It’s the best of both worlds
Do you love your great job in the city but long to live the good life in the country? Then why not commute and have both, asks Caroline McGhie
The ripple of Londoners moving into the country is now becoming quite a wave. According to Hamptons International, about 44,000 people have moved out of the capital in the past year, the most since 2007, taking with them a huge property spend of £15billion. As they cast their gaze into rural England, however, it seems that they often take a scattergun approach, with very little idea of where they want to end up. “People want to find value for money and quality of life,” says Mark Lawson, search agent with The Buying Solution. “First, they need to decide which station they want to arrive at in London, then the distance they are willing to travel. So they look at a map and work out their options, then add property prices into the mix.” The commuter’s holy grail is somewhere with a speedy train journey, affordable house prices and good schools. North, south, east or west? The willingness to look at all points of the compass is partly a result of buyers being pushed into new areas by rising prices, but it’s also a product of social change. “Society has become more transient and people are so busy that time is everything,” says Lawson. “Prices vary a lot. For instance, in East Anglia values can be half what they are to the west of London. The east is less fashionable than Hampshire or Berkshire, but bits of it are absolutely lovely.” This is prime commuter territory, home to expensive villages which have effectively become suburbs of London. Step off the train at Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe or Oxted, and the villages are only a few minutes away by car. Hamptons International says the price gap between property inside and outside the M25 is now more than £200,000, the highest it has ever been, while average prices in London are now double those in the rest of the South of England. Johnny Morris, head of research at Hamptons, says an average one-bedroom flat in Central London on the market at £600,000 will now buy a three-bedroom family home within striking distance of Guildford. Most people don’t want a journey to or from work that is longer than an hour. That can take you as far as Winchester, Oxford and Cambridge, or to idyllic parts of Essex such as Manningtree and Audley End, or west to Kintbury in Berkshire. It can also take you south to the oasts-and-tile-hung houses of Wadhurst in East Sussex and Staplehurst in Kent. Adam Buxton, a search agent with Middleton Advisors, has found that people are fed up with getting in and out of Oxford by car to catch the train and will now look beyond to Banbury. “For a long time it was seen as a poor relation to the Cotswolds,” he says, “but the railway line has really helped. You get better value here and there are fewer tea shops and tourists.” Soho House, the private members’ club, is planning to open a base at Great Tew, which will give the area a further lift. People become anchored by which London terminus they choose. “No one working in the City wants to come in at Paddington,” says Jonathan Harington, search agent at Haringtons UK. “Traditionally, the Winchester line has been a very strong driver for the City because the line comes in at Waterloo. One very underrated area is Peterborough, just 45 minutes into Kings Cross, where there are gorgeous villages, excellent schools and house prices which can be 50 per cent lower than the South East.” “The scattergun approach to house hunting has become much more apparent as the market has woken up again,” says Charlie Wells of Prime Purchase. “What people really want is brilliant primary schools and preps. They will take on the longer commute if they have to go to London only two days a week.” This length of journey takes you to Bury St Edmunds and Diss in the east, the cities of Bristol and Bath in the west, Canterbury and Salisbury to the south, Brockenhurst in the New Forest, and Arundel and Hastings on the south coast. Beyond two hours, the price drops off by another 25 per cent. “This is about the search for real countryside,” says Wells. “People might look in East Sussex or East Anglia to find it. You need to be careful. The farther you go, the lower the house prices will be, but the good schools will also be few and far between, and you might have to travel farther to have dinner with like-minded people. Buyers have often had a country childhood and now want their children to have the same – they know how to bottle-feed a lamb.”