Villages in West London (maybe moving)

[GrislingtonDad]

If you live in West London within easy commute of SPGS, G&L or LU, please tell me which "villages" are worth looking at. Looking for quiet residential family house with local shops and a tube nearby. Not on the river floodplain and under a Heathrow flight path. Price cap £2.5m so that cuts out quite a few obvious streets/houses ..... 2,000 sq. ft. (200 m. sq.)?

Which "secret" streets, villages, areas would you look at or recommend? (Obv. not looking for your address and don't post that here!)

Wimbledon, Putney, parts of Wandsworth, does it stretch to Parson's Green? Chiswick, Richmond, Southfields. That's the SW side largely. Not so sure about prices a little further West. The houses between East Putney and Southfields are gorgeous in pockets - a lot for your money compared to some other areas.

I don't think you can escape the flight path in W London, sorry.

But they swop the routes around, so it's not overhead every day.

I left London a while ago, and have lost track of prices. Would you get anything in that nice bit of Chiswick near Turnham Green tube station?

West (London) Wing?

Kew - both Tube and bus options to the schools you list, and a real village feel.

You can't escape plane noise anywhere really but I don't notice it.

I'm not sure which areas count as flood plain but the Thames barrier seems to save us all from flooding round here. Never known any flooding in over 20 years in this area.

You would get a decent size house in Ealing for that amount. Good transport links from Ealing Broadway.

You don't need to worry about flooding in London. Outside, yes. You will have plane noise anywhere. Kew, Ealing, north Barnes, naice bits of Hammersmith around Brackenbury would work.

Wimbledon, Putney and Wandsworth are not great commutes to those schools (different branch of District Line, meaning you need to go into Earls Court and out). Not bad, but not good - put it another way, if you had a blank slate, that's not where I would choose to live if easy commute to those schools was your tip top priority.

You definitely notice plane noise at Kew Gardens, lovely though it is. Barnes is nice, though probably similarly affected.

LOL at 'secret' bits of west London.

Use a relocation expert/property finder.

You could add East Sheen / parkside, but you will not avoid plane noise?

Would you add LEH to your list of schools? On a par with the ones you mention and your £ would go a lot further out in Strawberry Hill, Teddington, East Molesey, Kingston, Sunbury on Thames way. You could even look as far as Eton & Windsor as the extensive school bus network extends out that far. Lot's more villages and secret places than you'd get inside zones 1-4.

Windsor and Eton would be the very worst place to look to avoid plane noise! they're about 20 feet above your head at that stage.

Brook Green has a lovely villagey feel and nice community, and of course is a short walk to two of those schools. Otherwise second Turnham Green and Wimbledon Village. FUrther central, the Latimer Road / St Helens Gardens area of W10 is nice

In what sense 'secret'? Ungentrified, but on the brink? How far out are you happy to go?

Oh just reread and saw tube was a requirement. Non-negotiable? DB is looking a bit further ATM with half your budget and there are some really nice spots inside M25 that you perhaps wouldn't think of. But not on tube.

Just realising that selling/buying for 9 years of secondary schooling might be a financial mistake. A £2.5 m house would attract about £214,000 of stamp duty. However, if we keep our house, rent it out and spend that on renting a house we pay no stamp duty. It might be that we have to pay a bit of tax on the rental income and that the rent we pay is a bit higher but even it we were out of pocket by £20k per year that's still 11 years before it would work out more than the stamp duty.

So maybe we'd rent instead.

Some good comments here. I'll start with the most central of the suggestions (Turnham Green, Parson's Green, Putney, Chiswick, Brackenberry, Latimer Road / St Helens Gardens). I'm guessing a lot of these will be to expensive on the rental front.

Thanks

Perhaps you should sort out the school first and make sure your dd is happy there. After that make a decision that suits the whole family. The stamp duty issue is massive, but I also think that if you are buying for the long term (we were in our London house for more than 20 years) it fades a bit when you look at the whole in relation to convenience, paperwork, tiresome tenants and repairs, etc., over a long period of time.

I hope that sort of makes sense. How old is your dd and how sure are you right now that what you think is the right thing will in fact be right? My youngest is in 6th form now and admittedly we fitted the schools around our home but sometimes it helps to just step back a bit. FWIW our first choice, dream choice school for our daughter didn't work out and she ended up very very happy at what was our 4th choice due to pulling her out, spaces and circumstances.

Perhaps it might help just to go with the flow a bit.

Barnes?
Probably river floodplain and no tube but if you live near river it isn't far across to hammersmith tube.

From our research a few years back...
Wouldn't recommend ealing, I feel like it is a lot of money for an average place which in reality is fairly far out on the tube.

There are some lovely houses in north Kensington (W10) - quiet residential streets but close enough to Portobello/Ladbroke Grove for when you want a more urban vibe. The downside is your neighbours include the Camerons (if they get kicked out of Downing St) and the Goves (plus half of the BBC ...)

More great thoughts here. Thanks

Which state schools, preferably co-ed, would you think about as a back up in the W10, W6 etc areas (ie the more central tube connected areas)?

We would think about moving into catchment of those to have maximum options.

Pelican
I live in Ealing and I wouldn't agree with you. Especially with Crossrail on its way. As for it being far out on the tube, you are forgetting the mainline rail - its around 10 mins to Paddington.

As a W10 person you would be too far north for Holland Park now as it redrew the boundaries to exclude north Kensington. Kensington Aldridge by Latimer Road tube had the first intake in September and is a bit of an unknown quantity. Burlington Danes is up and coming and my DD is likely to go there for Sixth Form.

I don't know enough about Hammersmith Schools to comment.

Re rent/rent scenario - you will pay your marginal rate of tax on ALL your rental income over and above your interest only portion of your mortgage, so it may not wash its face as much as you imagine.

Brook Green is where you are after. North of the river so no planes. Three tube lines. Walk to two of those schools, easy bus to the third. Villagey feel. You can get that square footage for your budget too.