Try before you buy!

July 05, 2023

Being happy in the location of your new home is as important as the home itself. Take a look at our top tips for making sure your area of choice is a good fit.

Visit at your leisure

This is perhaps the most important thing to do before signing up to your dream home! Take your time to see how much you enjoy the atmosphere, visit attractions, local countryside walks and explore. You can look up the best local public houses online, which will have good ratings on Tripadvisor or Google. Make use of shopping facilities too and find out how much you like them.

Local countryside

Conservation areas, nature reserves and National Trust attractions are popular places to spend the weekend with the family, so it’s great if you have one nearby. You can rest assured that these areas will be there in the long term, but if you are unsure whether green space will last, you can look at the area plan on the council website, to see what the future holds.

Test your commute

Checking your Sat Nav over a few days or trying out local routes during the rush hour is a good way of testing how your daily routes will measure up to your commuting needs. If you travel by train, look online to see how direct rail routes are, and if connections time well together. If you are in the area, perhaps find out how easy and quick the walk is from the new home to the station.

Local Schools

For an easy way of telling how good a local school is, you can look up the Ofsted report online. To get a good feel for how well the school will meet your expectations, the best way is to visit at the beginning or end of the school day for a chat with the teachers and parents.

Social media and local news

Social media groups for the area are a great source of unfiltered information – everyone will have their own views! Checking the local news online or picking up a newspaper is also a great way of finding out what kind of environment you could be moving into.

Good luck with your home search, and if you’re looking to move to the area, feel free to give one of our branches a call, many of our agents are locals themselves and very happy to share their thoughts.

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