Why Wanstead rocks

 Finally the weather was good. We dragged ourselves out to Provender and had a wonderful lunch and their signature trifle which tastes like small slice of heaven served with cherries, cream and pieces of gold leaf (they actually serve it with pieces of gold leaf). After that we decided on a stroll to the lake, check out the flat we put an offer on and then go back through Eagle lane to Hermon hill and back through the high street. The park was alive with dogs, kids, birds and general high spirits. Spring should hurry up. Then I might be more motivated to take these wonderful walks. Our favourite game is to walk through the pretty streets and pick the houses we would like to own. Then pick the second best, then the third and so on. There are many pretty things to look at...

Those that like the places of worships will be spoilt for choice in Wanstead.

Should things go smoothly with our chosen pent house, this pond will form a part of my view every day. My personal favourite are the impressive, moody, old trees full of charisma and quiet solace... small green paths leading to enchanting places that look like the pit of the darkest forest but are only seconds away from your next cappuccino.

Pristine doorways...no rotting mattress or rusting cooker in sight. And tudor mansions.

Why you should never go to a house viewing at night

Getting a notification that a new property has been added to Rightmove is like a new episode of Breaking Bad in our house. We gather over the laptop, cats included, and we prepare to look intently, analyse the street view, look up the nearest stations, inspect the floorplan...and then it can either go one of two ways...hearts will sink upon realisation that the flat is 20 metres from A406. Or we realise that estate agents have described it as 'walking distance from the station'. This is never a good sign...and the quick check on Google maps quickly confirms that the walking distance to the station is indeed 25 minutes. Sometimes there will also be a dire warning, such as 'beware, this route might not have pedestrian walkways' - meaning that the estate agents think you are an eagle and flying over motorways every morning on your way to work is a piece of cake.


None the less, when we saw the notification about the new(ish) build flat, we jumped at the opportunity to see it. The pictures were hazy and not great and the estate agents advertising the flat were based in Docklands (miles from Wanstead). But I rang them and arranged a viewing, which was hard in itself as the flat was let and the tenant had strict times when he/she allowed viewings.

Just to let you know a thing or two about viewing flats that have tenants in... it is always an awful experience for two reasons; the tenants are angry because the landlord has decided to now sell their home and they have to move all their furniture and stuff somewhere else, which is inconvenient and costly and this makes them bitter. The second is that the tenants have rights to specify times they allow viewings and due to anger and bitterness over having to move, they tend to exercise those rights. There is usually a window of one hour on a Monday night one can view tenanted properties. Another problem is that tenants will, when they agree to be out for an open house, mark the territory. One such viewing had washing hanging in every room and unflushed pee in the loo. If that is not a message to the landlord, I am not sure what is.


The tenants in this particular flat were actually nice and a lovely woman showed us the flat. We quickly realised that the flat the agents advertised is not the one being sold (is that not illegal...misrepresentation act and all that?) but we were pleasantly surprised. The flat was on the ground floor and although generally we are against ground floors, it came with a garden. She opened the french doors leading to the garden but it was very dark and due to lack of garden illumination, our imagination took over. We were aware that at the end of the garden there was a Central line track, but having lived near the trains before, it did not upset us. The tenant told me it is not very loud and we were fine with that.


Very rarely my husband and I like any place equally, but this time we walked out in high spirits and we agreed we liked it. Over the course of few days I imagined planting tall bamboo by the Central line wall, imagined buying parasols, imagined lying in a deck chair reading, sipping Nespuccino (drink invented by one of my close friends which consists on cold coffee topped by cold milk shaken in the jam jar till it froths) while my cats catch butterflies around me. The fact that the flat was new build also meant I would not have to live with olive or grey marl effect plastic kitchen work tops and cheap bathrooms and the EPC rating will not be at rock bottom, inviting condensation and mould problems. So we requested to see the property again, in the day time with an agent. When the tenants are showing you around you never quite feel comfortable, even when they are nice. They have nothing but torment to gain from you buying the flat and rifling through their wardrobes and kitchen just adds insult to injury. This is a stark contrast to happy homeowners who clean the property to a high standard, open the cupboards themselves, never ask you to take shoes off and offer you a drink and a warm cookie if you are lucky...all because their happiness actually depends on you liking their property.


The agent kept us waiting in the harsh wind and when he finally arrived he was the epitome of the estate agent from hell, obnoxious, disrespectful, egocentric, rude and clueless. The tenants were in, but now shot me very resentful looks because I requested to come with the agent and they sat on the sofa watching day time TV and seething politely.

When I saw the garden in the daytime I almost threw myself on the bedroom floor to cry. What looked like a large garden surrounded by brick wall in the pitch darkness, now told a different story. There was no brick wall...how did I imagine this? Each flat (not just ground floor flats) had its own patch of grass, approximately 2 metres by 2 metres, separated by tiny shrubs.

Behind the patch of grass was a little path leading from the front so what seemed like a private garden was now more like a communal garden allowing anyone to come to your back door, break in uninterrupted without anyone but Central line passengers seeing them. But best of all... what separates the garden from the train track is a huge metal fence, finished off with a generous helping of barbed wire. It quickly dawned on me that there will be no space for parasol and a lounger on that grass, that no self respecting butterfly will ever come to that garden and that any Tom, Dick and Harry can see into my bedrooms from the gardens next to me...or shall I say from their patch of grass...not to mention tube passengers. It dawned on me I will probably be removing the carcass of my cat off the barbed wire before too long and this quickly ended the dream of that flat. I tried to politely explain to the estate agent that I did not realise the garden is so exposed, not private etc. His suggestion was to plant lots of quick growing conifers for privacy. Apart from the fact I have no land to speak of to plant conifers, to do what he suggested would probably mean that in 2 years the whole building will suffer from foundation problems as conifers are notorious for ruining foundations and causing subsidence, but good to know that those in the profession of houses know this and warn people.


I did get few calls from that agent after, with various suggestions which varied from; the owner will build you a fence, plant bamboo etc... even though I urged him to check the lease if I can actually have a fence, plant bamboo etc... finally he stopped calling me, although I still live in fear.


This is not the first case of the 'night vision' syndrome. We also liked another lovely Victorian conversion flat beautifully decorated, with a garden...only to see it in the daytime and notice that the view at the back is less than desirable, as well as the peeling front...so my advice is to never ever view the property at night unless there is absolutely no other way and you have nothing better to do, you don't mind coming again to see it in the day time or you want to check if the area suffers from night crime. Otherwise insist on coming during the day, barb wire fence looks so much better when you can't see it...and since you spend most of the day time awake staring at it, these things will matter, trust me.

Finding your dream home is like internet dating...without the feel good factor

I will start with the quick overview of the situation to ease you into the story; it all started with a mini break down nearing the 40th birthday. The lovely, tiny house I owned was still lovely but sadly I felt it was no longer offering me what I needed - peace and tranquility. Won't bore you with details here although I could but in a nutshell, my better half and I had our eye on Wanstead, a lovely and leafy area of east London, zone 4 on the Central line. Our reasons were these; normal people wandering the streets, multitudes of lovely shops that sell good coffee and wonderful pastries and a Provender, great little restaurant where Polish waiter makes an effort to sound French and the food is divine. Oh...and lack of chicken bones on the pavement, something we came to really appreciated having moved from slightly uncivilised Newham. 

I had my eye on a flat in a 1930s building...lovely large rooms, charming fireplace and a hallway that reminded me of old flats back home (I am from foreign land, as my friend Emma would say). We made an offer and were set. We also met a lovely estate agent who was dealing with the sale of our house and the purchase of the flat. The day we put the offer in, my hubby and I sat in the Wanstead pub and excitedly projected what our new life will be like. Looking back at that memory is like re watching Sex and the city boxset where Carrie leaves Mr Big in the first season because she wants someone who can commit. When you watch it for the first time you end up thinking 'you go girl' but when you are seeing it for the sixth time, you have tears in your eyes because now you are wiser and, having seen all six seasons, you know she will never love anyone else, she will repeatedly come back to him and then leave him time and time again, she will cheat on other people with him, she will compromise, she will cry...no, sob, she will be broken hearted and in that episode after Mr. Big's heart surgery, where he has a moment and asks her; "What are we doing?" and means 'we should be together'...but then the next morning he forgets it all conveniently, she accepts it with bittersweet apathy...when you know that happens, you never see that first break up in the same way. Instead of filling you with quiet empowerment, it fills you with poignant, heart wrenching despair.  

That flat fell through mid sale and I won't go into much detail and we decided to rent for a while because we did not want to inconvenience our buyer and because everyone was telling us this was a smart move, then we will be ready to pounce, chain free, with a large deposit on the house of our dreams. Those first days when I hunted for a flat in Wanstead, it never occurred to me that the high prices in Wanstead and the amount of estate agents on a relatively short high street were highly correlated. I remember going to see a flat no bigger than my Orla Kiely Mathilda bag with a pretty dire decor and a cerise carpet so worn that it resembled a much loved teddy bear that has been hugged for far too long and laughing at the asking price. The estate agent looked at me and said; "They can ask those prices because things always sell."  I didn't know how these words will haunt me then...

I am no longer laughing. It has been close to 6 months and I have seen some pretty bad things. Flats without any heating, flats with kitchens from the fifties, flats with bathroom from the sixties which still stands, albeit barely... a flat where some strange man, who had a grandiose mirror opposite his bed and a wet room that resembled the worst that NHS service has to offer, died doing DIY (this is my conclusion upon seeing the exposed electrical wires in the sitting room and having been told that he died suddenly), a flat which belonged to a strange man with a water bed, 50 leather jackets and his own way of calculating the value of his flat, the flat that smelt of urine, the flat with damp problem so bad you don't need a surveyor to tell you that, the flat where the rooms were so small that people can walk only in a single file...to a flat we really liked and have booked to see only to be told a day later that an investor has snapped it up. They all sold.

What I have realised, somewhat bittersweetly, in the time we have been renting in Wanstead, patiently waiting to unpack our pictures and books and shoes in the new place we would buy...is that Wanstead is in the league of its own. It has a charming English feel to it, which has been lost in London, it has great schools, lakes, swans, woods, old buildings with charming features, lots of trees, picturesque high street, good restaurants, lovely opticians, more than awesome dentist called Alex, who by the way could also work as a Calvin Cline model, a pharmacy stocking Vichy stuff, an old post office lady who can do additions quickly and accurately without a calculator, great green grocer, a friendly butcher...oh and about 20 estate agents who all do very well and I know most of them by the first name now.  I also realised that all the things we have been told...that buyers are kings in the current economy, that having a large deposit, no chain etc. is like having the holy grail and that it won't be long before we will find that amazing home for us, was simply not true. It may be true in another area but it is slowly dawning on me that in Wanstead we are like a homecoming queen from a very small rural town, loved, admired, envied, carefree and innocent...who suddenly finds herself in the big city where she is a big nobody. And that feeling is so unpleasant and made worse by the never ending longing to finally be able to buy the blinds we want, have a dishwasher again and to hang our pictures. 

At the worst of the moments, instead of getting drunk (as I don't drink), I sit with packets of Randoms and a finger on the Rightmove and I do one thing Phil and Kirsty will urge you not to do; I browse way above our budget. And I browse past sold prices. These two are the most harmful things one can do and this is why: the houses above our budget will always be unattainable and looking at them is like fantasising that Karate Kid (my first love) or Morrissey (my second) will somehow bump into you and in that one chance encounter realise you are so divine and special that love will blossom. The fact they are famous and you are no one special just adds to the story...as they crave the girl next door (they always did in my head), the ordinary girl, a leo for that matter... Out of that one starts to have irrational thoughts such as spending money on lottery or ever worse, logging onto betting sites and playing demo roulette in order to see if there is money to be made if one plays for real. There never is... To dreaming about some distant relative, one that you didn't even know you had, dying (this idea came to me after watching Heir hunters) and leaving you £50.000 or £70.000 as this amount would make a huge difference in attaining that dream flat in Wanstead. 

Looking at the houses that sold is harmful in a different way...you see the prices and you know that some of them were sold to investors under the table, quietly emailed by the few estate agents who love quick and uncomplicated sales of properties described as 'investment opportunity' or 'a place to really put you stamp on'...which sell for a very nice price...or you see houses that sold in a hurry due to broken chains etc...and you want to weep because the asking prices are ridiculously high and are in no way a reflection of a true value or past sold prices. Then you get defiant and you think that this discrepancy between asking prices and sold prices is down to making a reasonable offer... so you try that. I did, but was laughed at... that was a flat where the kitchen had no floor and the cabinets were falling off the walls. It needed £40.000 spent on it to bring it to a liveable condition...even still, they laughed at me...and later they sold it. 

This is the story so far... and tomorrow another viewing, another mini heartbreak. Oh and I am still to tell you about the flat with a barb wire garden and a flat with a view...but that is now another mini saga so stay tuned.