Hannah Evans
(Picture: Pocket Living)Hannah Evans had resigned herself to the fact that you can’t have everything you want in life. She had her dream job, as a fundraiser for the Royal Albert Hall, but she didn’t think that the earning potential of a career in the arts would ever stretch to buying a flat of her own.
“For me, it was either rent in London and remain at a company that I love or move out of London and become a homeowner, I really didn’t think I could have both,” says Evans, 29.
She had spent five years renting in Vauxhall, paying roughly £770 a month for a room in a shared house.
But she managed to find ways to save, like working part-time manning the stage door at the Richmond Theatre on evenings and weekends to top up her income.
“I also started doing small things such as swapping bank accounts because you get the £100 switching bonus — for 10 minutes of admin it is worth doing,” she says.
At the end of 2021, Evans read about Harbard Close, a development near Barking’s town centre by Pocket Living, a house builder specialising in small homes at below-average prices aimed at first-time buyers.
“It was the first time I had seen something within my price range,” she says. “I immediately booked a viewing and put in my expression of interest two days later.”
Evans’s approximately 400sq ft flat cost £196,000 and she moved in during December. Her monthly costs are about the same as her former rent.
“There’s already been a few meet-ups with my neighbours this summer. I keep calling them housemates, we’re all a similar age, it’s really nice”.
