Where to live in London (or nearby)

[TKJ]

Hello Parents,

I am looking for advice about where to live in or around London with a child. We are looking for somewhere relatively safe, with green space, and good daycares and schools.

My partner and I and our 2.5 year old daughter are coordinating a move to London in January. We are both Americans but have been living in Germany for 4 years. My husband has a job (academic) that is exciting but doesn’t pay a lot so our budget will be around 1500. We will have visas connected to his work. We are really hoping for at least a one bedroom but dreaming of a little garden or a two bedroom. (We currently all make it work in a studio but it has a garden!). We are open to a commute obviously (but hoping to keep it at or under an hour from central London - Euston station) and I definitely would prefer some place that had a community vibe and as I said some easily accessible green space.

Any advice on where to look would be so so welcomed. So far I have identified North Chingford, Loughton, Buckhurst Hill, Epping as possibilities but really looking For anywhere else (north, east, south, west! Any of it good!)

also any advice on how to make it work with two jobs (I don’t have one but I will need one!) and daycare with longer commutes also welcome :) things to know etc.

I also any positivity/advice generally about London with kids will warm my heart. We love the city but I am extremely nervous about the move and there can be a lot of doom and gloom about living in London - right now I am looking less for warnings and more for advice about how to make it work in an expensive city! We have been living internationally for a while and the truth is everywhere we have looked to live - Europe and in the US seems pretty challenging with kids (and careers) but people make it work. So if you are making it work I would love to hear your wisdom.

thank you in advance

Most requests for places to live - whether expensive or cheap - seem to result in Surbiton as a suggestion

of course there is a huge difference in housing within the area (as I mentioned - there are plenty of gated houses worth multi million in parts of it / Long Ditton) - but there’s a good high street, lovely road of shops and cafes - and it’s safe and has a great community

I haven't rented in London for years, but there used to be A LOT of competition for the decent places and it was a case of the early birds got the worms (i.e. the nice places) each day!

Can other posters who've taken out a rental contract more recently confirm - is it still like that?

If so, OP, regardless of which part of London you want to live in, you need to arrange with the agents to view first thing in the morning, with the deposit ready to go and as soon as you see a place you like take it there and then.

If you start your search in the afternoons you'll wonder why you aren't seeing the nice places like on the website, and it'll be because all the nice ones that came on that day are already gone, and the estate agents are showing you the ones no one really wants.

Hopefully things aren't that bad now, but worth finding out...

With a garden, family friendly, close to good schools?

Surbiton is inner catchment area for the Tiffin School. So there’s that.

I would look along the west branch of the met line - Ruislip Manor, Eastcote, West Ruislip…also Pinner. Great family area and good primary schools, very green and easy access to the city centre.

Pinner is lovely! Not cheap though.

Unfortunately I don’t have kids (despite trying v hard) so my comment is only somewhat useful. But I wanted to say, dp and i have had to stay temporarily in London (9 months ish) for his work. We used to live here and have loved Walthamstow (and that’s a lovely place for young families) but as this is temporary and we already have a mortgage in Scotland we had to get it as cheap as possible. I was depressed and scared as the cheapest place we could find was in an area that the internet deemed high crime and bad area. When I first got here I moved v tentatively about, I like to explore hinterlands and strange routes so I was on high alert. I’ve come to absolutely love it, it has its drawbacks (not cheap to travel into London) but the walks around here are brilliant, I’ve been going out picking brambles for daily breakfast and finding walks through woods where no one else is about (my ideal). This is borehamwood. I’m not recommending it particularly, but just wanted to explain how my appreciation of the place grew so much especially given what the internet said about it! The only place I truly recommend avoiding is Wood Green. I stayed there several months and it made me pretty depressed. Sorry to anyone who loves it.

I would also suggest looking at Forest Gate and Manor Park on the Elizabeth line. Lots of professional families who have been priced out of Wanstead/Walthamstow/Leytonstone plus reasonable commute - 20 ish mins to Tottenham Court Road then a couple of stops north on Northern line.

People hate Croydon because the town is rough but south of the borough is very green and has fast trains to London. Caterham and Whyteleafe are on a slower train but quite cheap. I think it's maybe 35 minutes to London. We like Warlingham and upper Warlingham train station is a fast line.

Im going to be honest i would never recommend living in London. Its super expensive and wayy above your budget. Especially for only one working parent. Unless you have an income of 50,000+ a year Especially for what youre looking for. I would say for your budget try more the north of the country.

To commute into Euston? Better to spend that commuting money on somewhere nearer and reduce travelling time.

Kings Cross station would also work for UCL. That would work for places like Cambridge or Brighton.

Zoopla allows you to search properties to rent by commute time.

www.zoopla.co.uk/travel-time/

Does the university have subsided childcare for staff? Coram’s Fields Nursery is convenient for UCL and I believe it is not for profit, which keeps fees low. It’s in Coram’s Fields which is a fantastic play park with sandpits, paddling pools.

coramsfields.org/nursery/

Redhill/Merstham/Coulsdon/Horley areas in Surrey have Thameslink trains direct to King's X in about 40-45 mins which is a walking distance to Euston. Prices are more reasonable and have good transport links to the city, lovely countryside, Gatwick Airport and the Sussex coast. Might be a bit tight with your budget though but they are within TFL zones so a bit cheaper to commute https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?useLocationIdentifier=true&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1117&radius=1.0&maxPrice=1500&maxBedrooms=2&_includeLetAgreed=on&propertyTypes=detached%2Csemi-detached%2Cflat%2Cterraced&sortType=6&channel=RENT&transactionType=LETTING&displayLocationIdentifier=Redhill.html&mustHave=garden&minBedrooms=2&index=0

Look at Tring. Within budget and direct train to Euston. Lovely countryside. However, the train station is not walkable from the town (just under two miles) so bear this in mind.

Just to add (as it may help your rental budget), the Coram’s Fields Nursery in Russell Square (near UCL) that I recommended, charges fees based on household income, so lower income families pay less. This is London so “lower income” is <80k 😂

Yeah I'm paying £1404 for what is essentially a bedroom with an en suite.

You will there is also the UCL nursery if he is in every day. I never used it, but the rates look very good, and people I know who have used it rate it. Not sure how easy it is to get a place.

On the downside: you won't get to know people more locally.

I live in the area but I wouldn't recommend it for a commute to Euston. You'd need train and tube and be looking at an hour door to door. You'd also struggle to find a flat as ones in your budget will be cheap precisely because they're not convenient for train stations. Or schools.

An hour door to door is pretty standard in London. And one train plus a tube is fine. But from Bromley you can go through directly to St Pancras which is just along the Euston Road.

Oh I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm sure people do. I just think there's better options.

The service to St Pancras is also not what it was. If you look into it in detail, there are not many direct trains (compared to e.g. Victoria).

I do an hour's commute from one bit of SE London to another.

When I used to work in the West End I had to allow 90 minutes if childcare pickup was included.

It's surprising how long it takes if you only know the areas from a map.

If you're willing to live outside London, Milton Keynes is worth considering. It's 35-45 minutes commute in to Euston. It's a modern town built after the war so somewhat more like an American suburban town than an old characterful English town, but it's much more affordable than most other places within a short commute to London.

do you need to go into euston? some train lines go to Marylebone or other places and there is a tube journey to euston - all can be done in under an hour

Bracknell, an hour ish from Waterloo, lots of green space, 3-4 bed about 13-1400 a month

I just had a look - there’s a 2bed flat within walking distance of Sanderstead and Purley Oaks stations for 1500/month, and the Thameslink goes through Sanderstead during peak times so it would take you straight to St Pancras, a very easy commute. If you’re on the Sanderstead side of the stations you will probably be in catchment for Ridgeway Primary, otherwise the other side is St Peter’s, both of which are very good local primaries.