Where to live in London - moving from Birmingham - all so expensive and confusing!!!

alarafan

I am getting married and my husband and I will be living in london in the Summer.
He currently lives in Zone 3 in london and is paying £550 rent for one bedroom in a 2 roomed flat and for transport is paying £116 per month for a Zone 1-3 travel card.

I have no idea where to live.

Requirements.
1. For rent we will be able to pay an absolute maximum of £1000 per month for a 2 bed place.

2. It will need to be close to a good primary school as my daughter will be living with us.

3. It should be very close to a train station

4. It should be at most about 40 mins commute to central london (where he works)

We have been considering maybe Watford but the only reason for that is that it will be marginally easier to travel to see our relatives in the midlands.

I do not have a job lined up and do not know when I will get one so we will be planning on the basis of surviving on one salary. The maximum we will have for food, transport and utilities is about £1500 per month.

This is such an important decision and I don't want to just stick a pin in a map and say 'we'll live there'

How can I find a place that meets all the criterea of
Affordable 2 bedroom place; reasonable commute & train cost; good school?

I would appreciate any advice.

climbgirl

alarafan wrote: »

Requirements.
1. For rent we will be able to pay an absolute maximum of £1000 per month for a 2 bed place.

That requirement means you're going to need to be out on the edges. Most two beds are £1200+ for zone 1-3. Unless you're prepared to live in some of the grittier areas.

But the further out you go, the higher the transport costs will be and the longer your commute.

BitterAndTwisted

The first three things would be relatively easy to solve but the latter not. There's such competition for places at decent schools here that just because you're in the catchment area does not guarantee the offer of a place.

climbgirl

Not sure what your current living arrangements are but is there any way you can postpone the move until you have found a job?

Trying to cover a London two-bed flat, bills, transport and food for three people on £1500 will be very tight.

honey9

You're looking at at least Zone 3 - £1000 a month won't get you a lot further in. South East London has some nice areas and good transport links (not the tube but the trains are fine) and South West London can be ok around the Northern Line, the only thing there is that any further out than Tooting and you might find somewhere at a decent rent but the areas (Colliers Wood etc) are pretty bland and run down.

London is of course huge though and I only know my small part of it (the south west) very well; I don't have kids so know nothing about schools but depending on where you live and what your commute is like your daughter need not go to the nearest school to you - some of my friends drop their kids off on the way to work and a couple of colleagues take theirs from Balham to Victoria on the tube every day. It really depends on how you feel about that though.

There are a couple of books about moving to London that cover things like rents, transport, schools etc in different areas. I can't post links but have a look at Time Out's London for Londoners book, London: The Complete Resident's Guide. If you do an Amazon search for 'moving to London' you should find a few useful books.

If you ask 10 different people you'll get 9 different recommendations for areas and one person saying they can't understand why anyone wants to live in London!!

alarafan

climbgirl wrote: »

That requirement means you're going to need to be out on the edges. Most two beds are £1200+ for zone 1-3. Unless you're prepared to live in some of the grittier areas.

But the further out you go, the higher the transport costs will be and the longer your commute.

Thanks - we were planning on living in one of the outskirt areas - (I just call it all london) maybe Watford; Essex; Kent?
Its about balancing what you will save on rent, with how much you then shell out on transport.

What I wanted to figure out is how to get 'outskirt' but not too 'gritty'.

climbgirl

alarafan wrote: »

Thanks - we were planning on living in one of the outskirt areas - (I just call it all london) maybe Watford; Essex; Kent?

Yeah, I tend to think of London as zones 1-6 - if you go outside of that, rent will be a lot lower. But transport costs will rise, as will your time spent on trains so you need to balance it out. Kent has some of the priciest trainfares in the country...

I'd suggest you come down for a weekend and spend some time in possible areas and narrow down your search to the parts of town that you like. Then you can get yourself comfortable with an area, figure out what you're happy with. Everyone has different standards!

alarafan

climbgirl wrote: »

Not sure what your current living arrangements are but is there any way you can postpone the move until you have found a job?

Trying to cover a London two-bed flat, bills, transport and food for three people on £1500 will be very tight.

I am currently living in Birmingham with my daughter - I appreciate it will be very tight and we do have a little saved up but I know how hard it can be to find a job sometimes. I am willing to do any type of job but if I go for 'menial' or basic types of job I get told 'over-qualified' and the ones I am qualified for have so much competiton. frustrating.

alarafan

honey9 wrote: »

You're looking at at least Zone 3 - £1000 a month won't get you a lot further in. South East London has some nice areas and good transport links (not the tube but the trains are fine) and South West London can be ok around the Northern Line, the only thing there is that any further out than Tooting and you might find somewhere at a decent rent but the areas (Colliers Wood etc) are pretty bland and run down.

London is of course huge though and I only know my small part of it (the south west) very well; I don't have kids so know nothing about schools but depending on where you live and what your commute is like your daughter need not go to the nearest school to you - some of my friends drop their kids off on the way to work and a couple of colleagues take theirs from Balham to Victoria on the tube every day. It really depends on how you feel about that though.

There are a couple of books about moving to London that cover things like rents, transport, schools etc in different areas. I can't post links but have a look at Time Out's London for Londoners book, London: The Complete Resident's Guide. If you do an Amazon search for 'moving to London' you should find a few useful books.

If you ask 10 different people you'll get 9 different recommendations for areas and one person saying they can't understand why anyone wants to live in London!!

Thanks for that - I will definitely be on Amazon and invest in a few books.

I had not considered 'commuting to school' with the little one. That is worth further consideration.

climbgirl

honey9 wrote: »

South West London can be ok around the Northern Line, the only thing there is that any further out than Tooting and you might find somewhere at a decent rent but the areas (Colliers Wood etc) are pretty bland and run down.

You'll struggle to get a two-bed flat for under £1000 on the south west part of the northern line. I've had some friends looking in that part of the world in the past few weeks and they've not seen anything under the £1200 mark and it's very competitive at present. Even the dives are being snapped up for silly rents!

princeofpounds

Just to give you an idea - LHA rates for Merton (far SW) or Bromley (far SE) for example range from ~850-~1100 pcm (depends on which bit of the authority you live in). That's for two beds.

So you are basically scrapping with benefits claimants at that sort of budget. Kind of sucks, but that's modern Britain for you. And that's why you aren't going to find anything cheaper.

I would certainly suggest you look at south-east London. It is dull and uninspiring, but relatively nice, suburban and green compared to many cheaper areas of London. The rail network in the south is often better and cheaper than the tubes, as long as you don't want to go anywhere else other than home/centre.