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With parents up in Peterborough and an interest in being near(er) to the North Norfolk coast we were looking to live on the southern section of the East Coast Mainline.
St. Neots ticked a lot of boxes, but taking the cost of two season tickets (£4,800 each w/o Tube, £6,076 with) out of our take-home pay didn't make the numbers work at all - we figured we'd rather put that into a mortgage for five years or so and then look to move up as life changes. Would be much easier if we both didn't work in Westminster, admittedly!
We ended up in Dartford. Having last been renting in Charlton it's not that much further out - it's currently Zone 8 but there's talks of it coming into Zone 6 in the foreseeable future which would be a helluva bonus.
It does annoy me that there's no fast train service, but if I catch them right I can be door-to-desk in about 1hr 10mins (which is mental for a 17mi. journey, admittedly) and I've got the cycle down to around 1hr 25mins at present which I'm hoping to improve as the months go on...
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tonylast
I do miss cycling to work. But if you're looking for connections to Kings Cross, then have a look on the Thameslink line heading north.
We chose Borehamwood because it's still on the Oyster card, and travel is c£2-3k pa as opposed to the £5k+.
From my calculations Mill Hill would have been possible on a bike (and closer to London). But I just didn't like the areas in our budget / with our wish list. The nice bits are obviously nice.
I doubt prices will keep pace with London especially as there seems to be a fair bit of building. Hopefully they won't be totally uncorrelated though... not that we plan on selling, its just that it would be good to get the LTV in a good place when we come to remortgage.