You can't afford to buy in London. That's OK, not many of us can. However, you're determined to get on the property ladder, so you look elsewhere. Can't go to one of those actually affordable cities up north, your job and your mates are all still down here.
Instead you must turn to commuter towns. But which?
The folks at TotallyMoney think they've worked it out. They've ranked an impressive 116 towns and cities in London's surrounding areas using four metrics. Journey time to London, average house price, season ticket into London cost, and general satisfaction.
There's some sound logic here. Especially as the nebulous-sounding resident satisfaction category actually comes from Office for National Statistics data.
And the winner is... Cheshunt!
The county of Hertfordshire performs excellently overall, with six of the top 10 commuter towns in the county. We suspect the speedy train times are a huge boon for commuters from this part of the UK.
Bringing up the rear in 116th place is Virginia Water in Surrey. With the average property costing over £1 million, we're not sure why you'd need to leave London at all.
Also bringing up the rear is Peterborough, despite the fact it has the cheapest average house price of anywhere surveyed. Must be the lengthy and pricey — £8,000! — journey that's significantly holding it back.
There's an interactive tool you can use to find your particular town, to see how it performs against the competition.
