When I started this column, I thought, “Any month now, I’ll get on the property ladder.” I imagined sharing the tribulations of house-buying: the estate agents who say “compact” when they mean “claustrophobia-inducing”, and psyching out the competition at open viewings (“I hear they’re opening a sewage works near here,” I’d say loudly).
That was a foolishly optimistic period. I thought my partner and I had enough for a deposit (we didn’t), and we viewed nearly 50 homes. We quickly learned we couldn’t afford to buy where we wanted, so started to move our search. Eventually, we were looking at homes on the very streets I grew up on, near the blustery council house that defined me.
We can’t afford those, either. It turns out that I still have lots more to do before I can realise my property dream. I’ll need to save some money, pick up some DIY skills and learn to drive (if I’m leaving London). I’ll need to become a proper adult, which is why I’m moving to a new column, Adult Learner, from next week.
So for this, my final All The Places…, I’m choosing a house from my childhood stomping ground, which is now so expensive that I can never live there. It’s funny: for years, I hated my neighbourhood and wanted to live in “proper London”; now I can only dream of a house in Dagenham. Let’s see what adulthood has in store instead.
