Property

If you want a two- or three-bedroom house in an established community that isn’t too far from work and not too quiet and suburban, there’s obviously going to be a catch. Unless you’re on a City salary, you can forget Highgate, Notting Hill and Muswell Hill right now. It’s time to head out beyond London’s boundaries. What with the often decent commutes (often less than half an hour), more bricks for your money, a sense of freedom, a more relaxed pace, and (often) better schools, you won’t be feeling like an urban traitor for long. Opening up your search to beyond Zone 6 also gives you a lot of choice. Towards the north and Hertfordshire, there are pretty market towns and the ever-popular St Albans. If hardly cheap, they’re still more affordable than big chunks of London. From King’s Cross’s Thameslink station, you can be in St Albans in 20 minutes.

With its abbey, dozens of pubs and rows of pretty two-bed cottages, it’s a mini-city with a lifeblood of its own. Eccentric little Biggleswade in Bedfordshire is also within half an hour’s reach of King’s Cross, while from Euston you can reach Berkhamsted and Tring in about half an hour. Prices are similar, if a bit cheaper, than St Albans. Heading west to Buckinghamshire (and if you just can’t tear yourself away from the tube network), Rickmansworth, Chesham, Amersham and Croxley are all situated at the furthest reaches of the Metropolitan Line (so you’ll always get a seat in the morning). Old Amersham is posh but up-and-coming Chesham is cheaper.

So what if you want to go south and west of the city? Everyone knows about pricey Richmond, but from Waterloo you can also head out to Teddington, with its good schools, village-style shops along Broad Street and proximity to the lovely Bushy Park. Not quite as ritzy as Richmond it’s still not cheap,  but househunters looking for more for their money could try neighbouring Hampton Hill. If you’re willing to spend between 30 and 60 minutes on the train – and if you’ve got a book (and a seat) that’s more than bearable – you can live out a rural dream in Hampshire, close to Basingstoke (45 minutes from Waterloo), or Kent, near Sevenoaks (35 minutes from Charing Cross).  Even in Tunbridge Wells (as well as Sevenoaks), prices are more reasonable than you might think. With the high speed tracks for the Eurostar, commuters from Ashford in Kent benefit: the journey time (to St Pancras) is down to 40 minutes from well over an hour. Not forgetting Essex, genteel Epping and its famous forest is the last stop on the Central Line, making Oxford Street just 45 minutes away.