For Olivia Williams, 30, and her husband, Jonathan, 32, a business analyst, it was the arrival earlier this year of their baby daughter, Eva, that finally spurred them into action.
For five years the couple had been living in a one-bedroom flat in Wimbledon, in southwest London, but they needed more space. A move further into the depths of suburbia might have seemed the most obvious solution, but Williams wanted “a place in its own right, with its own identity”.
Enter Tunbridge Wells. The Kent town offers a close-knit community, open countryside and strong schools, all of which appeal to the young family. Having sold their flat in Wimbledon for £225,000, they are now looking for a three-bedroom Victorian terraced house for up to £400,000.
It is not proving as simple a project as they thought, however. “We’re always competing with buyers just like us, who want to leave London,” says Williams. “There’s a real lack of availability, so people are constantly outbidding each other for houses.
“We’ll probably have to accept something that doesn’t meet all of our demands. Perhaps it will have only a small garden, or it may need a lot of work.”
Just under 100 miles to the west, Clare Davies, 35, is having similar problems. With her daughter, Anna, 2, approaching nursery school age, Davies and her husband, Andrew, 40, a finance director, want to move to Winchester from Putney, in southwest London, where they recently sold their house for £1.15m. They are looking for a substantial family home priced at £1m-£2m.
“We have tried driving down to Winchester on a Friday and grabbing the local papers as soon as they come out before arranging a viewing, but it’s hopeless,” she says.
“Now we’re going to have to rent to be on the spot and we’re probably also going to use a buying agent. That’s a ludicrous expense, but we have heard that most of the homes in our price bracket never actually appear on the open market.”
It could be a long search, if Harriet Black’s experience is anything to go by. Black, 34, has sold up in London and moved to Winchester with her husband, Will, 36, who works in sports sponsorship, and children Archie, 1, and Holly, 4. They want to buy a four-bed house in the popular St Cross area, but so do many other people, it seems. The Blacks have therefore been obliged to spend £2,500 a month renting instead.
“Everybody’s in the same position and inevitably you bid against each other for houses, so it does create a certain tension when you meet at the school gates,” she says.
It is a similar story in Oxford and Cambridge, in Farnham, Surrey, and in St Albans, Hertfordshire. Once referred to disparagingly as dormitory towns, they have become some of the hottest property markets in the southeast. Call them übertowns.
As people with young families move out of the capital in search of greenery and good schools, they are increasingly bypassing suburbia and heading on to the more attractive places beyond.
According to research by Savills, prices in Winchester rose 212% between 1995 and 2005 and in Tunbridge Wells by 213%, against an average rise of 185% for the southeast as a whole. They grew even faster in Oxford, at 235%, and in Cambridge, at 288%.
A typical detached family house in Winchester, for example, now costs £613,722, while the average price for one in Oxford is currently £1.09m.
“There is no financial benefit from moving to these places,” says Yolande Barnes, head of research for Savills estate agency. “Good family houses in Winchester are reaching Wandsworth values. What you are doing is buying into a much better environment with, of course, better schools.
“Traditionally, people have gone to suburbia, but now some are saying that for the same travel time, they can go to a real place instead. We are not talking about villages — it’s a fairly urban phenomenon.
“Parents with school-age children, in particular, don’t want to be a permanent taxi service and are seeing that they can live in a great environment, within walking distance of a good town centre, but with easy access to the countryside.”
So what makes an übertown? Without being risibly quaint, each is as recognisably “English” as the set for an Ealing comedy. Most have an ecclesiastical feel, with a cathedral or church at their core. They all have traditional town centres with fine independent shops, delis, coffee houses and expensive restaurants.
Impressive architecture and pretty parks are the norm, not acres of concrete precincts. The housing is generally good-quality period stock, and each of the towns is close to some of the best-performing state and independent schools.
With so many people commuting to London, a fast train line to the capital is essential. Winchester and Tunbridge Wells, for example, are an hour from Waterloo and Charing Cross respectively. The journey in from Oxford and Cambridge takes a similar time, while St Albans and Sevenoaks are just 35 minutes away — less time than it takes to get to the outer reaches of the Piccadilly or District Underground lines.
Martin Pridham at Sumner Pridham, an estate agency in Tunbridge Wells, says that relocating families typically target the same areas, chief among them a central part of the town with cobbled streets and coffee shops, known as the Village.
“A London client always wants a high-end house about a 10-minute walk from the station, for an easy commute into the City,” says Pridham.
For Lizzie Morris, 33, who moved to Farnham with her husband, William, 30, from Wimbledon in southwest London just before Christmas, there is no doubt of the attractions of living in an übertown.
“We lost four houses that we wanted between May and November last year before we managed to buy a place,” she says. “But now we have moved we think it’s been worth it. We have the very best schools in Farnham, there are great shops, and on Castle Street there’s a brilliant market, which is about to be expanded.
“There’s a real sense of community here. I know all my neighbours and I have only been here for six months.”
It is not just in the towns themselves that prices have been rising. There has been a knock-on effect in neighbouring villages, too.
The Blacks, for example, acknowledge that they may have to look outside Winchester to one of its outlying villages, such as Compton or Twyford, if they cannot find a home in the centre. “It will mean a drive for Will to the station on top of the hour-long train journey, but we may have no option,” says Black.
It’s the same story in Cambridge. “Ten years ago, villages such as Balsham, Linton and Orwell were considered a very poor second best to the city itself,” says Stuart Harris at estate agency Carter Jonas. “But thanks to the bidding wars, with buyers offering 20% above asking prices, these places are now considered very desirable.”
So where are the next übertowns? In a sense, a place cannot acquire the attributes, such as fine architecture or good housing stock, that makes them special. It either has them already or it doesn’t.
Yet, given that many of those moving out of London still commute daily to the capital, improvements in transport links can be crucial. Canterbury, for example, has many attributes of an übertown, but property prices there have been held back by the fact that it still takes just over an hour and half to reach London by train.
The new high-speed Channel tunnel rail link, scheduled for completion in December 2009, will cut the journey to an hour, bringing the city within reasonable commuting distance.
Many people are prepared to commute further anyway — particularly if new technology and changing work practices allow them to work one or two days a week from home. Or they may settle for a place that doesn’t match, in other ways, the existing übertown format.
This has created an extra ring of towns within reach of London where we can expect to see rising demand and spiralling prices over the next few years. According to a cross-section of buying agents with no stake in the matter, the following towns could become the next hot spots:
Additional reporting: Shyamantha Asokan
On the market
In St Albans, on a road adjacent to the station, a three-bed, three-storey townhouse with garden is for sale for £425,000. Frost’s, 01727 861 166, www.frosts.co.uk
A four-bed terraced house in the popular Village area of Tunbridge Wells is for sale for £535,000 with Winkworth, 01892 519 600, www.winkworth.co.uk
On a road next to Sevenoaks station, a four-bed house with double garage is for sale for £685,000. Kings, 01732 740 747, www.kings-estate-agents.co.uk
This six-bed, three-bath house, one mile from Winchester station, with private parking, is for sale for £850,000. Hamptons, 01962 842 030, www.hamptons.co.uk
