Find me a forever house...

abankerbutnotafatcat

:wave:I love Earlswood too and the housing stock is great thanks to it being a railway suburb. I love the fact i'm door to door to my office in The City in just over an hour but when I get home I can walk to The Plough and almost feel like i'm in the country.

I'm not from this area so didn't know it at all (my first visit to East Surrey was in November!!) but as soon as I found Earlswood it had a lovely feeling about it. We don't have a car to explore surrounding areas but when we do i'll be straight over to Outwood and the other suggested places.

phoebe1989seb

JodyBPM wrote: »

I like that house, but I think it would be two small downstairs for the four of us. Ideally I would like 3 receptions (but accept i may have to settle for 2) but this house only has 1.

What I did really like about that house was that it hasn't been modernised to an inch of its life. I just cannot stand it when people buy period properties, and then rip all the features out and do them up like bland newbuilds.

Hi Jody

I'm loving this thread as we seem to share opinions on the type of houses we appreciate! I'm loving your last comment - highlighted in red - and concur with that wholeheartedly as there's nothing I hate more on RM is seeing a potentially wonderful period property then viewing the internal pics only to find all the guts have been ripped out and the character totally destroyed.......why didn't those people just buy a new house?!?

We're not in your area - originally from Hampshire but spent last three years on Essex/Suffolk border and two months ago bought our potential forever home in Wiltshire. We've been mortgage-free since selling our 6 bed Victorian house in Hants for £600k when prices were at their peak, but whilst we would have loved to move to West Sussex, we found that to stay mortgage-free we had to look further afield. Our new house is a project (albeit half-completed by the previous owners) and is a (non-listed) 3-400year old large thatched village house with a huge garden running down to a stream that is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. We found it the day after being let down on another similar (but listed) property in a nearby village and managed to buy it and move in within 5 weeks as our house sale was well on the way by then - luckily for us it had only come on the market that same day and the other interested party couldn't get a mortgage because of the work that was still required.

Whilst the right kind of period properties with land seem few and far between at the moment and the best ones still get snapped up straightaway despite the current state of the housing market, I'm sure when the time comes for you to move, the right house will come along - if it's meant to be, it will be!

In the meantime thanks for starting such an interesting thread

Phoebe x

daveb975

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

In the meantime thanks for starting such an interesting thread

I agree, this has been a real eye opener for me. I live about 20 miles north west of here and £375k only gets a 3 bed house in the worst parts of town. It is great to see the type of houses that are being recommended here coming up for that type of money.

I will follow this with interest and will have a drive through next time I am around there.

abankerbutnotafatcat

daveb975 wrote: »

I agree, this has been a real eye opener for me. I live about 20 miles north west of here and £375k only gets a 3 bed house in the worst parts of town. It is great to see the type of houses that are being recommended here coming up for that type of money.

I will follow this with interest and will have a drive through next time I am around there.

Whereabouts are you now, Dave? The East Surrey area is lovely and has very good rail links into London Bridge and Victoria. It depends upon what you're after of course but £375k can buy a very nice detached period property in a nice part of town. I'm not sure I could squeeze myself back into busy Battersea after having moved here!!

Grimbal

JodyBPM wrote: »

and http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-30503299.html?premiumA=true Sadly showing as sold on estate agents website, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE this house! Compromises would be again possibly airport noise, and the more general location. Ifield itself is quite pleasant and rural, but the nearest town is Crawley, which wouldn't be my first choice tbh. Also slight fear of the listed status. But I think I could quite happily swallow any compromises for that house, as it is the kind of house I dream of, and am suprised has come up within budget tbh.

So it *is* possible within budget, but its quite a tough job finding them! I agree, though, with an extra couple of hundred thou, it would be a lot easier to get what we want. Better go and buy a lottery ticket!

I think that place would suffer incredibly from airport noise. AFAIR, the planes would practically take off over the house ! I'm from Horsham & when I visit Crawley (let alone Ifield), the difference in noticeable

JodyBPM

Grimbal wrote: »

I think that place would suffer incredibly from airport noise. AFAIR, the planes would practically take off over the house ! I'm from Horsham & when I visit Crawley (let alone Ifield), the difference in noticeable

I agree it probably would. Although from driving round the area, it is suprisingly not quite as bad round there as it is in Rusper, despite being much closer to the airport. Perhaps the direction that the planes take off?

In any case, with our budget and our wish list, we are going to have to compromise. In the area we are in, airport noise or motorway noise are things that we accept we may well have to put up with for a house that is right in every other way. And I love that house in Ifield, and realistically we simply wouldn't be able to afford a house like that that didn't have a big compromise.

All a moot point, however, since its already sold...

daveb975

abankerbutnotafatcat wrote: »

Whereabouts are you now, Dave? The East Surrey area is lovely and has very good rail links into London Bridge and Victoria. It depends upon what you're after of course but £375k can buy a very nice detached period property in a nice part of town. I'm not sure I could squeeze myself back into busy Battersea after having moved here!!

I'm in Surbiton, so nowhere near Battersea prices!

The problem here is that the nice parts of town are so much more expensive than the surrounds. You can buy a 3 bed semi for £350k on the outskirts, but in the nice area it is double that and they hardly ever come up.

Some of the areas discussed here look great, and the link to London Bridge would be useful - Surbiton has a great train service but it only goes into Waterloo.