Two years ago, my partner and I moved into a rented flat in Acton, West London. We pay £2,200 per month for a 65sqm two-bedroom flat with a garden. It's spendier than we would like, but it fit at the time: we had just moved in together, and I had just started a job at a local high school around the corner.

I was made redundant in July last year and now work full-time from home for an online international school. My partner is a civil engineer. He works three days a week from his company’s offices in Bank, central London, and two days from home.

We are hoping to buy a house (not a flat) next summer. Our combined income is around £85,000 a year, and we have about £90,000 saved for a deposit.

We are homebodies and want to get as much space as possible for our money, especially because we both need suitable home-working space. We don't have children, so school catchment areas don't matter to us.

We plan to buy a car once we move out of W3, but only my partner drives. That means I would be reliant on public transport, walking, cycling, or lifts from him to get around. He would not be able to drive to work, so he would need a workable commute into central London (Liverpool Street, Bank, or Tottenham Court Road). He's said he would commute up to an hour, but realistically with connections and rush hour he understands it might end up closer to 1.5hrs each way.

He currently commutes on the Elizabeth line, and we have already said we would consider anywhere along the route from Reading to Shenfield or Abbey Wood, but we don't know anything about the areas around London, so we aren't sure where to start narrowing the search.

We would also be open to areas north of London, but aside from our brief stint in Acton we've both lived overseas - when it comes to London suburbia, we're clueless! We've got a full year to scout out areas, so I'd be really grateful for any suggestions.