It’s been a few weeks since my last posting, and I fear I’ve already broken my resolution to have one posting a week. That said, I never realized that moving house would be such an adventure. Lee and I bought a place in south London and moved into it on Wednesday the 24th of February and have been settling in since. It’s a sweet house in Tooting, south London.
The type of home was our first priority. We knew we wanted a house and we wanted it to have three bedrooms. We preferred a Victorian place over a new build, and the property had to fit within a set budget. We poured over web sites and television programs about buying a house. I became addicted to findaproperty.com and rightmove.co.uk, and we spent many nights watching Location, Location, Location and sympathizing with the buyers. While shooting the Women in the City event back in November, I got to commiserate with Location’s presenter Kirsty Allsop on the plight of finding a home in London.
Once the house-style was set, we then went about finding the right area—and we cast a very wide net to be sure. London or elsewhere? Brighton was at the top of Lee’s list (Hove, actually). Bristol and Rye-East Sussex also entered into discussion. Utrecht in the Netherlands came up once or twice too. When Lee took a job in London, however, it became pretty clear that we would remain in London, at least for a while longer.
We then began whittling down which neighborhood we wanted to live in. If you’re not familiar with London, it’s a series of villages and towns that over the years have melded into seemingly endless Victorian suburban sprawl broken up by a common here or a park there. The neighborhoods each have their own local flavor. There exists a north-south divide in London (separated by the Thames). Those that live in the north, rarely venture south and vice versa. I once spoke with a guy who lived in Islington and claimed to have only been south of the river twice in his life. There also exists an east-west divide, largely dictated by postcode. My friend Fiona spelled it out most clearly—she would never consider moving somewhere that didn’t have a “W” in the postcode, and preferrably only with a “SW.”
While Lee and I wouldn’t go that far, our comfort zone is in the SW zones. In an odd sort of way, London reminds me a bit of Los Angeles. So many neighborhoods all blending into one major city. If you visit London or LA, chances are you only visit certain places and rarely venture beyond the usual tourist haunts. London, like LA, just just keeps on going and going. It has taken me a few years living here to see which neighborhoods I’d most like to live, and which of those are affordable to live in.
We looked in Clapham, in Balham, in Streatham, in Brixton. We checked out Gipsy Hill and Crystal Palace. We visited Sydenham and West Norwood, Herne Hill and Tulse Hill. We even ventured out of south London into Mile End and Stepney Green, but back to south London we went. Peckham, Dulwich, Walworth, and we were nearly sold on a place in Camberwell but we didn’t gel with the neighborhood. Though the house was fantastic, we wanted more in terms of amenities—pub within walking distance, better transportation links and a sense of community.
One evening after looking endlessly at a variety of places, we stopped for a pint at the Antelope Pub in Tooting, not far from our flat in Furzedown. What was this? A lovely pub at our own front door? Just minutes from Tooting Broadway tube station? A couple nights later we we ventured into another place, the Tram Shed. Could this be true—two cool places to hang out in Tooting?
After a few of the pints at these fine establishments, we added Tooting to our list of possible neighborhoods and tossed out a number of others. Some were too far out, others too expensive. Some had great transportation links, while others were congested bus rides into town. Some were just dire and others just boring. Our aspirations paired with our budget landed us smack dab in Tooting—Broadway, not Bec. While moving from Furzedown to Tooting may not seem like such a big move, it actually had the potential to make life much easier based solely upon proximity to the Tube.
After establishing our neighborhood, we then narrowed our search even further, restricting our search to about seven roads in Tooting, close to the Tooting Broadway Tube station. Lee and I stumbled across a place one night while surfing the property web sites. It appeared to meet several of our criteria: walking distance to Tube—Check! Easy commute into city—Check! South London—Check! Neighborhood that we would want to go out in—Check! Easy access to a park—Check! Fixer-upper—Check! Three bedrooms and a loft—Check! Good-size garden—Um, well we had to give up something. Still, we do have a bit of outdoor space, so that seems to have been balanced out by the rest of it.
We arranged a viewing and instantly felt it was right. After some advice from our mortgage broker, we put in an offer. It was rejected. Back and forth we went. We were up against another couple, but they were in “a chain,” meaning they had to sell their place before they could buy the new property. Because Lee and I were keeping our flat and renting it out, we were considered a better option for the sellers.
The sellers accepted our offer, thereby beginning the seemingly endless process known as exchanging and completing a sale. Though I have never bought a property before, I found the English system of buying/selling property a very drawn out process. We had our offer accepted at the end of October/beginning of November, yet it still took until 24 February for us to move in.
Our property lawyer was very persistent and helped move the process forward. We got to see the pithy emails flying between the lawyers from both sides and were amused and slightly concerned about how things were going. Still, we remained optimistic and finally gave an ultimatum—either we move on the 24th of February, or we explore other options. That got the ball rolling. Within a few hours, we got a call from our lawyer saying the date had been agreed and that we could move ahead with our planning.
The move itself was relatively painless. Lee’s sister Sue, her husband David, and Lee’s dad Lynn were instrumental in helping make it go so smoothly. Sue should really be canonized, as she’s a saint with an attitude (if you read this Sue, I mean it in all flattering terms). David is our own action man—give him a heavy box to lift, and he’s already out the door with it. Lynn was our voice of reason, keeping us grounded when it seemed overwhelming. Lee and I were really fortunate to have them provide their no-nonsense approach to the move.
The movers came bang on time. There was a team of about four guys who quickly set to work getting everything into the vans. Within an hour of their arrival, one van was already fully loaded, and they were onto the second. Our solicitor gave us a call around 11 am letting us know that we had completed, and we could get the keys from the agent.
Lee and his dad popped over and picked up the keys. We met at the house and it was ours! It’s now been a couple of weeks since we moved in, but even the first night it felt like home. The place has a really good feel to it. Yes, we have our work cut out for us. The décor definitely needs updating, and some of the rooms need to be reconfigured to make them more functional, but all in all, it’s a great first house for the two of us.
