We bought a house!

Even though we've been searching since June, and have seen at least 50 homes and driven past 150 more, you'd be hard-pressed to understand why we like this house.  It's ugly, it needs a lot of work, it's on a crowded street, there is no parking, it feels like its a million miles away from London, and the garden is north-facing, so it won't get much sun in winter.

Yet, we actually quite like it.  The rooms are larger than usual except for the kitchen, and we plan to expand the house slightly to fix that.  The yard is private, the street is a dead-end, we're surrounded by parks and fields, there's a nice supermarket nearby, it is walking distance to the tube station so it is easy to get into the city, and it has easy access to the M25 so it is easy to get out of the city.

In short, it was a good house in a good area, and we think we got a good deal, so we're happy to do the improvements ourselves.

In addition, most of the residents seem to be older, having raised their families here, so we expect there to be a lot of turnover as they retire to smaller houses, and young families move in.  (There is an excellent primary school just three-quarters of a mile away.)

The owners are retiring to Cyprus, so if all goes smoothly we could be in there by the end of November.  However, we plan on doing the improvements first, so move-in will more likely be the end of January.

Here is a link to the property and the "before" photos -- I hope to have "after" photos soon!