Living in Surrey

Majago

Majago

Majago

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Joined
5 Feb 2004
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Location
Stroud
Hoping for a bit of help / advice from members who might live this way.

For various reasons, the wife and I are currently thinking about getting jobs in London and Surrey would be a possibility to live as we have friends in Epsom - preumably it wouldn't take long to commute to the City?

The current choices are either;
  • sell up here (mid terrace 3 bed would fetch around £160k atm) and buy in the new area
  • rent out our house here and rent a new place (could be difficult as we have a dog)
  • sell here and rent a new place - least favourite option as we'd be selling at the wrong time and then buying again when prices pick up

Having looked at house prices in Epsom itself, could anyone recommend any cheaper locations in that area that would still be desirable to live? Not after anything too extravagent but would prefer not to end up in the 'dodgy' area of town.

Would it be any cheaper to live in London itself (guessing not)? If we were to do this we'd save transport costs so could be an option if prices weren't a great deal more expensive?

We have looked on some estate agents sites but am just hoping to get the (independant) views from people who know the area.


Thanks in advance.
 
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If you are ok with a flat then there are loads of places you could buy for a few £k more than you will get for your place.

Where in london would you get jobs? do you know it would be around the centre or is it possible that it would be north / north east / east london?

find a job first, then look for somewhere to live :p
 
Thanks for the quick reponse.

It'd most likely be working Canary Wharf way, possibly Bishopsgate - have made some applications and am waiting to hear back. Thought we'd start thinking about areas now although it would just about be possible to commute from here (catch 6.30 train and return at 19.30) - although wouldn't want to do that for too long and it assumes 9-5 working!

Would be happy with a flat although the only issue is that I would imagine we'd either need a ground floor flat / a balcony due to having a dog.
 
Renting wise, are you looking for a 3 bed house again? If so, be prepared for a shock in terms of rental prices :p
 
Epsom doesn't have the greatest travel links from Surrey so you might want to look around at other places nearby.

I work on Bishopsgate and my wife works in Epsom. We live further round in Walton-on-Thames as we can get a bigger house there and it's quicker for me to get into the city. Takes my wife about 30 minutes to commute to Epsom.

There is a three bed availbale for rent across the road from me and it's about £1200pcm. I expect it will be more in Epsom / Ewell. Buying a three bed in W-o-T is just under £300k and it's probably one of the cheapest areas in west Surrey.
 
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Hi there, I actually live in Ashtead, a village right next to Epsom (which you might have come across during your research). Firstly, you can't really go wrong with many of the places around Epsom. Compared to the rest of the country it's a very safe area. However, as I'm sure you've seen from browsing some estate agent websites, that does come at a slight premium. I don't know a massive amount about current house prices, but I can be certain that areas such as Cobham (Chelsea player territory), Oxshott, Esher and Kingswood will always be expensive. A couple of suggestions may be Banstead or Leatherhead which both still have good transport connections. I'm not to learned on the places slightly further afield from Epsom, but perhaps someone else on these forums might be able to offer a little more insight.
 
Esher and it's environs have all been mentioned as expensive, but you might want to look at:

East & West Molesey
Hersham
Shepperton (very sloooooooooooooooow train)
Surbiton
Parts of Sutton are supposed to be OK
 
Leatherhead is apparently the dearest place to live outside of the main London areas isnt it?
 
Majago said:
The current choices are either;
  • sell up here (mid terrace 3 bed would fetch around £160k atm) and buy in the new area
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In the Guildford/Camberley/Woking/Farnborough/Dorking part of Surrey, you will struggle to get antyhing bigger than a 2 bed flat, perhaps a dingy 3 bedroom mid-terrace (but I don't see ANY appeal in a terraced house).
 
Morba said:
Leatherhead is apparently the dearest place to live outside of the main London areas isnt it?
Click to expand...

Yes I think so, but this is mainly because of the big mansions in Fetcham and just outside Leatherhead that are still in the same post code. The town of Leatherhead itself isn't so great. There are some good areas, which are getting worse due to the number of new build flats going up, and there are bad areas, which are really getting worse for some reason - there was a mini-riot on the main council estate the other day when the police tried to arrest someone for being drunk and disorderly. I used to live there, I was pleased to see the back of the place tbh.

Ashtead, Epsom and Dorking are much better places to live imo, and all on the same line to Leatherhead. It's 45 minutes by train from Leatherhead station to Waterloo (the Waterloo trains are quicker than the Victoria trains). Getting to docklands from there won't be great, but I know that lots of people do do it.
 
[DOD]Asprilla;12157088 said:
Esher and it's environs have all been mentioned as expensive, but you might want to look at:

East & West Molesey
Hersham
Shepperton (very sloooooooooooooooow train)
Surbiton
Parts of Sutton are supposed to be OK
Click to expand...

East molesey is nice, as is thames ditton. Don't live in west molesey, full of chavs (they call themselves DHS, the Dark Hooded Soldiers :confused:)
 
Logic Zero said:
East molesey is nice, as is thames ditton. Don't live in west molesey, full of chavs (they call themselves DHS, the Dark Hooded Soldiers :confused:)
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oi i live in West Moseley technically. Its not ideal for traveling into London as its a long walk to a train station.
 
Thanks for all the responses so far :)

Morba said:
Renting wise, are you looking for a 3 bed house again? If so, be prepared for a shock in terms of rental prices :p
Click to expand...
With regards bedrooms, as there's only the 2 of us (+dog), we'd be perfectly happy with either a 1 or 2 bed place (preferably 2). No real need for us to have a 3 bed place again, main reason for having one now being that it just happened to be in our budget when starting out.

Looking at some of these rental figures, it will be a big shock if we wanted something similar to what we've got now! Buying wise I think we'd be capping our budget at 200k.

Thanks again, plenty of food for thought.

edit: just got an email from the missus linking to a place in Stanmore - i'm thinking this is Harrow? If so, could anyone suggest whether this is a 'nice' area?
 
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Logic Zero said:
East molesey is nice, as is thames ditton. Don't live in west molesey, full of chavs (they call themselves DHS, the Dark Hooded Soldiers :confused:)
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't know West that well, but I go running from Molesey Park Road through Hampton Court, Kingston, Surbiton, Thames Ditton, down to the Scilly Isles roundabouts and then back up past Esher station. At all seem quite alright (although I only see Kingston centre).

mjer1984 said:
oi i live in West Moseley technically. Its not ideal for traveling into London as its a long walk to a train station.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that ain't good. I'd drive / cycle down to Esher and get the train from there.
 
Dorking is one big old peoples home tbh. more old furniture shops and 'antiques' shops than you can shake a stick at.

Though admittedly i did like working for FP, lovely grounds :D
 
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