Sat in the rain, having a hypothetical
conversation and wondered what other outdoor orientated folk would choose.
Rules
£500k ish
Outdoor lifestyle
Social life
Access to trails, climbs, peaks etc, from the door
We can’t think of anywhere in the U.K. with current crazy inflation in these sort of locations.
We have concluded alps (at a push) or Pyrenees.
Where would you go and why?
Pollença for ten months of the year , back to Scotland July August to see the green fields and drink cold refreshing milk
Salzkammergut, Austria
Slovenia
We have concluded alps (at a push) or Pyrenees
Are they much cheaper?
Spanish side of Pyrenees maybe...
Lakes District? Not sure how much property you get for £500k up there....I'm sure it'd be adequate for me though!
Or somewhere just near enough to Edinburgh for the social life and far enough away for it to feel very outdoorsy?
Personally though I'd just stay in my little bit of middle class idyllic Cheshire....grew up in Stoke so anywhere would be an upgrade! But where I am, I have a couple of lovely dog walks within 5 minutes. 15-20 minutes away from White Peak and Macc forest.... hoping to get a motorhome to use every weekend to head to the Lakes and Snowdonia....both about 2 hours away.
We can’t think of anywhere in the U.K. with current crazy inflation in these sort of locations.
Most of Scotland would fit. Aviemore area you can get a really lovely big detached house for that sort of money as indeed you can in many places
Genuinely where i live now in stirling but make the house bigger.
I can be at the top of a local hill in 45 minutes with hours of trails from my doorstep.
Its also close to motorways, 2 hours from proper highlands and not too far from Glasgow or Edinburgh if i wanted to get covid/go to bars etc. 🙂
You can get a lovely house in Pembrokeshire for £500k but miles to travel for peaks and trails. I’d have to buy a £400k house here then travel or pay off my mortgage here and have £400k for a holiday place in Morzine...I’m sure I could get an apartment that would do the job for that.
Urdaibai. On the east side of the valley to get the evening sun. Has wild boar, red squirrels and ospreys.
https://goo.gl/maps/94oF88NNvH2pAyeG9
TJ beat me to it, pretty much anywhere is Scotland, I'd have thought. In England, Hebden Bridge, or somewhere in the Peaks, Betys Y Coed in Wales perhaps...
Is the 500k to buy a house and live on, or just to buy a house? If just the house then you'd have a large amount of choice in and around the Peak District (trust me, we're looking to move there at the moment with that kind of budget)
Tom-B - whereabouts are you?
If you can live with the weather, there's plenty just inland of Prestatyn heading to around Denbigh, plus there's so many English there you will very rarely hear Welsh spoken.
Or from foreign places I've visited, probably Tenerife. Not just for the cycling and the weather, but living close to the equator is supposed to practically cure Seasonal Affective Disorder. But buying Spanish property on the Spanish mainland wasn't easy ~15 years ago and I imagine it will be even more complicated from 2021.
@IHN Congleton.....due to move to Eaton (so under a mile away!) to do a barn conversion within the next few weeks.....original completion date was supposed to have been tomorrow actually!
Aberystwyth.
We can’t think of anywhere in the U.K. with current crazy inflation in these sort of locations.
Obviously it depends on how much house you want/need, but I can't think of anywhere in the UK outside of the SE you couldn't get something at least halfway nice for £500k....
That’s what I’m shopping for at the moment. Although I’d rather spend a bit less on a house if possible. Keeps a bit in reserve for a rainy day. Areas I’m looking at are Aviemore or Pitlochry/Dunkeld/Aberfeldy
Dunkeld - a nice wee farmstead was for sale a couple of weeks ago, sold, but got me fantasising. Arran - plot and build a nice wee house. Or somewhere further up the hill here in hebden bridge (nervously eyeing the river...)
n0b0dy0ftheg0at
If you can live with the weather, there’s plenty just inland of Prestatyn heading to around Denbigh, plus there’s so many English there you will very rarely hear Welsh spoken.
That's a really stupid thing to say. If you moved to France would you insist that they spoke Englsh?
That’s a really stupid thing to say. If you moved to France would you insist that they spoke Englsh?
Is it now?
Well given I lived in Dolgellau with my mum in the early 80s and you felt like an outsider if you weren't fluent speaking Welsh, whereas my mum moved to just outside Prestatyn last year and one of the extra positives for her was that English is by far the main spoken language. It made the move from living in Wirral for ~35 years far less daunting for her, as someone born in Manchester.
But thanks for your opinion.
With the rain we are having in Scotland just now and since July I want less and I'm on the East coast. How the xxxx does anyone stay on the south west bit ? Flood alerts all we read
I had this ''problem'' a few years back and bought a house in a market town in Northumberland. My house is about an hours drive to either Peebles, Hamsterley or the Lake District. I also have some of the best scenery in the country on my doorstep, so don't even need to travel to go biking if I don't want to.
Alaska or Scotland
With the rain we are having in Scotland just now and since July I want less and I’m on the East coast. How the xxxx does anyone stay on the south west bit ? Flood alerts all we read
I imagine they live at the top of one of the plentiful hills 🙂
A posher house in our village, with a double garage/bike cave and an ensuite master bedroom.
I'd use the £35k change to get it tarted up a bit inside before we moved in. Yes, I have thought this through.
I should probably check last night's lotto ticket
From here is say where @spekkie lives! Seems to pretty nice place as far as I can tell!
Dolgellau wasn't like Beirut in the 80s, get a grip.
People speaking their own language in their own country shocker !!
A posher house in our village, with a double garage/bike cave and an ensuite master bedroom.
I’d use the £35k change to get it tarted up a bit inside before we moved in. Yes, I have thought this through.
I should probably check last night’s lotto ticket
Pretty much this, we'd like to move a little further out of town, that sort of budget would allow a spare 'bedroom' for better home working and that's about it. I've no real burning desire for an ensuite, but my Mrs would love one I'm sure.
We've talked about where we'd like to move if money was no object and we talked about moving to France before freedom of movement ends, but neither of us speak French well enough to work there. With attitudes to WFH taken a huge shift of late, I could probably make it work with maybe a monthly fight back to show my face, but my Wife couldn't.
We've both spoken about New Zealand a lot, neither of us have ever been, but some of our friends were all set to move their before Covid put that on hold. Visas should be, well they're never easy, but doable, they seem keen for UK nurses and fairly relaxed about their families.
Where we do now.
Converted steading in the Borders, rideable to Tweed Valley trails.
With the rain we are having in Scotland just now and since July I want less and I’m on the East coast. How the xxxx does anyone stay on the south west bit ?
The south west bit gets comparatively less rain than the west coast further north because it's in the rain shadow of Ireland.
It only gets really,really wet from about Arran upwards.
I'd move back home to the Brecon Beacons. Somewhere around Talybont/Llanfrynach would suit me fine. Plenty of stuff to do in Brecon, decent local ameneties and you're not too far away from Cardiff or Bristol for a quick taste of City life if required.
Or Scotland. Or New Zealand.
House I’m in now with £500k in the bank...
Another vote for the Scottish Borders.
Really nice houses at £250k, affordable family houses for £100k, 1 and 2 bed flats at £40k+.
What surprised me last week when we were looking at houses was the rental charges, which are far more than I'd be willing to pay for a family home - £550-600 and month, it'd be cheaper to buy over the long term.
In Harrogate in the same house but not sure why I should downsize!!!
Definitely not ****ing Sunderland that's for sure.
In the UK, Peak District.
Not the UK, somewhere with mountains, French Alps, Jura etc.
Never thought I'd see the day that living in Congleton in positive light 😉
As above Slovenia
In the UK, Northumberland.
In Europe, the Pelion in Greece.
+1 on stay around Stirling, just buy a bigger house and [s]toy storage system[/s] garage.
Failing that, Kelowna or maybe Alpes Maritime
We sold our 4 bedroom house in Hampshire and we're having a 2 bedroom house built in Tobermory - it's actually bigger by area and the plot is 2x bigger, plus it has a double garage/workshop. It overlooks the sea / Morvern peninsula. There's enough money left in the bank to cover our living expenses until I get to 65 and draw-down my pension. We will also have a big poly tunnel for growing our own produce, plus chickens and bees. Expect I'll pick up a part=time summer job and we have a small online business that does most of it's business around Xmas. The whole point is about living an active, outdoor life. Hopefully, friends will come and visit for holidays and we have a campervan for off-island jaunts.
We spent about 6 months pretty well looking at every house and plot for sale in Scotland, from the borders to the Northern Isles and can't be more happy with our decision.
yeah, weird thread. Half a million would get you a bloody nice house anywhere, even in the SE, but it's not really lottery-win/dream house (unless you have very modest dreams!!) territory. As for the Alps, it's nowhere near enough for e.g. a family home in Morzine is it?Obviously it depends on how much house you want/need, but I can’t think of anywhere in the UK outside of the SE you couldn’t get something at least halfway nice for £500k….
Tons of places in Wales. Even in Cardiff £500k gets you a nice house, there's lots of life of all sorts here and lots of biking. But if I weren't tied to a city or transport links I'd be up in Mid Wales - Machynlleth or somewhere like that.
You'd get plenty of change from your half a mil with this:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/73198425#/
perchypanther you may want to get a more upto date rainfall map. that one you posted shows where I work <600mm We spent the best part of 6 months late last year and early this year just constantly dealing with flooding incidents.
you felt like an outsider if you weren’t fluent speaking Welsh
You were an outsider!
I’d live where I live now. Big garden. Vale of belvoir on the doorstep with lots of awesome trails and road cycling. 1mile to the nearest village. 1h drive to peaks or sherwood pines.
Weymouth. Water. Hilly enough for me now. Good music scene, close enough to Bournemouth and Bristol for ‘culture’and London is an close enough weekend destination. I love it.
Other than that Tarifa in southern Spain. For similar reasons.
I'd spend £30k of the fund travelling the world for a year to decide where.
But from my previous travels, maybe a place in Liguria and another in Dunkeld (or somewhere cheaper nearby).
Croatia..... Half the budget on this place.... 45 minutes from Zagreb, an hour to the coast. This area is a truly stunning part of the world....
https://www.njuskalo.hr/nekretnine/jedinstvena-kuca-rijeku-mreznicu-oglas-27071135
The other half maybe on a mountain/ski cottage in Bosnia.
Job done
I'd return to Southern Germany. Get a nice place on the Swabian Alb. Caving and climbing on the doorstep, An hour to the Alps, Stuttgart and Munich just down the hill. Long hot dry summers and cold winters with plenty of snow. And great people when you get to know them/speak the local dialect. I have been searching for a property for years but the logistics of buying on my budget at a distance is tough. £500K would get anything you want.
Okay here's my advice from experience:
Before embarking on anything DO carry out an honest appraisal of your mental fitness in the face of stress. Then look at the distance to GP, pharmacy and hospital and think carefully about your physical fitness in future years.
Do NOT rush into any hasty decisions just because you don't like where you live and want to escape.
Do NOT allow your spouse and the architect to browbeat you into a big house.
DO NOT do all of this during a major pandemic.
DO come to the area you fancy, rent a house for two weeks in February and move around meeting neighbours and asking questions. If you can survive that you should be okay to buy the plot.
DO find out if there's a village news rag or Watsapp community, join in, watch and learn.
That's my advice.
I live just outside Keswick, Zoopla says my 4 bed semi looking straight at Skiddaw is worth 460k now. I’d live here!
Definitely not ****ing Sunderland that’s for sure.
Can't blame you Matt, even though I sometimes wish I was closer to the North East.
I always say I'd love a decent sized bungalow in NW Scotland on the shore of a sea loch. Sea in front, mountains behind.
In Harrogate in the same house but not sure why I should downsize!!!
I work in & around Harrogate, no way would I live there! I'm a comfortable 9 miles away in Boroughbridge.
Molgrips, I live in Machynlleth, did consider buying that house in Corris the only problem is it's bloody wet up there and it's pretty smokey in winter with all the burners. We're actually moving from Mach to Dyffryn Ardudwy, it's the sea views from the sun room that did it. 😎
I'd stay exactly where we are here in the Pyrenees, but finish our B&B "Project" so that we have our own place to live in and can sustain ourselves.
£500 000 is about 5 000 booking.com nights on average in the sort of places I like so I'll continue to live where I do and rent flats or rooms whenever and wherever I feel like. Which is pretty much what I do already. Last night was in Le chemin vers l'Etoile at 5:26 in this vid. Back home now as we're locked down as of midnight.
Also, I love that someone has seriously suggested Prestatyn.
😀
Buy the flat next to #1 Peebles road.
Get loads of bikes, kayak, decent camera and spend the other 395k on cake and coffee...
Why not?
If you're a scouser who can't be arsed to speak a few words of Welsh it's great!
It's also full of fellow scousers all complaining about the same things....well boss La!!
We can’t think of anywhere in the U.K. with current crazy inflation in these sort of locations.
Seriously?
I'll sell you my house for £400,000 and that'll leave you a bit of pocket money.
Co Kerry. Has everything. Even some rain if you like that kind of thing.
@scotroutes yep, my op was pretty vague
We just got talking, as Cornwal where we live, has gone mental and we are camping in the lakes at the moment and it seems to have gone equally mental.
We were looking at detached 4 bed family (interesting) houses, in awesome locations, where you can walk out the front door and get straight into the action. Seems like these places have gone bananas and you need to be bloody wealthy to live anywhere like that.
Even in the fantasy position of having £500k of debt free money, it seems like it would be bloody hard to find anywhere.
I haven’t looked that hard though!
Outdoor lifestyle
Social life
Access to trails, climbs, peaks etc, from the door
You could get quite a nice place in one of the towns outside Madrid for that - something like this for example (although I'm not 100% a fan of the style...)
https://www.idealista.com/en/inmueble/87872644/
Having been watching the Scottish property market pretty much all year, it's fair to say it does seem to have been pretty ballistic post-lockdown. Anything remotely nice has now sold including building plots that have been for sale for 10-13 years. There's one down the road from us that unless they go seriously off-grid for power it's going to cost £50k to connect because it's on the wrong side of the glen.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-95179226.html
I would buy this and be able to paddle down the beautiful Spey every weekend.
Only the nine bedrooms?
Pfft.
This is a good time to be buying in Grantown on Spey. There are a few nice new shops, cafes etc and when they complete the restored railway line to Aviemore it'll suddenly take off.
Orgiva
Yes please
£500k? There are fairly ordinary houses built in the last couple of decades around here fetching almost that much, my 3-bed semi built in the 1930’s is worth £200k!
There’s a lovely thatched cottage in Biddestone, about five miles away, that was up for sale recently, so I checked out the estate agent’s site - just shy of £1 million.
Not far from where I am now TBH, can get a decent place up Stainland/Greetland way for that money. Loads of doorstep riding and much more a short drive away.
Somewhere in the Bauges Massif
I'd buy a place in France in the southern Alps, either near sisteron or bit further down on the edge of Esparron du Verdon. And probably a place here in Somerset.
Another vote for Slovenia. It's pretty much the perfect country, geographically at least.
New Zealand if they'd have me. I'd probably have to marry one of them.
@halifaxpete - I'm up in Stainland (not in a £500k house though).
Are you sure you want to live up here in the clouds, rain and constant wind?
“This is a good time to be buying in Grantown on Spey. There are a few nice new shops, cafes etc and when they complete the restored railway line to Aviemore it’ll suddenly take off.”
Grantown is nice enough but it’s not so easy to ride straight from your door into the mountains from there as far as I can see. The advantage with Aviemore is you have the wilderness right on your doorstep.
Littleover in Derby it would seem 🤦♂️
Another vote for Kerry, lakes, mountains and good cycling, maybe a place in the Malaga area for a bit of sun and warm weather cycling, maybe El Chorro.
Can’t believe that with a fantasy £500k people are choosing to stay in GB - bit of a lack of imagination there 😉
Those saying New Zealand.
You'll probably need more money:
Lots of places round these parts for that sort of money:
If you want your own electricity and room to rent out: https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/gard-vathultsstrom-gislaveds-kommun-vathultsstrom-1-16773916
or maybe here: https://www.hemnet.se/bostad/gard-0rum-fredshammar-orsa-kommun-bruksallen-20-16254919
Or just buy a shit-load of forest near Åre and build something