Features

More for your money

Despite the growth, the super suburbs still offer more bang for your buck. In prime Central London a square foot will cost an average of £1350. In the super suburbs, that same square foot will set you back £350. This allows many people the luxury of space that they can’t afford in the inner circles of London. “Buy here, compared to half an hour up the road in Chelsea, and £3 million gets you a house with an acre,” says Winter.

Additionally, more buyers are eyeing up that acre as a way to access land to build the home of their dreams. Savills research has revealed a trend in the high-value suburbs to demolish an existing four- or five-bedroom house and replace it with a seven- or eight-bedroom luxury home. Analysis of planning applications in London’s top outer suburb, Oxshott/Stoke D’Abernon, suggests that successful super-sizing generally results in a house that’s just under 2.5 times the size of the original, or, 3300 square feet of building is being replaced with 8500 square feet of luxury home.

This has driven up prices to the extent that the total housing stock in the Oxshott area has increased by around £60 million in one year. Humphriss is seeing a similar pattern in the South East. “A question we often get asked is: ‘Would we get a knockdown?’ It’s adding tremendously to the value,” he says. In fact, it’s a pattern that, as far as planning restrictions will allow, is being repeated in cities around the country. Edinburgh has seen a number of new builds on old high-value plots, including a http://www.savills.com/property_search/content.asp?subcategory=residentialnt for a house that was sold recently for £2 million in Ravelston Dykes.

While some buyers want to start anew in a freshly-built property, what’s significant is that they want to live in these areas. They’re drawn to the suburbs for a variety of reasons. The Hartleys cite safety, less time in the car and more family space as key factors that add up to a better quality of life. People now realise that moving to the outer suburbs needn’t mean giving up the advantages of urban life. Places like Esher or Chislehurst in Kent have shops, restaurants, delis and cafes reminiscent of those found in the hamlets of the capital. “Chislehurst is almost a London village where you can still get value for money,” says Humphriss.

Others may crave a rural setting in places such as Oxshott in Surrey and Orpington near Bromley, or they may dream of English village life. “Villages like Knockholt and Pratts Bottom in Kent and nearby Keston still retain a village feel, but in under half an hour you can be in London. That’s why people are spending £2 million and £3 million on a house,” says Humphriss.

Suburban appeal

Whatever people long for, there are two things they must have when they make the move to the suburbs: easy access to good schools and convenient transport links. “Schooling is the biggest consideration,” says Roger Pollard of Savills Northwood who cites St Helen’s New College for Girls and Merchant Taylors’ School for Boys as the main attraction for buyers to Moor Park. Considering the importance of good transport links to buyers in the super suburbs, it’s little surprise that Oxshott, Esher, St George’s Hill, and other locations in the south west, are suburban chart toppers – they lie almost equidistant from London, Heathrow, Gatwick, the M25 and M3.

The appeal of the super suburbs has changed the make up of residents. Middle management employees are being replaced by high-ranking executives (most of whom work in finance and investment business services) as well as footballers, celebrities and overseas investors. “We used to sell to people from within the area,” says Humphriss, “who might have moved from Farnborough to Keston Park and aspire to move to Orpington after a promotion. Now the most sales are to people from outside the area, mainly from London.”

What of the rest of the country? Are the super suburbs a London-only phenomenon?

Trends outside London

“In Edinburgh, private schools drive everything,” says Peter Lyell of Savills Edinburgh, and the desire for a better quality of life, which has galvanised much of the movement in the South East, is alive and well. “People are becoming much more local and the days of criss-crossing town are gone. Parents want their kids to walk to school and they don’t want to spend all their time in the car. On the whole, people want to walk, live and play more closely together,” he says, echoing much of the Hartleys’ motivation for moving to Esher.

In Bristol, Savills Agent Richard Brooks has noticed older couples wanting to come back to the city once their kids have gone. They’ll settle in the wealthier inner suburb of Clifton, where they can enjoy all its amenities without being jostled in the busier city centre. However, “Younger families tend to move outside Clifton to areas such as Sneyd Park to get more space and better value for money,” says Brooks. He could be talking about a move to Northwood or Esher from Fulham.

Around Cardiff, top areas such as Cyncoed and Lisvane are an easy commute from the city centre, and are close to the M4 and good schools. In the last couple of years, there’s been some battling for properties here. “There are now a lot of cash-ready buyers competing with people moving up the housing ladder. It’s more competitive,” says Christopher Saye of Savills Cardiff.

It would seem that suburban living has enduring appeal, especially in the super suburbs. As people aim to achieve a better work/life balance and spend less time in their cars, these areas have a bright future. It’s a future that, for many people, is more family friendly, greener and healthier, and, critically, represents a good investment. “All the signs point to property values in the super suburbs continuing to grow, possibly outperforming prime Central London over the next few years,” says Savills Research Director Lucian Cook. “The mix of quality of neighbourhood, size and class of living space and accessibility to the heart of a major city makes them unparalleled opportunities.”

The Hartley family has found a marked improvement in quality of life in the super suburb of Esher

The Hartley family (Nick and Sheila, and their children Alexandra 12, Ben 10, Sam two and a half and Edward 11 months) moved recently from a detached house in Barnes to a bigger home, with a much larger garden, in Esher. Their reasons demonstrate just why many families have been pushing gently towards the outer suburbs of London. “Barnes was lovely and we were happy there for 11 years,” says Sheila, “but it became very busy, the planes were noisy and then we had a second family.”

The births of their youngest two, Sam and Edward, prompted a search for more space, a bigger garden and, preferably, somewhere that the car could be left at home a little more often. Esher was their top choice because it’s handy for the schools Alexandra and Ben attend. It also has good transport links into the city, and a lively high street with shops and a cinema. “I was worried about leaving Barnes because we had the river for bike rides and I liked running there,” says Sheila, “but now I have Bushy Park 10 minutes down the road and the other day we went riding with the kids on Esher Common, which was fantastic. It’s safe too.”

This feeling of security has given Alexandra and Ben new-found freedoms. They can catch their school bus from the end of the road and walk to the cinema on the high street on their own. Their after-school activities are easily attended because the sports ground is only five minutes from the house. This close proximity of amenities has allowed Sheila and Nick to take breaks from their parental taxi service.

“We don’t want to spend our lives driving around, so where we’ve ended up is the perfect location,” says Nick, who will have a 40-minute drive to his work in the music business when his office relocates to Fulham. The train service from Esher has also proved invaluable. “If I’m out late I can get the last train back from Waterloo to Esher at ten past midnight and be home around 12.30,” he says.

Their enthusiasm for their improved quality of life comes across. Sheila tells us she was recently excited to discover a good shopping centre in Walton. She can leave at 8.45am on a Saturday morning and be there by 9 o’clock. The precise measurement of journey times hints at previous frustrations with traffic.

“It’s only 25 minutes away from Barnes, but it’s enough that our whole pace of life has changed. I can still have everything on my doorstep, but it all feels so much calmer,” says Sheila.

Their new house has also proved its worth and met the demands of this two-family family, especially the garden. Although they had a garden in Barnes, when Ben wanted to kick around his football he did it on the street in their cul-de-sac. That’s all changed.

“We’re lucky to have a tennis court in the garden, which doubles as a play area for the kids in winter where they can kick a football or ride their bikes. It’s ideal,” says Nick.

Sheila acknowledges that while they loved living in London, the appeal to be in the thick of it has waned with the growth of their family. If they move again, it’s likely to be further away from the city towards her roots in the South West. For the Hartley’s the sound of the suburbs has been more chilled, with less bass and aggro than that of the city.

“We’re thrilled and haven’t looked back once,” Sheila concludes.