My girlfriend and I are looking to move to the south east early next year from the south west. We are starting to look at areas we might like to end up. I'm originally from Hemel and will need to be reasonably near there for work reasons, but moved away 20 years ago as a teenager so not that familiar with the region and don't particularly want to live in Hemel anyway. She is self employed (working from home) and doesn't have any knowledge of the area. We've started looking at different locations, we're not really urban people any more and probably looking for a small town or village in Herts or south Beds/Bucks with a bit of "character". We've driven around St Albans, Berkhamstead and Tring and the surrounding areas, also down as far as Amersham and Beaconsfield. All pretty expensive! We're late 30s without kids at this stage so schools aren't an issue, and neither is being able to commute to London daily, but we do want to buy, and ideally something like at least a 3 bed semi for around 500k. Does anyone have any ideas where might be a good place for us to look? Cheers.
How about East Berks, lots of villages in the area surrounded by Reading, Wycombe, Maidenhead, Bracknell, where you would be able to find your requirement, all those areas have good access to the motorway networks and are within 45 minutes of WFC! I know I live in one of them!
Thanks. east Berks is maybe somewhere we could explore, I've tended to consider anything south of the M40 as a bit too far away for a commute to Hemel. From what I've seen, I didn't much like the look of Wycombe though there are better places around it. As for Luton. . . it is very well priced! But I think we'll be giving that a wide berth. I wouldn't mind exploring further north of it, but there doesn't seem to be too much of interest up there anyway. Being near WFC is not part of our criteria, however it would of course be a bonus!
The villages around scum are not bad at all, good links to the motorways etc. Look at places like Flamstead, Markyate, Slip End etc. I live around and it takes less than 15 mins to get to Hemel from J9 of M1. The more west you go into Herts/Bucks, the pricier it gets.
North of Scumland (such as Barton-le-Clay) are some very nice villages and M1 access still isn't a problem. Bishops Stortford was a lot cheaper than Cambridge (for my mate) but a bit too, ahem, "vibrant" for his tastes. PS The 'Wood isn't that bad.
There are quite a few nice villages type places around Milton Keynes and Nothampton, and you could probaly get a very nice property for your £500K budget, or is that a bit too far north for you?
With the motorway-ized A41, Aylesbury, Tring, Ivinghoe etc are within very quick reach of both Hemel and Watford.
Tring may be expensive but you must be able to get a 3 bed house for 500k round here surely? Edit: just noticed the new board doesn't have location showing. I live in Tring
Chesham, fair bit cheaper than Amersham, the Amersham side old part of town is quite attractive plus handy as near a tube, Prices drop a fair bit north of Tring and Aston Clinton, Western Turville and Wendover and all surrounding villages (Wendover quite pricey) are all okay.
Ditto. Live in a village near Wokingham and it's ideal for pretty much everything. Only 45 mins to Watford
Really!? As someone who lives very close to Welham Green it does not have that reputation, ha. Out of interest where did you work? It's not a very big place!
Thanks everyone for your views, very interesting! We have a number of months still to think about this so will explore different places around the region as and when we can.
That's not Welham Green! How come you worked there? My girlfriend lives about 2 mins walk from there and I went to school in brookmans park!
Have you considered encroaching the Oxfordshire border? My partner and I purchased last year 40 minutes from Watford, in a small but developing town. Purchase price was 330k for a three bed. Phase 3 (of 4) of the new development not long been released with our style of property 75k more expensive. With new train links into London in under 40 minutes, and the expansion of Bicester Village amongst other things, your investment in property up here will see a very handsome return!
I moved up to Hatfield last year as got more house for £ than around Watford, if you can find somewhere around Hatfield Garden Village its very nice but the rest of Hatfield has a lot of catching up to do, and there is a serious lack of decent pubs and restaurants other than the standard fare that is in The Galleria Stones throw from St Albans so thats great for pubs and fantastic places to eat and Welwyn Garden City is bolted on to the North. Served well by A1 and just a 30 min drive down to Watford down the A414, trains go into Kings Cross and you can get direct into the city without changing to the underground
