Last year my wife and I decided to move back to London. I was working for an estate agent in a rural town in Staffordshire and she was about to return to her demanding job in London after 6 months maternity leave.
This was both welcome and somewhat daunting news as we had four weeks until she was due back at work. Luckily my employers James Du Pavey completely understood our predicament, farewells were made and off we went to my wife’s one bedroom flat in Hammersmith with Arabella, our 6-month year old daughter.
I worked in London earlier on in my career both as a selling and buying agent in Pimlico and Notting Hill, so I knew London very well and was excited about setting up my own business as a London buying agent. My first port of call was to get my wife’s flat on the market and find us somewhere to live. This was not going to be easily done given the short time scale we had given ourselves as we knew that living in such a small flat with a baby was going to be challenging.
I quickly got to work and instructed Savills in Fulham who I was impressed with from the onset and before long there was an interested party, and we accepted an offer from a buyer looking for a pied-a-terre on the river.
Now it was our turn to find a house. We had started our search a month before and our chosen area was Askew Village in Shepherds Buss close to Ravenscourt Park. We had seen a few properties off the Askew Road but nothing we liked, so when a Rightmove alert of a beautiful Victorian terrace in Ealing popped up on my phone I arranged to view it straight away.
The house ticked most of the boxes and my wife was also impressed when she viewed it a few days later. It had been beautifully renovated, had a pretty cream façade and was on a tree lined street a short walk from the main street with its local shops and cafes. Northfields was further out than we had intended but the transport links were excellent with Northfields station being on the Piccadilly line and West Ealing on the Elizabeth line.
We made our offer, but it soon became apparent that we were not the only ones who had fallen for this house and despite taking part in a best and final offers scenario we were informed that our best offer was not quite high enough.
Although disappointed we chose to look at the positives. After all this was our first house viewing in Ealing! Also, we now knew exactly where we wanted to be. Like any good buying agent, I reassured my wife and daughter (who had now come accustomed to the local park) that another good house would become available and sure enough, three weeks later we had secured our family home in Ealing.
