Moving out of London

Peckham Rye.

Thanks!

Yep, it's permanent. Living in Omeath, Ireland. It's nice to get some peace and quiet!

The lofty heights of Brockley in the distance ... swoon ...

some peace and quiet

Not so fast, the forum has been developing a bit of an ultra-cycling tendency of late, we are quite capable of bridging that distance.

I thought you wanted to get closer to the north coast?

I note you're rather close to the 'border', which is meant to be worst affected in the event of the case of cases. Additional fingers crossed for a sensible resolution there.

Was hoping for Donegal, but got a decent job in Belfast and the commute from here is about half the time from Donegal.

And yep, fingers crossed for nothing going on with the border! Personally I can't see anything changing too much, but you never know! That being said, if there are border issues, Derry/Donegal would probably be the worst area to be in.

So glad for you guys. Looks beautiful.

That’s lush mate! Handy for the races at Dundalk too, I’ve always wanted to check them out.

Thanks James! The landscape around the area is wonderful, nice to have some proper hills around again.

As Oliver pointed out, we're right by the boarder. The town on the left of the shot is in the North, we're on the right in the South. Assuming things don't go to shit with Brexit, should allow for us to always shop with a favourable EUR-GBP rate!

Indeed! Not something I've had much interest in but might swing by to check it out. If they had Sprint Cars there it'd be another story entirely!

Congrats mate, sorry I didn't get to say bye!

Wow. It’s amazing how beautiful life in the countryside is.

in Belfast

Pffft, so much for commitment to the countryside. :)

Saoirse won't remember her life in London at all ...

Not sure if this is better suited for this, or for the owning your own home thread but here goes:

Wife and I are looking to leave London and buy a place, as we're currently renting in London. We're planning on visiting the areas over the next few months to get an idea of what is available and for the areas we've not lived in before - see if we'd actually want to live there.

Has anyone else taken this approach? Did you need to rent first, then did the house hunting in earnest while you were there? I'd like to avoid that if possible - seems like a real bastard compared to just taking another month on the flat here until we've completed and doing the move in one go.

Considering I don't think there is a location south of York, hopefully we'll be able to keep visits down to a minimum but that might not be realistic.

I'll be working remotely so thankfully I don't need to worry about finding work immediately, and my wife is finishing her masters so will be looking for a training position in any of the places we go.

Love to hear any experiences from people who have attempted this!

We did something like this but in different circumstances.

My wife got a job in Manchester but we owned a flat in London. We had three months to do the move, which isn't enough time to sell a flat and find and buy a house in an unfamiliar area.

18 months later and we're still renting but have an offer in on a house now we know this part of the country better.

Would recommend.

So after all the talking about moving out of London, we finally got our arses in gear, and put the house on the market, 2 weeks later we had an offer for the full asking price and we made and had an offer accepted on a house in Teignmouth, Countryside and seaside here we come. If I'm honest am abit shocked at how fast things are moving and we are looking at the 10th Dec to move. Am very excited.

A (premature) welcome to Devon! I am a bit further east than you in Honiton, but have family near Newton Abbot.

Thanks, we have family just down the road from you, in Seaton.

Exciting stuff. The very best of luck to you.

We're planning similar, but perhaps Essex or Suffolk way.

Mrs. Colm89 and I are starting to seriously explore our options for moving out of London.

We bought a one bed house in Camberwell nearly 2 years ago and absolutely love the area (if I'm honest I'd stay there if we could afford a two bed), but i now work fully remotely and herself is setting up an online business so we don't need to be in London anymore.

We're both Irish and don't have much family here (her sister and sisters husband live in East Dulwich), so want to be within an hour of London to meet up with friends occasionally. We toyed with a move back to west of Ireland where she's from, but based on our current circumstances we'd be better off staying in the uk (tax is lower, health care is free). Add to this the fact we're 2 years into a 5 year fixed term mortgage that can't be ported to RoI, and no desire to live North of the border. Even if we made profit on our current house it would be tough to stump up the 10k to buy ourselves out of the fixed term.

We're looking at 3 beds in Kent (Sevenoaks, Tunbridge Wells etc) within a train ride of London. Problem is, we've never really spent a great deal of time outside of London, so how do people in this situation settle on a location? Is it just a case of finding a house you like and living with the location? Renting for a while isn't really an option.

My sister and her partner were thinking about this.

To pick an area they just started spending most their weekends in various places. Get a feel for an area, local pubs, walking routes etc.

They settled on Faversham as she was mostly WFH with a day or two in London, they do a lot of trail running and liked the idea of being near the North Downs. Were thinking of kids fairly soon and moving from a 1 bed flat in Nunhead/Dulwich (Dog Kennel Estate) seemed prohibitively expensive.

They were never completely convinced about the idea of moving out of London and also really liked where they were.

Put an offer in on a house. It fell through. They mentioned they were oddly relieved when it didn't happen. (I don't think the 60% Leave vote and not seeing many non-white faces around felt like home - we all grew up in SE London. /csb).

Ended up buying a 2 bed house in Plumstead. Loft can be a 3rd bedroom at some point.
Haven't looked back.

So to pick an area, visit it a lot and see how it feels.
But if you like Camberwell then also consider something not so far away.

I'm in in Faversham. We chose it over other Kent options by spending weekends in various places and visiting other DFL friends around the place. We love it here. Real mix of wokring class trades, hippie drop-outs, arty middle class old ladies and young DFL (Down from London) families. Beautiful old houses, right on the creek and marshes for walks and nature. Plenty of good riding around on the south downs too. Loads going on most weekends, markets, festivals etc. I still think it's a real "undiscovered" gem. As in, it gets way less attention that Whitstable, Margate, Ramsgate etc. It's definitely less hip but it's got a charm all of it's own I think. We've been here three years and I still love it. It's just over an hour from St Pancras on HS1. Service is very good.

Downsides are parking can be a pain, and some bits of it (a few pubs in particular) can be quite brexity. Oh and the season ticket is expensive. My 2p is that anywhere further in along the Kent side of the estuary is rough as fuck. Further out is nice but the commute gets tedious.

I was visiting family in Sevenoaks last night. Not my scene at all. Reminds me of StAlbans. All chain restaurants and Barbour jackets. Fuck that noise

Have you thought about renting out your current place and trying somewhere else first?

To be fair, I think my sister thought the same, both on the positives and negatives.
They did a lot of looking around and Faversham was their favourite.

But other family are back in London now (I'm in Greenwich, brother in Catford, parents not too far but not too near in Downe), so with potential kid on the way then the ready made friends and family were a factor too.

They're very pleased with the choice they made, though I suspect they'd also have made Faversham work.

Ahh. Nice. Yes indeed. We had friends here also. Wouldn't have found it otherwise. Have made loads of good friends since moving. Good peeps here. And good beer!

I think I'd be hit with enough income tax on renting it out that it wouldn't make it viable.

In an ideal world we'd just port the mortgage to RoI where we have family outside of the city, but that's not all rosy either. Personal tax is crippling in Ireland (you're into the higher rate of income tax at 33k EUR, motor tax is higher, tax on food and drink is higher, and healthcare is not free), and infrastructure is woeful.

You'd think not being tied to a location with work is a godsend, but actually it makes picking a location to live even more confusing. The only criteria now is access to fibre power broadband.