MoWriter

In a few years I hope to be buying my first home. I am interested in living in the UK, within reach of the beach and the train to Germany. But I'd also like to live in a quiet village with pubs, bakery, corner store, ice cream shop within walking distance. And a grocer not too far away. And decent restaurants a little farther. Can anybody give me an idea about good places to look. My budget will probably be 158,000 pounds. Looking for a 2 bedroom with not too much of a garden. Big bedrooms, big living room. And room for a garage, includes shed would be ideal.

mjdh1957

Do you have a citizenship that allows you to settle in the UK?

As a travel forum, this is not the best place to ask about living in a country. Maybe you should find an expat forum of people from your country who will have more experience of the kind of situations you will be facing.

But in general, quiet villages in Kent won't have all the amenities you want - rural life in many parts of the UK means long distances to drive to amenities and limited public transport.

Gordon_R

A bit of a reality check may be in order here.

Firstly, there aren't any direct trains to Germany from Kent (at least not yet). You'd have to take the Eurostar to either Brussels of Paris and change there.

A budget of £158k for a 2-bed house is on the low side for anywhere within commuting distance of London (though I'm not overly familiar with Kent). You may find you'd be limited to a flat or a house on an estate on the edge of one of the big towns (some of which are quite economically depressed areas).

Homes in picturesque villages with stations / facilities / near the beach are highly sought after and prices can be little short of astronomical, even for small properties. "Big" rooms are not typical at all in the UK, where land is expensive and people are accustomed to living in relatively small spaces.

As mjdh1957 says, you need to research this further on an ex-pat forum and check your immigration status as to whether you can live in the UK.

OReilly

I moved to the UK three years ago from Canada. Be prepared to be shocked at house prices in SE England!!! Expectation adjustment required

Check out property at rightmove:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/

Heimdall

One website that might give you an idea of what is available in your price range is http://www.zoopla.co.uk. Get a map, find some locations in Kent, and type them into the search box. Your budget of £158,000 sounds optimistic, and in addition you will have to pay for a survey, solicitor's fees, etc.

tarquin

Another suggestion for www.rightmove.co.uk.

The south eastern coastal towns of Deal, Ramsgate and Sandwich are nice and not expensive, relatively.

MoWriter

Yes it's true I am a total noob at buying a house. I still have a year or two to decide whether a new country is what I need, or to stay put. I've seen a few house ads that look ideal. Ramsgate looks cool. I was born in England and have dual citizenship. I have registered on an expat forum site, so thanks for that suggestion. The prices for houses in New Zealand are hugely different to the prices in the UK, but I'm a bachelor and plan to be for a while yet, so I don't need a huge house, just a nice one in a cool neighbourhood. I'm not actually in the market yet, as I said, but I'd like to start focusing on my goals. So I decided it couldn't hurt to test the waters. Thankyou all so much for your comments, taking the time to educate me a little.

janisj

A nice house in a cool neighborhood will probably bust your budget by a hundred thousand+.

But a small flat is probably quite doable - probably not in a posh village though. Is kent the only area that interests you? There are other parts of the UK with lower property values but accessible to Germany either by trains through London or from many regional airports.

julia_t

As others have said, the best place to look to give you a realistic idea of what is available and what you can expect to pay is

www.rightmove.co.uk

You can do many searches, get updates by email at regular intervals, you can 'draw' your area. It's a great website. My house purchase in the Cotswolds (and I was born and grew up here) is being finalised next week, and I'm still getting daily emails from rightmove about properties coming up for sale in my chosen postcodes.

£158,000 does seem a pretty low budget for Kent, and I doubt will get you anything with 'character' in a nice village. Expect to compromise.

bilboburgler

as others say rightmove but its main competitor is primelocation.com

MoWriter

It doesn't have to be Kent. Accessible to Germany by train would be ideal. Amenities and quiet neighbourhood with low property values and not high crime are what I'd really like. Space is not a huge deal as it would be just for me, but I'd like as much as I can afford. The right location is really the big thing.

Alec

Ashford, Kent, has some Eurostar train connections to Germany via Brussels on Thalys or other slower trains.

indy_dad

Wouldn't you want to live in the area before buying? Why rush in? If it meets your expectation, then you can look into growing deeper roots with a house purchase.

flanneruk

There are no villages with "pubs, bakery, corner store, ice cream shop within walking distance" with railways stations that have trains to Germany.

Fortunately, Britain hasn't decayed enough to have ANY villages with ice cream shops: my newsagent has a reasonable selection of Walls' (Streets' in Kiwi) nastiest Cornettos, but certainly isn't going to cater to grownups who actually like the muck. But there are about 25 tiny towns of < 3,000 people in greater SE England with frequent trains to London, a railway station within walking distance of where most live, an adequate range of facilities people actually want (like bookshops and real ale pubs) and severe enough restrictions on building that no crap housing's been built for the past 200 years.

All require several connections to get even to Brussels or Paris: even if Deutsche Bundesbahn ever gets round to launching its direct trains from England to Frankfurt (don't hold your breath: they're now running three years behind schedule, and there's no sign the kit the Germans are buying from their local train-maker is ever going to be ready) there's no intention of running them from anywhere in Kent.

There are just two trains a day from anywhere in Kent even to Brussels: getting to an international station from any train-blessed microtown is practically always easiest if you go into London and out again.

If getting to Germany from a pleasant English village matters, it will almost always be easiest to drive to one of the eight or so international airports around London and fly.

The crucial criteria for choosing a place in SE England are:
- where do you really need to get to? I seriously doubt accessibilty to Germany matters at all: but if it does, the best place to live is Germany
- what can you afford? There simply isn't a house available below £400,000 in a town with a railway station within 80 miles of London. Planning restrictions mean there are very, very few flats to rent or buy.
- rent or buy. There IS a thriving market in house rentals, typically starting from around £1,000 a month in places such as you decide.

Gordon_R

>>There simply isn't a house available below £400,000 in a town with a railway station within 80 miles of London. Planning restrictions mean there are very, very few flats to rent or buy.

tarquin

Agreed, Gordon. i live in a small picturesque village in Lincolnshire, just over one hour to London by train, and £158K could buy an old stone house on the marketplace.