I have £700K to spend - please recommend somewhere to live?!!!

[needkirstyandphil]

I have £700K to spend (or about £1800 a month rental)- would you recommend where you live (or please recommend elsewhere you like!)?! The considerations are:

• detached house with off-street parking and garden, 4 bedrooms

• commuting distance to London (max of 45 mins on train) and preferably walking distance from house to mainline station

• good school for 2 DSs (one to start in Reception this September). Have money aside for private, but need to be able to get a place at late notice (hopefully easier in these bad financial times!)

• preferably a walk to local shops of some kind (so car is not needed for emergency milk/nappies etc!)

Just accepted an offer on our house and am totally confounded by where to move to! I need Kirsty and Phil!

guildford?

Oxted - right on the edge of the North Downs, 35 mins on train to London Bridge or Victoria, 7 minutes from Junction 6 of M25. Good state schools, several private schools. Leisure centre, single screen cinema, theatre, shops within walking distance, including two supermarkets.

I meant when DS is 4.5 yrs and not 3.5 yrs DOH!

Mollie0 thanks. Sounds silly but I have a competitive family member Maidenhead way which puts me off for fear of endless comparisons etc! That is really interesting re holiday cover at schools. I guess I fear being seen as neglectful if I were to leave a child so early in the morning and collect them so late when they are so tiny and must be shattered with a full school day anyway, but I guess people MUST do that if they also work???!!

here

Come and live in NE Essex with us - we live in a little village with great schools, the CofE Primary is in Kelvedon where the house is and the secondary is in Coggeshall which is 5 minutes by school bus away.

We are 45 minutes into Liverpool St with the train about a 4 minute walk from this house and we have a cool deli, a co op, lots of hairdressers, pubs and a post office and a few churches in the village.

Colchester and Chelmsford nearby for shopping and schools (both have good grammers and I think there are private in Colchester) and Ipswich isn't too far for good shopping as well as Cambridge and Norwich.

You can come to our mumsnetter meet ups and join our little village running club (just nursery mums who I an trying to whip into shape!) and buy a dog and walk the meadows and corn fields whilst the kids are at school.

My DS starts reception next year and DD is in year 4 at the mo.

I'll even pick up the little one for you as I am NOT going back to work!

I do it with my 4 yr old and he is disappointed when it is the weekend and he doesn't go to school! He doesn't seem to be tired when I collect him (unfortunately ). The before school care is at the school, after school care and holiday club is at the girls school in the centre of Maidenhead, with the odd week of the summer holiday club at Ridgeway.

Can't help with the competitive family member other than sympathise.

cambridge is wonderful - great place to bring up kids, and 45 mins to kings x

Sweetest - tell me more about Oxted! The trains look brilliantly frequent and fast! Are there areas to avoid? Quick look shows we could afford the kind of place we want, but it's hard to know the downsides. For example is there something wrong with www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-20285405.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E1037&sortBy PriceDescending=false&minBedrooms=4&minPrice=500000&displayPropertyType=houses&oldDisplayPropertyTyp e=houses&includeSSTC=true&includeSSTC=on&pageNumber=1&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.htm l%3FlocationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E1037%26sortByPriceDescending%3Dfalse%26minBedrooms%3D4%26minPric e%3D500000%26displayPropertyType%3Dhouses%26oldDisplayPropertyType%3Dhouses%26includeSSTC%3Dtrue%26 includeSSTC%3Don

£400 per month. Def room for bargaining for rents as more properties are coming on the market due to people not being able to sell.

Oxted is lovely, my Mum owns a business there and I worked there for two years when younger, a really beautiful village. Surprised it is not more expensive actually! I thought they had a not do great secondary school in the local area but don't know much about it really.

My DP grew up in Cambridge and it is a great place to bring up children and he went to the Perse School which is a v.good school.

Mollie0 LOL at your DS. That's encouraging to hear! How does the cost of that compare to childminder etc (about £6-£7 an hour)?

Duck and Ewe - yes, Cambridge an option. It seems less pricey than I thought it would be (just checked). What puts me off is that our halcyon student days were spent there so somehow it doesn't seem right for our current stage of life, but that is daft and I will reconsider! Any idea what a train ticket costs in peak time??

Herbie - we looked at Hook but ever so slightly too long on train, sadly.

We've been in Oxted for nearly 13 years and love it - seems more like a small town than a village, but there's a great community feel, with an annual charity pram race and a carnival. Think we're trying to get a local 10k running race established as well. Small local infants and juniors schools, nursery schools as well. Can't think of anything wrong with Old Lane, but I don't really know it - it's the "wrong" side of the A25 for the shops etc, so if I were you, I'd look for something on the other side of the A25.

If you end up coming to look at anything here, give me a shout and we can meet up. If you want to email me, let me know.

£1.50 for before school, £2.50 after school and £30 for holiday club (core hours 9am to 4.30pm) and £1.50 for every half hour outside that time (£1.50 per family rather than per child)plus £2.50 for school lunch- or take packed lunch. A lot cheaper than the childminder we used to have although no meals provided before/after school care. I make sure ds has hot school lunch and he takes a packed tea to after school care. He loves it as he was desperate to take a packed lunch but I said no! The holiday club does lots of interesting activities. Just had a debate with my mum about her looking after ds for half term. She wanted to do some days but agreed with me that he'd have more fun at holiday club!

MollieO that is great value. I am surprised.

Sweetest - if a person wanted a fix of therapy by way of shopping where would you send them?! If I get time to myself I love heading to Richmond or Kingston for a quick browse!

You can get to Brighton in about 50 minutes, or to Bluewater in slightly less. Croydon is about 25 minutes away (but best avoided, imho!) and Redhill about 20 minutes. Tunbridge Wells is about 35 minutes away. Brighton and Tunbridge Wells have some lovely, quirky shops as well as the usual suspects

Cambridge is lovely. Flat, but lovely.

I'd second Mollie....Thames Valley or Chilterns. Great for Paddington or Marylebone.

Cookham/ Cookham Dean
Marlow
Maidenhead - although a bit towny
Beaconsfield - I wish!!!
Amersham
Henley (great commuter train)
Twyford
High Wycombe (there are nice parts - honest!)

None of these hit the flight path either

Jean - had not thought of Henley. Very odd trains tomorrow: 7.43am then nowt til 8.29am!!!!

Sweetest I feel a bit jittery about nice shops being a bit of an expedition away I am just looking in Good Schools Guide for Oxted area schools but map is driving me nuts! Do you know if any schools are in that book (which I wish I had never bought to begin with!)??

And for all you Cambridge folk, DH has vetoed it as 'too flat'!!! I swear he wants to be able to mountain bike from the front door!

St Albans or Harpenden would suit. I live in Harpenden and it's a lovely place to live with young children and incredibly fast to get into London.

Schools in Harpenden are really excellent and might mean you don't need to pay privately? Possibly?

this house is a bit of an ugly bug isn't it but I think it is a real bargain and could be made to look totally beautiful It's in the catchment (very easy walk) for the excellent Roundwood Primary and Roundwood Park secondary which is one of the top 50 non selective state schools in the country.

house in Harpenden

I don't know what schools might be in the book, but ones I can think of that you might like to search for in and around Oxted are:

(state schools)
Downs Way Infants
Limpsfield C of E Infants
Holland Junior
St Mary's Junior C of E Junior
Oxted (County) School

(private schools)
Laverock (boys and girls up to age 11)
Hazelwood
Woldingham (girls 11-18)

we're in Ruislip - stil at end of tube line (central and picadilly) and , some lovely properties within your price range and very close to countryside.

Very good primary and secondary school - tho' some people move out for private.

easy access for NW ( thats where my family are too ! so the A40 is handy.

wish we had £700k to spend here!

also what about Chalfonts and Amersham/Chesham ? both very villagey.

Ah yes, Henley is a branch line - darn quick into London but clearly you can't miss the train

Yes, we plan to go and view Amersham area.

Wohmum - I know what you mean re budget and I was a bit reticent to state my budget as these things can seem a bit showy (def not the intention in my case!). I found a place for rent in Surrey that was £14,000 a month - seriously! What's that about and who has that kind of money?! What is the Ruislip postcode - I will check rightmove.