up.

Would somewhere green and leafy in West London not do the job without you having to add a long commute. E.g. Richmond, Kew, Chiswick, St. Margaret's, Barnes Village.

Otherwise renting somewhere to trail the lifestyle.