At the age of 25 Jemima Sara has moved house 27 times, and after more than a quarter of a century of nomadic life she was desperately keen to put down roots.
Buying a home in London was not an option for the multidisciplinary artist (@jemimasara). But in the seaside town of Ramsgate, Kent, she has finally been able to buy a home and knit herself into an artistic, creative, and welcoming community.
“I had never stayed in one place for more than a year and a half before,” said Jemima. “Buying a property has been the biggest and most healing thing I could have done.”
Jemima moved to London to go to university, and although she loved the diversity and excitement she found she also found the experience alienating. “I felt extremely lonely,” she said. “Rents kept on going up and I also knew that I would never be able to have the stability of buying somewhere and feeling like I belonged somewhere.”
During lockdown Jemima had plenty of time to think about her situation and she and her boyfriend, Duncan Rendall, 28, experience and tour manager for the Camden Brewery, agreed to start looking for a home to buy.
Jemima’s first thought was Margate. “It has become such a hub of artists and creatives, and a lot of people I know have moved down there,” she said. The problem was that trains to London take an hour and a half — too long for Duncan, who spends around half the week in the office.
Folkestone was rejected on the grounds that the couple felt it was too remote from the action of the north Kent coast, and that left Ramsgate — recommended to the couple by a taxi driver while they were visiting Margate.
In May 2021 Jemima and Duncan left their two-bedroom rented flat in Hampstead, which cost them circa £1,550pcm, and moved into a three-bedroom house which cost £230,000.
Even after their two-year fixed rate expired earlier this year and they were forced to remortgage at a higher rate, their monthly mortgage repayments are £780pcm — just over half the cost of their London rent.
Jemima now spends her free time walking on the beach and attending the many, many events and festivals that go on in Ramsgate, Margate, Canterbury, and Broadstairs all year round. “I enjoy my life more,” she said.
Professionally the move has also been a positive one. “In the first year my work kind of exploded,” she said. “I was just lucky to meet so many amazing people — maybe because we were coming out of Covid and people really wanted to connect. But I don’t think that I have ever lived anywhere where people want to build you up as much as they do in Ramsgate. It is different in London where everyone is out for themselves.”
