Reading vs Surrey

Dummie_2

Was originally looking to relocate to Surrey but found the renting prices very high. I think Surrey is one of the most expensive places to live outside London so I thought I'll try elsewhere.

Reading caught my eye as it's still under 1hr drive to London and Wokingham LEA is ranked very highly.

Was shocked at the rental prices though!! They match Surrey's. I suppose the good schools are pushing the prices up.

At the moment I'm looking at Earley, Wokingham, Woodley and Twyford. We need a 3bed (or a 2bed with a study) which can be found on rightmove but only maybe 1 or 2.

Anyone out there who knows this area who can offer some advice and some info pls?

Casual

Um, I can help with good areas and also names of decent local estate agents. I only moved last Christmas so I have recent experience!

Give me a shout if you have questions.

-Catherine

STAR_BUCK

Bagshot and Camberley are supposed to be realy nice and affordable, plus the M3 from there will take you straight towards london

morg_monster

Wokingham is a pretty expensive place to live, comparable with most parts of London in my (admittedly limited) opinion. I grew up there and my parents still live there, it is telling when I go back to visit (having finished school 7 years ago) that I never see ANYONE I recognise. Younger people cannot afford to live there, they will move out to Bracknell way if they want to stay in the area, leaving lots of pretty well-off families. Most of these families are either upper-middle class moving into the area now with the high prices, or just averagely middle class who bought in the area 10 or more years ago and have watched their house soar in value.

I couldn't give any house buying information but it is a nice place to live especially with young children, although with older kids and teenagers there is not a whole lot to do in the town itself once they start wanting to go out in the evenings. It isn't the most exciting town, I don't think it has much in the way of character or charm, but it does the job as somewhere to live. Transport links as you say are OK, and with trains you have a choice of the slow stopping service from Reading to Waterloo (via Wokingham), or you can go to Reading and pay more to get the fast train into Paddington.

As you say the state schools in Wokingham are good and Reading has a good selection of private schools. You may find property is overpriced and get better value in one of the smaller towns such as Earley, Winnersh etcetera, as you said, but still fairly pricey. For lower prices head towards Bracknell I would imagine.

Happy to answer any non-house-buying-specific questions about Wokingham if you want!

noyk

I've been living/renting in wokingham for a year or so, i'm afraid i don't know much about the school's but i think they vary pretty widely in quality - it's a pretty big area.
Rent is high because of the links, though there are bargains to be had and there is a fairly large amount of stuff on the market, i negotiated about 10% off my rent.
Wokingham itself isn't bad but it's not that good either, it has pretty good rail links (but train to london is slow one - 1hr clapham Jn.).
The town centre is fairly nice, but it's very much an essentials only type of place, Reading which is 15 mins drive or 10 mins on the train has got all the major shops.
The town centre is cut in two by a through road which doesn't help (and this is probably the biggest problem for the town), i've no idea why they didn't pedestrianise it. The council seems to be a bit backward, like they did try to build on (cricket fields) one of the only large green spaces left in the town until enough people objected (i think).

noyk

Oh yea, morg's post reminded me - some kids can be trouble here, there were a couple of murders late last year if i remember correctly.

noyk

If you don't need the train within walking distance, Shinfield has some good bargains.

morg_monster

Yeah Wokingham's schools did have a bit of a bad year. Of the 4 state schools in the town, one had two pupils stabbed last year http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/4236658.stm
and one had a lab technician killed on the school grounds
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/4688896.stm

Around the same time, another of the schools had a pupil die from DVT while in bed with the flu, and the fourth had a pupil attacked with a knife by another pupil on school grounds.

As with a lot of places there is a growing problem with older kids & teenagers, as I said, not much to do and so lots of hanging around. And they all have plenty of money to buy alcohol too (or pinch it off their wealthy parents...)!

Probably less dangerous than the average town... I have to say beyond these big stories there doesn't seem to be too many muggings or drug related crime (again, probably due to the wealth of the area) but it isn't exactly the 'sleepy backwater' as painted in some of the above news stories!

lush_walrus

Most of Berkshire is pretty much like for like price wise to Surrey, so I can't see that you will make much of a saving changing county. In both if you opt for a town without good transport links or perhaps not particularily nice then its cheaper as with most places.

With Reading, yes it is in theory an hour to London by road, but that is to the West side of Central London and definately out of rush hour, or rush hours!!! If you are planning to travel on the M4 between probably 7-9.30 then you are looking at more like 1.45hrs realistically, same on the journey back between 4.30-6.30ish.

As mentioned above, it is possible to get a train via Waterloo, but if you are going from Reading I would recommend travelling via Paddington as this is much much quicker as there are non stopping services. Costwise, be warned a yearly ticket is in the region of £4,500 if you want to use underground too, which is due to go up again in the next few months.

Schoolwise, if you have girls 11 and above there are two fantastic options Kendrick and Abbey (although Abbey is private). Both are pretty high up the leagues, for boys or younger age range I havent a clue!

Twyford is closer to London, so cheaper trainwise and there are some trains that go pretty direct, you could also consider Maidenhead, but neither are cheap areas, but nice all the same. If you are looking for low budget and close to London, you could consider Slough, although (sorry to those who may live there) personally I think it is the pits!. Windsor is just across the the M4 from Slough, but don't be fooled by the reputation, some parts of Windsor are lovely, but if you are looking around ex council estates be warned they are quite rife with trouble. Windsor is a couple of junctions down the M4 from Reading, so faster to London, but slower on the train from Windsor station, but most people tend to drive over to Slough and get on the fast trains there to Paddington, that are also cheaper than going from Windsor.

All depends on your budget, what time you are planning to drive into London and how much you want to spend for the train!

STAR_BUCK

lush_walrus wrote:

Twyford is closer to London, so cheaper trainwise and there are some trains that go pretty direct, you could also consider Maidenhead, but neither are cheap areas, but nice all the same. If you are looking for low budget and close to London, you could consider Slough, although (sorry to those who may live there) personally I think it is the pits!. ...QUOTE]

Ummmm excuse me but Slough isn't that BAD!!!! There are some very affluent areas in slough such as datchet, langley and ditton. Plus there are 5 (yes 5!!) GRAMMAR schools, all ranked very highly in the area drawing in families from all over Middlesex and Surrey! I should know as my mum's house is smack bang in the catchment area for 3 of these schools and she's always getting leafletted from potential buyers interested in moving to the neighbourhood!

Dummie_2

Thank you to everyone who replied. It's much appreciated.

Thought I'll throw out some more info to see if any of you could come up with some suggestions on more affordable areas.

1) Transport - we'll hardly use the train services and will not be driving during rush hour. DH works from home and will probably commute to London 2-3times per week (his clients are based around the M25 area)

2) Schools - toddler will be 2yrs in December but it's never too early to start looking!! We would like quite decent schools with good league rankings and Ofsted reports.

3) Town - as with most families with young children, safety is a huge issue.

Twyford - this is on my list. But it is pricey.
Earley - on my list.
Winnersh - also on my list but there's only a limited number of rental property available.
Camberley - this is in Surrey isn't it? Looked on rightmove. Seems to be quite a few options available. Umm.....must of missed this during my initial search. It's now officially on my list!
Slough - heard not very good things about Slough. I know there are good areas as well but Slough is not on my list.
Wokingham - OK. What I've just learnt about Wokingham has made me cross it off my list!
Shinfield - never actually considered this place but a quick search on rightmove tells me that for 900pounds or less there are no 3beds available.

Any thoughts on Woodley?

OK, so now I have Twyford, Earley, Winnersh, Woodley and Camberley. What about actually IN Reading.

Thanks again for your help. I'm off to search the web again.