Moving to London from NYC
 

Hope someone can help me.

We are currently living in the New York City metro area. My husband, our baby and myself are moving to London soon. I wanted to know what are nice, safe, quiet areas to live in. My husband will be working in WC2 area.

We want to live in a two bedroom and not pay more the 400 p.w.

We just found out that we are moving yesterday and I really have no idea how to approach flat hunting in London. Are we supposed to get an estate agent? Which one is a good one?

help!

i suggest a book called the london property guide. it describes all the areas and gives good indicators of price and has maps. then you can check your favourite areas in the estate agent pages on the internet for up to the minute offerings and prices. you can also ask more specific questions of us here.

there are far too many areas and at this point we would be just 'shouting out' suggestions randomly without knowing what you want (besides safe and quiet).

the book is available on amazon and maybe is available in nyc bookstores as well.

sounds like you are not getting much help from your husband's company? too bad if this is the case. best to get some place temporary for 8 weeks or so--would probably be more than 400 per week if it is a short term let. if the company would agree to pay more for a short term let whilst you look around that would be helpful.

I used to live in the St John's Wood area. It is popular with expats, particularly Americans, because the American school is nearby. There's a small shopping area with restaurrants and pubs. Regents Park is a short walk. Very pleasant but pricey. Don't know the current rents.

I live in Richmond, which is on the District line on the Tube - definitely nice, safe, and quiet. Don't know where WC2 is. Anyway, there are lots and lots of American expats here and many that I know have small children and babies (including myself). You can maybe find a 2br flat for that price around here (I am assuming you mean GBP).

Wherever you decide to live, I suggest you contact the American Women's Club of London to help you get started in a play group and help you get a social circle - I also assume you will not be working. In Richmond (as I am sure in other areas) we have an active group of American expat wives. I met someone literally the day I moved here last year and I got set up in a play group, got info on preschools, etc. right away. It was really helpful. Even if your baby doesn't play yet, it will be helpful for you to develop a social network.

I have a link to a web site I look at frequently where you can look up properties for rent in different areas. I have to switch computers to get the link so I will do that after posting this.

The link is below. If you were curious about it, Richmond is actually in Surrey, not central London.

http://www.findaproperty.com/listcou...mp;countyid=11

www.americanexpats.co.uk/

alchemistee: &quot;<i>nice, safe, quiet areas to live in</i>&quot; London is a VAST area. Any suggestions on here would be semi-fruitless since there hundreds of areas you might like. Walkingaround's suggestion to first order a copy of the London Property Guide, is a good one. I am amazed you are not getting more help from your husband's employer. Or maybe you will and you just haven't heard from them yet . . . . .

(There are MANY areas much more convenient to WC2 than is Richmond)

To clarify I meant suggestions re neighborhoods -

Lucky you! Whatever you do don't make that &quot;American mistake&quot; of living in total isolation and limiting yourself to social contacts exclusively within the ex-pat community.

Presumably you mean &pound;1600 a month. If you mean $1600 (ie &pound;800) you've got real problems if you really want to live in London

&pound;1600 a month won't get you anything in WC2. WC2 is the area around the very central Piccadilly line tube stations like Leicester Square and Covent Garden.

So you need to live at the very edge of the Piccadilly Line tube (like Cockfosters) or places easoily accessible from Waterloo or Charing Cross overgrounnd rail stations - say about 20 miles down the line.

If that's not your idea of a good time, renegotiate your package now, before wasting any more time dealing with an employer who's expecting you to do the impossible.

We don't have socialist nonsesnses like controlled rents here. All accommodation prices are driven by what people in the highest concentration of billionaires the world's ever known are prepared to pay. Your chap's employer has to understand that, or you need to put your foot down.

flanner does not paint an accurate picture. many people live with rents far under &pound;1600 per month but not in the best central london neighbourhoods. anyway, &pound;400pcw is not equivalent to &pound;1600 pcm but to &pound;1733 pcm. many to most central london rents are stated on a pcw basis so i don't understand the need to convert to pcm. but if you do, do it right. &pound;133 pcm is not insignificant.

but &pound;400 pcw won't get you a two bedroomed flat in a top great area but you are not at the bottom of the market either.

and usually people's negotiating position is related to their job level ...not everyone is a company director so don't feel bad if the budget does not put you in a top w2 flat. people of normal means rarely live in this area.

as for the socialist aspect, there is A LOT of rent control in the UK. it's called council housing. rent is set by the council at far below market value. anyway, that's irrelevent to this thread and you don't qualify anyway. stay a while and you might, however.

Council housing is a thing of the past thanks to The Blessed Margaret, Lady Porter &amp; her gerrymandering and the sale of anything else to Housing Associations.

alchemistee: The more I think about this the more I assume (and hope) you just posted in a panic when you first learned of the move, and hadn't yet heard from the firm's HR folks. Many companies provide a few weeks/months of temporary accomodations while you look for a permanent place. And often even a paid trip over to scope out things before the transfer.

Get back to us and let us know what the company is providing and more details about what type of place you want (don't count on a 2 bdrm BTW)

The two times we lived in London temporarily I found this website a helpful place to start:

http://www.livinginlondon.net/

Click on the various post codes to learn a little about each area.

Depending on just how central you wish to be, I think you will be hard-pressed to find something reasonably close to WC2 for &pound;400 per week. How central is central to you? (And remember that in the UK such things as council tax are passed on to the tenant). That said we noticed that prices for similar flats within the same area really varied depending on the actual street and even the type of building it was located in. Are you planning to secure housing before reaching the UK? Is this a long-term move? If you're going to be there any length of time I would hope you can do your flat-hunting in-person so you can be sure of what you're getting.

Last time my husband worked in The City (EC2) and we lived in Kensington (W8) and the commute was a good 30 minutes by tube (11 stops). So you need to get an idea of just how far away from your husband's work in WC2 you want to live. Assuming he'll be traveling to work by tube each day I suggest using this website to calculate various journey times across London

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/

Good luck!

as janisj mentioned, a relocation company may be provided by your company, or can be negotiated, and they will help you with everything before, during and after the move.

EURA is the european relocation association and has list of bonafide agents in london. this would be a good support system for you.

i hope you are backed by a firm that will provide something similar for you.

Hi Alchemistee

Another place to consider is Greenwich. It's only 15 minutes by train to Charing Cross station (in WC2), 10 minutes to London Bridge and also has access to the DLR, buses and river boat services.

Here's a link for some info :

www.greenwich-guide.org.uk/greenwich.htm

Greenwich is &quot;nice, safe and quiet&quot; (except in the summer when the tourists descend !) and I think you'd find something decent within your price range. There are also lots of young families around, a huge park, a great craft and food market and some beautiful architecture, to name just a few things.

Happy flat hunting !

Susie

Try looking in Bloomsbury and Holborn. Flats in the mansion blocks there are well within your &pound;400PW limit.

It's very central. There are problems with it for people with children (the nearest school of any sort is miles away and the nearest school worth going to is in Hampshire), but as you've only got a baby that isn't a worry for you.

Try to avoid the yank ghettoes of Kensington and St Johns Wood - what's the point of travelling this far to hang about with other yanks?

Oh and yes - if your budget is 400 quid a week -you're fine, if it's 4000 dollars you are royally screwed.

Hi Alchemistee - I think some posters are being a little negative on this board about your ability to rent a decent flat. London is a GREAT city, very spread out with lots of areas which would suit you. I am an American and live in W14, which is right at the bottom end of Kensington High Street. I work in Berkeley Square and if I take the Tube, it takes me exactly 30 mins door to door. If I take the bus, which drives past lots of landmarks, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park, etc. it takes 45 minutes. My husband and I pay &pound;800 a month for a 1 bedroom flat in a glamourous Victorian redbrick apartment building with wedding cake icing plasterwork (can you tell I love it?). I do know that you would be able to rent one of these flats for &pound;350-&pound;400 as they are regularly advertised in the local estate agents. Sometimes we think about splurging but we don't need the extra space right now. But you have a child so you would need a bigger flat.

I did a search on Foxtons and came up with these results, as an example. This is a great website because the search facility is easy to use and you have photos, floor plans, 360 views, etc. Some of the flats are based in St Johns Wood and not Cockfosters as Flanner suggests! But obviously these only apply if your spend is in Sterling and not Dollars.

Hope this helps:

http://tinyurl.com/y8axhw

I did a search on Foxtons&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

Please under no circumstances use Foxtons, they are oxygen thieves, and fairly iffy with it.

Yes, Audere is correct, Foxtons are well know for being dodgy but a lot of industries in Britain are, unlike other countries, unregulated and real estate is one of them. However, their website is excellent for getting an idea on what's out there and is good for a browse

Thanks for all your replies. I did post in a hurry but the facts I had then are really still the same now. My husbands firm is American and newly opening in London. So really they are no help because they don't know anything themselves.

I did mean 400 pound and not dollars. Schools dont matter as yet to us. We would prefer to live in central London. I was looking at Notting Hill because I lived there when I was very young and that's the tip my dad gave me. Is it still nice?

I'm confused about the sq footage on some of these places. Is 500 sq ft. really possible for a two bedroom? Also, whats this about having to pay the taxes on the flat? Is rent paid once monthly or some other form?

I looked at some agents but the seem to concentrate on specific areas. Can I get a few of them? And what area is Little Venice? Is that close by?

Sorry for bombarding with the q's. Thanks again for all your help. I will contact the American women's group you mentioned but I would also like friends with other backgrounds. I won't work so how would that happen? I feel like a dork asking how to make friends but ah well.

thanks again.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
Is 500 sq ft. really possible for a two bedroom?
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

a 'double bedroom' means that a double bed can fit in it with just enough room to walk around it. a single bedroom means the same but with a single bed. obviously some are some bedrooms that are bigger but what i describe is the norm for many places. forget about a place to hang your clothes.

so yes, it is possible and about right for many places.

council tax is paid monthly, 10 months out of the year (or you can pay ahead but usually it's deducted from your account monthly). budget roughly &pound;200/month. although it can be more or less depending on the 'band' of the property. the renter almost always pays this occupancy tax....with the exception of very short term lets when the owner pays.

i don't like notting hill. i don't find the transport links very good and i just generally don't care for the feel of it. just my opinion...parts are lovely and parts are crap.

and yes, stay away from foxtons. you can tell a foxton estate agent from a mile away...

22 year old male
highlights in hair with a very trendy cut (but at the point when it becomes mainstream in the chav pubs)
very poorly fitting cheap but flash suit (usually with trouser legs much too long)
novelty cufflinks
drives a crap motor because most make next to nothing.
basically a polished up chav, but the chav shows through the thinly veiled surface. don't believe a word and don't expect good service.

alchemistee-I hear you with regard to your husband's firm starting a new branch in London and therefore being at sea themselves. But folks in your situation need and deserve more assistance than you are suggesting you will receive. There are many commercial outifits that bill themselves as professional relocators and you need one. I would strongly suggest that you do some homework on finding a good one of those and putting some pressure on yur husband's employers to foot the bill rather than trying to do this from NYC by yourself. Fodors can help with a lot of stuff, but this is NOT &quot;a bad hotel for two nights situation&quot; . You need more help than this kind of thread can provide. Trust me, I have walked in your shoes.

The co. should pay for you to stay in a temporary place while you look. Do NOT sign for anything sight unseen. Will you look for some place furnished or do you plan on shipping furniture?

In addition to all the good advice you've already gotten, I suggest you figure out what tube station is closest to his office and look at a tube map to see what areas are near/on the same line.

Have you considered not London at all. I did Brighton to the City for 4 years and it was a quicker journey than from Clapham.

Others will tell you better than me, but there are a heap of leafy little outposts within spitting distance from central London.

Well said, LJ.

alchemistee: In the event you don't get a good relo agent - I feel compelled to comment on your thought that you don't need to worry about schools as of yet. If you are going to be in London for a while, and it sounds like you are, you may want to give that a second thought because of the way the public school system works among other factors.

Kids go to school in the September when they are 4. However, the November before that you must apply for a school placement with the burough you live in. So when your kid is 3 you go for a look-see at the local schools and then fill out a form with your top 3 and submit them to the burough. In March, the burough matches requests with schools and the 3/4 year olds are assigned a school - mostly based on how close you are to the school. If you don't live in the burough, you can't participate in the process (at least where I live). If you move somewhere after the process is complete, even right next door to a school, and the school is full, they won't let you in and you get on a waiting list. I have a friend who moved here from NYC in May and got her kid into the closest local school just a week before school started when I presume someone else pulled out of the class - she felt really lucky to get him in. It is a different system and it starts way earlier than it would in the states so you may want to consider it so you are not closed out of a good school in 2 years. It does seem crazy to think about schools when your child is a baby, but moving can be pretty expensive and you may not want to hop communities after you are already settled.

How to make friends - that is another reason I believe to move to a place with good schools. IMO good primary schools attract families with small children. If you move somewhere that is crawling with kids, you may have an easier time making friends with other moms. Lots of churches in my community have &quot;playgroups&quot; which are basically open play for babies/toddlers while the moms sit and have coffee and chit chat. There are also indoor pay to play areas that do the same thing. It is easy to strike up conversations with people or see the same people week in and week out at these things. I don't know how new of a mom you are or if you currently work in NYC, but you will probably find in London that you will be friends with other moms with kids of similar ages - if nothing else because those people have the same schedule as you. Unless, of course, you have a nanny - which is not uncommon here - and you have someone to watch your baby while you persue your own interests. Otherwise, it is you, baby and other moms and babies. Another reason why I mentioned the AWC. It is just a starting point to get a network going. Not that you will only be friends with Americans or you only want to hang out with Americans. But sometimes it can be difficult moving and you can feel isolated being a stay at home mom in a new community/foreign country - and I have not found London to be a place where your next door neighbor brings you brownies to welcome you to the neighborhood. The AWC can help get you started, living around other expats can help, too. Plus they always have someone moving back who needs to sell electronics!!!

I am also with everyone who is encouraging you to have your husband push back on his company for more support. A relo specialist is certainly necessary (I can't recommend mine who was not that helpful). Also, if you can get them to throw in little things, such as flights home every year, private medical insurance, tax prep and tax equalization - it would be nice for you. I don't get these things but I know people who get this plus free rent, free private schools, free cars, you name it. (That is one bad thing about knowing lots of Americans - lots of people get better packages.)

These are just suggestions, of course. I think it is easier to ask for things up front than a year down the road.

By the way, I will second the Greenwich suggestion.

I wish you the best of luck!
I have lived in London twice over the past 6 years.
You will be able to find something in your price range. I can't recommend a specific neighhborhood. I lived in North London both times due to hubbies commute. I know many families that live in Notting Hill. It is a nice area with lots to offer. There are many americans, but don't limit yourself. You will have no problem making friends. Many churches have playgroups for you and baby. People are friendly and obviously speak English so you won't have a problem fitting in. Lots of mums also meet at the playground-not sure how old your baby is??
The www.gumtree.com might also be useful?
Don't be put off by the negative comments. Not everyone that moves abroad has help from an employer. My husband has moved to contract in pharma and every time we were on our own. We've managed to find a place to live and settle in many countries, even when we didn't speak the langauge. I'll post again if I think of anything that may help you.

We've also done NY-London relocation 7yrs ago. A few factors you might take into consideration:

* WC2 is more of an office/business area, not really a family friendly area IMO.
* Commuting: just choose an area where your husband will have easy commuting (ie less transfers on tub). Northern Line is notorious for delays/disruptions. Sometimes mainline trains run faster though may look further on the map. Check zones on tube map--zones 1-3 are good commuting areas, 5-6 gets quite further out. Also if your husband needs frequent air travel, you may want to check the access to the airport.
* Real estate agents usually specialise in a particular area. Also they're only open on Saturday mornings, not Sundays. Call/visit them, tell them your budgets/neighbourhood/specs, then have them arrange viewings so that you can do multiple viewings. Surprisngly, it is very rare for them to be able to provide layout maps.
* You'll need to insist on two- <b>double</b> bedrooms, as single bedroom is really no larger than a closet.
* &pound;400pcw is not impossible, though not in popular areas like SJW or South Ken. We live in Maida Vale, not far from SJW, and 2-bedroom goes for about &pound;400-600 range.
* Another consideration--will you need a car? If you can get away without it, it will be so fewer headaches. Parking permit/petrol/car is so much more expensive, traffic wardens are everwhere issuing tickets, and roads are congested. And this is before you think of &pound;8 daily congenstion charge.
* Agree about the need to look for areas with good schools--unless you know for sure your husband will be posted here for no more than 2yrs (and your baby is less than 1 yr old).
* You pay council tax, determined by value of your property (even when you're renting). Westminster has somewhat lower rates.
* BTW, the equivalent of doorman apartment here is &quot;block of flats with porters&quot;. Garden flats--usually the basement and/or the groundfloor of converted houses in my neighbourhood--command a higher price.
* You'll need to think if you want to rent a furnished flat or unfurnished one.
* Agree with the others that you should get your husband's company pay for relocation package--removal and temporary housing, ideally a housing trip but it may be too late for you.
* In general, rents are cheaper on southern and eastern side of London. However, there are some good neighbourhoods south of Thames, including Greenwich, Richmond, Wimbledon, Fulham, and Wandsworth/Clapham Commons aka Nappy Valley. Blackheath is also nice, near Greenwich. Eastern London has less developed tube network. NW within zones 1-3, Hampstead/Hampstead Garden Suburbs/Swiss Cottage/Belsize Park are popular, safe, has lots of green space though somewhat yuppy-ish.
Lots of shiny new flats near Canary Wharf but we're not so keen personally because of limited green space and lack of good schools.

This is not the only travel site that I look at or post on, and I've noticed more than once that when somebody posts about moving or relocating to Europe, the first wave of responses usually includes a lot of negative, remarks, and overestimates of the costs. I used to chalk it up to people being envious, but the negative remarks often come from natives of the country!

I've had to consider relocating to Europe for business, and I can't figure out why people are so often determined to make out like you have to be a genius to do it.

Anyway, there is a lot of helpful advice in this thread. It would be nice if alchemistee's company could come up with some help, but maybe they are a very small, entrepreur-ish kind of place.

Fallo6, With respect, anyone can move to Europe: to relocate successfully and enjoy your time overseas takes planning and some degree of courageous optimism.

It can be expensive without corporate/institutional help, especially for those with children:
that trip to check things out, in advance, requires, at minumum, co-operative grandparents and can mean babysitters, expensive last-minute flights. There is paperwork, book research and endless long-distance phone calls and long nights in front of a computer. It can take a toll on a marriage.

I love to live abroad and will go back again (have already lived in 4 different countries, 3 &quot;successfully&quot;).

But I really do not think that it is easy and I think the length and detail of some of the responses on this thread testify to that.

LJ,

I wasn't implying it didn't involve work and alechmistee from her very first post indicated she knew that as well. And I wasn't the only one to react to the presence of so many negative remarks. I was just commenting that they weren't unique to this thread. I've gotten used to it as a knee-jerk reaction when I bring up relocating outside of America. People begin interrogating you like they are going out of their way to find reasons to make it seem impossible or miserable.

My sister used to live in NYC (like I do) and moved to London permanently in 2001 (her husband is from Denmark). They have a almost 3 year old child. They live in North London in a neighborhood called Crouch End. They love it there and, when I've visited, it seems like everyone has kids. It kind of reminds me of Park Slope -- turn of the century townhouses, nice high street with lots of shops, restaurants, etc..., and many child oriented activities. My sister didn't know anyone in the neighborhood prior to moving there and made many nice friends from her Baby Yoga class, Baby music class, swimm class and Bubble Club (I think it's kind of like Gymboree). Everything in London is pricey, but it seems to be moderately, but not excessively, expensive. I believe it's a neighborhood that recently got kind of fashionable. There's another neighborhood nearby Crouch End that is very nice too call Musell Hill. I think it's more expensive, but I'm not at all sure what rents go for in either neighborhood. My sister purchased her 2 bedroom flat.

They are very happy there. Good luck, London is a great place to live - just be prepared for certain things to be more expensive then they are over here. When my sister comes to NYC, she always shops for her child for the whole year -- seems that children's clothes (and a lot of adult clothes) are much more reasonably priced here. When we went to get manicures and pedicures, she said it's much more expensive to get them in the UK.

But, that being said, many great museums are free in London, and you can get better prices for theater tickets at the 1/2 price ticket kiosk in the West End then what you pay for Broadway.

Fall06...h-m-m-m, upon re-reading, you have a point about some of the negativity. Maybe foks who don't have the courage to do it themselves like to dump on other's dreams? Personally, I am the Pollyanna of living abroad and promote it to anyone who has the opportunity: we LOVE the chance to live in another culture as part of it and you absolutely SHOULD go for it if you get the chance. Make the chance if you don't get offered it on a silver platter.

But do your homework and take whatever financial and other assistance perqs are on offer for a happier and more successful re-location.

Hey there!
Congratulation ... I guess! Our family moved to London exactly two months ago. Just to warn you, be prepared for ups and downs.. We started our webpage and post almost everyday blog about the places we see, about schools, everyday business etc. The address is www.burlaki.com Feel free to contact me (Natasha) from our webpage. We currently renting pretty big seti-attached house (4 bedrooms, HUGE garden, garage.. ) in Greenwich for 1600 a month, and my husband is comuting to Canary Warf. My husband's company paid for relocation agency that took care of house hunting, bank card and credit card applications, moving etc. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A NICE RELOCATION PACKAGE!
Good luck!