South London boasts half of London’s best boroughs to buy a ‘forever home’
By Alexandra Causer
South London boasts half of London’s best boroughs to buy a ‘forever home’ in, a new study has found.
Bromley was rated in third place, closely followed by Lewisham, Bexley, Greenwich and Lambeth.
The research carried out by Bequests reviewed the average number of years homeowners stayed at their property, the average price and size of houses, 10-year value change, the quality of nearby schools, crime levels and the number of GPs in the area.
It also found that Londoners typically stay in the same home for 17 years with this number rising to 21 years in Lewisham.
Among the stayers are junior doctor Aaron, 28, who bought his first home in Hither Green in December last year with his partner, Polly, 28, a social prescriber.
Aaron said: “Buying a home was always something that we’ve been aiming for and saving up for, and I think because Polly and I aren’t really interested in getting married it feels like a commitment that we did want to make.
“We liked that Lewisham has lots going on, loads of nice restaurants and bars and it feels quite lively compared to some of the other boroughs that were further out, but it’s still a bit cheaper than other places in South London.
“It’s also a convenient place for Polly and I to commute from as I work in Maidstone and Polly works in Southwark, so it has relatively good connections into and out of London.
“Being in Lewisham we could afford a bit more than we perhaps could in other boroughs. We’re lucky enough to have a garden, but for the amount we paid I don’t think we would have got that in other boroughs.
“We want to stay as long as we can but it’s a bit dependent on where I work because I have to apply for a new job in two and a half years.
“If I got a job in London after that then I think we’d quite happily stay in Lewisham.
“We lived in Brockley before and that’s probably a bit trendier with people more our age living there whereas Hither Green seems to be more people who’ve just had kids or people who have lived here for years and years. But overall it feels like a lot of my friends who are looking to settle in London are choosing Lewisham.”
To view the full results of the study, follow this link to Bequests’ page: https://bequests.co.uk/forever-home/.
