Nicola1

Hi All,

Happy new year, wishing you all a fantastic 2013.

Righty....I think we've decided to settle in Hart. I'm familiar with Fleet and Elvetham Heath (which I really liked), but ideally with larger gardens.

Great schools for the boys are a must and I'd really like a large garden (funny how I've gone from rolling fields to lawn!).

Is anyone familiar with Church Crookham? Any small village recommendations please?

Kind regards,
Nicola

Lorry1

Hi Nicola,

Yes I lived in Church Crookham for a few years and attended junior school and part secondary school there. I still have many friends in Fleet so go there regularly when I return.

Church Crookham is a lovely village and there are still some properties with large gardens on the older estates. The new estates have stamp size gardens. The local shops are good for a quick shop and the bus service into town are good. Fleet is on the mainline to London if that helps. There are also good links to larger towns nearby.

Fleet is really expensive mortgage and rental wise but it is a lovely little town that seems suspened in time. The old housing estate I lived on looks exactly the same as when I left.

I went to Crookham juniors which remains a good school and also Courtmoor secondary has really improved since I was there with great Ofsted results. The schools are in high demand though and many kids are forced to go to schools outside their district.

I have a friend who lived in Elvetham Heath for a while. I have emailed her to get some info. She says she lived there for 7 years and loved it. There is a real community spirit and her neighbours were fab. It now has a pub and supermarket which wasn't there when she was. The council tax is pretty high she says. Apparently the Daily Mail published an article claiming everyone who lived there was rich and it was the poshest place to live in Britain!
She said she would move back there in a heartbeat but her ex is there.

I would love to live in Fleet again but due to family complications it is not viable for me.

Good luck!

Nicola1

Thanks for replying.

Yes, we stayed at EH for a few weeks last year and loved it. I've emailed the school and they're very oversubscribed so it's doubtful our boys would get in at first. Also, my only little issue with EH is that I really want a proper garden with space for a treehouse etc.

CC seems to offer much more space for our money and the schools do look good on OFSTED. I've also seen Wintey Hartley which looks fabulous as does Odiham.

Are there any particular area's to avoid?

Lorry1

No major areas to avoid in Fleet. Its a fairly nice town but due to a few pubs and a dodgy nightclub (which I have been too ) it attracts chavs in the evenings to the town centre.

I always felt safe there though and I know my friends who live there feel safe now.

Farnham is also very nice if you want to stay near that area. It has a lovely high street with an old castle and Frensham Ponds are close by. Schools are very good too but again it's expensive to live there.

Nicola1

Hi,

I spent ages looking into Farnham, I really like it, but as you say the prices are quite alot more expensive.

I queried a few area's of Farnham on another forum and found it quite difficult to narrow down nice area's. I did find a house I loved, but was warned off as it was Aldershot!

Lorry1

Yeah don't go to Aldershot!
I am sure there are some nice areas but in general Aldershot has a bad reputation.

christmasoompa

I'm only 15 mins from Fleet, but just over the border in Berkshire (Swallowfield area). I don't know Fleet terribly well as we've not lived here long, but it seems lovely.

Good luck with it.

Nicola1

My Rightmove saved searches are just getting bigger and bigger - I've probably covered every county so far!

Swallowfield looks lovely but there wasn't anything within our budget on Rightmove.

christmasoompa

Actually, I've just realised - didn't we exchange PM's when you were looking at the Chilterns? What happened to that? We lived in the Chilterns until we moved to Swallowfield area.

It surprises me that there wasn't anything in your budget if you were considering our old village in the Chilterns - it's soooo much cheaper here! The house we've bought here would have cost us at least another £200k back nr Amersham.

If you end up coming north a bit to Eversley direction, then shout as I do know it a bit around there now. I've only been to the Fleet area a few times, although several friends commute from Fleet every day.

Nicola1

Oooh, hi again

My husband will need to commute into Waterloo and for some or other reason we've concentrated on search on the South East since our return from our recce in July. We actually didn't manage to get up there during our trip sadly.

The cheapest house on Rightmove for Swallowfield was R850k!

christmasoompa

What's R850 in GBP? Swallowfield is expensive, Arborfield is cheaper though (we're kind of between the two). Swallowfield is smaller and just stunning. Because we're in Wokingham district it's quite pricey due to Wokingham regularly being voted best place to live in the UK, although to us it still seems cheap to us coming from nr Amersham! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ng-family.html

I think the commute from Fleet to Waterloo is fairly quick and easy, that's why several of our friends go from there, although my husband works in Victoria so he goes from Wokingham station.

Best of luck with it!

Nicola1

Sorry, I don't have a GBP button on my keyboard, but the cheapest Swallowfield house was GBP850k not R....We're looking around 500k

christmasoompa

OK, so there's clearly nothing smaller on at the mo! We paid about the same as your budget for our house, so you can definitely get cheaper around here.

No idea how Fleet prices compare though (we moved for our dream house, it wasn't for the area, so didn't look at anything else near here), but wherever you end up round here you can't go far wrong imo.

Happy househunting!

christmasoompa

Oh, and just another thought - do haggle and look at stuff above your budget. We got our house for £100k below the asking price! Admittedly that was an unusually large reduction (it was a renovation project, so not much competition as most people didn't want to take it on), but even so it's worth a go with the way the property market is at the moment.