Paying £1,000pcm to rent a glorified studio flat in north London didn’t leave Sara and Ben Phillips with much left over to save up for buying a home of their own.
What finally propelled them on to the property ladder was a move 95 miles out of the capital, where lower rents and living costs allowed them to save up a deposit and buy a family house.
“We got married in August 2015 and started talking children,” explained Sara, 34. “I just couldn’t face it in London so we started looking at the map to see where we could go. We decided on New Milton: it was just: “It has got the New Forest on one side and the sea on the other, let’s go there.”
At the start of 2016 the couple said goodbye to their “big studio flat with a fake wall” in West Hampstead and headed for Hampshire. Their chosen location was the market town of New Milton, which is within walking distance of the beach at Barton-on-sea and the southern fringes of the New Forest.
They quickly found themselves an “amazing” two-bedroom flat which cost them £750pcm. “Within a year and a half we had saved enough to buy our own house,” said Sara.
In February 2017 the couple, who now have a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, became the proud owners of a three-bedroom semi-detached house in the town, which cost them £250,000. Their monthly costs come in at around £680pcm, significantly cheaper than renting in London and their timing was excellent since prices in and around the New Forest shot up during the pandemic.
Since the move the couple have both had a career change. Ben has switched from being a chef to a personal trainer and fitness instructor, while Sara, formerly a carer, has now set up her own company.
Moving way beyond the traditional commuter belt was something of a culture shock for the couple, particularly Ben who had lived in London all his life and misses the after-work pub culture.
Sara is concerned that her children are growing up in a far less diverse community than London offers, and of course she misses her old friends. She also found, when setting up her company, the provincial working culture hard to come to terms with.
“When I first came here I couldn’t understand why everyone wanted to work part time,” she said. “In London everybody works all the time — every hour — to pay their rent. But now I get it — they’d rather be on the beach or in the forest.”
