woodyinoz

That would be great. Fraid we will be still living with Mother at this rate! ohh well she makes a good cuppa
Mark's working in Chertsey 3days a week and from home the other days. I am amazed at how many part time jobs there are where they do on the job training and you don't need a degree. Talking of that I must pop out and by a suit. They seemed to have buried our clothing boxes at the back of the storage unit ohh well clothes are cheap enough and the choice is

Eastbound

Hi Woody
Firstly good luck with the job interview fingers crossed ,is this the first one since youve been back ? Secondly this is always a slow time housing wise just wait until next month thats when people seem to put their houses on the market according to the agent who marketed ours for us anyway thats those who arnt trying to fit house sales in with emigration visa dates etc

eurotramp

What part of London are you looking at to buy?

woodyinoz

We are in Newbury (Berkshire). I have always lived in villages so I think that London would cause me to have a heart attack. The most traffic I get on the school run is the odd tractor I do like the night time vibe of some places mind... could never afford to live in the decent areas though.

eurotramp

They are some nice houses on rightmove between 500k and 600k if thats you price range..

woodyinoz

there are some nice ones about but trying to find one which can give FIL an annex is tricky. I am viewing a nice one later this week but it sounds far to cheap for what it is... waiting to see what the catch is.

Are you still in the same area? I know that you was unhappy and looking to move!

eurotramp

Yepp, unfortunate we are in an expensive area with "only" 350k to spend..Northwood and Pinner are dear areas Would rather live in the countrysite

dunroving

Maybe the FIL annexe comes complete with the seller's FIL.

woodyinoz

putting up with one farting old man is enough

woodyinoz

could you not move to Surrey or other neighbouring counties.

I spoke to a lady from Sydney today. She was there for 8 years and has only been back 3 months and is so home sick for Australia. I felt so sorry for her as I know that feeling well. I guess that for her she has no family here any more and she has moved to an area that has never been home. Have you moved back to an area that you have lived in before?

eurotramp

No..I'm German and hubby is from NI. We don't know anybody here. We have lived in Blandford/Dorset before, that was nice..
Hubby does not want to commute..but even if he would,,you don't get far in 30-45 min...makes no sense..even the neighboring Villages out side the M25 are not cheaper..I still hope for a crash

Mercedes

Why not try the midlands, our office is based there and we had some guys come down recently and were looking at the local papers and couldn't believe what they were paying and what they would have got for the same price.

A lot of people commute on the Birmingham International line if your husband needs to commute to london and it's an hour and half train ride. But for your budget you would get a really nice house in some of the areas. You have places like Solihull, Stratford on Avon, Warwick, Leamington, so plenty of countryside, history, etc and not far to London either. When I was looking at buying I was looking in the Cheltenham area at the time, as well a few other places. I put an offer in a few miles outside there. As said you get some really nice houses for that and plenty of places to visit also.

FPM

If we don't move close to London (with easy access to New Malden for my wife) which is unlikely, we're thinking about Swindon, very affordable and lots of companies that would be interested in both of us with our relative experience. But I checked out Newbury on the net as someone told me it was a lot cheaper than Reading, but I was shocked how much more expensive Newbury was than Swindon. I've never been to Swindon or Newbury so maybe there are good reasons for it ?

My wife's boss in English, here on 2yrs secondment and he goes back in a couple of months. He knows we are trying to get over there and has said he'll 'look into some things' for her. Trouble is their HQ is on Bond St in London, eek!

woodyinoz

Swindon is well placed for travel along the M4 although it is a fair bit further from London. As for the house prices in Newbury I can't understand it, they seem very over priced. I have seen many reasonablish properties in North Newbury but South Newbury is megga! Trust my family to live on the expensive side.
Have you checked out Hungerford direction. It is a lovely town and fairly excessible to many places.
Where is your family based?

FPM

Mum and dad in Somerset, sister in Bucks so the M4 corridor suits us all together (although we have discussed moving 'oop North' to put some decent distance between us all,,long story). hungerford etc would be good, but wherever we go i'd need to make sure my wife could get to work by PT as she is loathe to drive for the first year or so. I'm up for anywhere really. Just need to look into some stuff. At least we have a ok deposit, just don't want a mortgage so big that we can't have a nice lifestyle (there's only two of us so we really only need a two bed house, three bed max, but that would mean further from London of course).