Its been over 6 years since I made the move to London from sunny Sheffield, and after years of renting a room in a shared house in East London, I felt it was high time I planted roots in London and let go of my emotional ties with the North.
My main reason for this was I have always been uncomfortable about having to pay out rent for a room costing more than the mortgage for my entire house in Sheffield. Its just dead money. Even more disturbing was the amount of money I was wasting by keeping my Sheffield house as a weekend retreat (like I could afford it, NOT!! (no wonder I was running out of funds each month)). When I finally sat down and worked out how much rental income I had missed out on and how much I was paying out to maintain a property I wasn't even living in, it was shocking beyond belief. And this had been going on for over 5 years. Wake up girl!
So I had to make a decision... Do I get my own place in London and establish roots for the long term, or go back to Sheffield, to my lovely little house, and build a life there again?
In January 2013, after months of deliberating, I finally decided to give London a proper go, get my own place and establish a life here in the big city. I never really felt like I'd experienced London properly since I was going back up north to my "country retreat" once or twice a month, and felt like I'd lived out of a suitcase in a room you couldn't swing a cat in, so this would give me a really taste of the big city for years to come, at least until I'm ready to claim my pension.
If only that was the only decision I had to make... Ohhhh Nooooo.
So London it is... but what do I do?
Rent a larger room in another house share? Rent a flat all to myself? or Buy a property outright?
And which part of London?
I've lived in East London for the majority of my time in London (the initially 6 months in crazy arse South London is really nothing to waste my time reporting on), so East was the natural choice, but its is such a damn big place. Stratford, Leytonstone, Leyton, Chingford were all areas I knew well.
To keep costs low renting a larger room in another shared house would be the cheapest option, but after nearly 6 years of sharing I wasn't sure my sanity could take a fresh round. Research proved that there was actually a lot of larger rooms out there for the same price as what I'd been paying for 6 years, and most included bills :-). So I went to view a few rooms.
Room 1: House share in Leyton - What I thought was a 2/3 bed house owned and shared with (what sounded like) an Eastern European lady and her family, turned out the be a 7 bed house owned and shared with a nice Asian lady and her family, plus 2 other tenants. The house felt too cramped with it being a mid-terrace, and the amount of people living there. The shared bathroom was so tiny I wondered if I could get my legs in at the same time as my upper body. Hell no. Had a walk around the area though, and to my surprise Leyton is actually ok. There were a few streets off Leyton High Rd I could see myself settling in... Very desirable indeed.
Room 2: House share in Leytonstone (my favourite out of the house shares) - The owner sounded like an old caribbean lady. The room was enormous, had a double bed, two double wardrobes, chest of drawers, and dining table and 2 chairs. The shared bathroom was tiny, but there was a seperate kitchen for tenants. All seemed appealing until she dropped the bombshells. 1) There is to be no-one but me staying in the room, no men staying or visiting at all, just me. 2) I cannot use her washing machine, if I want to clean my clothes I have to walk up the hill to the laundrette. That was the last straw for me. I don't care how cheap the place is, I ain't living like I was in my student days.
The one bed flat in Stratford: A friend suggested I rent a flat to myself as he felt I deserved it, and knew a friend who had a flat standing empty for months because he was too lazy to get it ready for renting out (or he was avoiding making the big commitment of moving in properly with his girlfriend). It sounded like a good opportunity and my friend offered to negotiate a good price for me, so I wouldn't have to pay out too much more than I was already.
One thing I learnt from this is you should always go and view a property before negotiating/agreeing on a price. When I finally got to see the flat, it was an absolute shit tip, and the owner was oblivious to the state of the place, adament that his flat still looked good after 10 years of owning it. WTF!! But I couldn't complain because the price my friend had negotiated for me was so cheap (for a 1 bed flat in London), but the thought of moving into a dirty, grimey, smoke fume filled flat didn't fill me with happy thoughts.But as the Leytonstone room rental seemed to be very restrictive, this super low priced 1 bed flat looked like the best option.
So on the 15th April 2013, after 5.5 years renting a room in the same house I plucked up the courage and handed in my notice to the landlady. Sent her an email, and texted her to tell her I sent her an email. lol. It was the quickest way to make it official. Unfortunately my house mate was away on hoilday, and as I wanted to let her know face to face, I didn't get to tell her for a whole week. Oh well. She didn't seem best pleased (which was surprising as I never really felt she liked me that much in the whole time I lived there), but then I realised she wasn't happy because it caught her off guard and didn't quite fit in with her plans to escape the shared house in the near future. Oh well! you snooze, you loose. After overhearing her slagging me off to someone on the phone, and saying she wasn't going to miss me, I knew I'd made the right decision. Goodluck and god bless.
On the 15th May finally got the keys to the one bed flat, ironically just a few streets away from where I'd been living for years. Which was lucky because the amount of stuff I had to move would have been a nightmare if I had to travel any further away. It took 3 weeks to pack in preparation for this day, and all frigging day to empty one room and attic, drive round the corner and take everything up 2 flights of stairs to the new top floor flat.
So on to a new chapter in my life, and hopefully regain a little sanity back in the process.
