I’m after some advice on behalf of my sister, (who’s not on Mumsnet). She’s inherited a lovely three bedroom house in Putney near the river, which she’s just moved into with her partner from a flat they’ve been renting in Kensal Rise for the past five years.
They’d like to see if they like the area enough to stay, or whether they should sell and buy back in Kensal Rise, where they now know a lot of people (although to say they’ve made close friends is a stretch).
While Putney is incredibly pretty and being right by the river and a park is wonderful, they’re initial thoughts are that it just doesn’t have the buzz and vibrant cafe/pub/restaurant scene that Kensal Rise has and its transport links are much less frequent and take much longer.
Her problem is that they would like to buy a four bedroom house with two bathrooms (they don’t have children) so they can eventually take in a lodger and also have room for friends and family to stay. Her budget after selling would be circa £1,120,000 to £1,150,000, and she’s found that she wouldn’t be able to afford a house of this size in the area where she formerly lived, so is now focusing on adjacent Harlesden.
I wondered if anyone had experience of living in Harlesden and if you can still realistically enjoy the buzz of Kensal Rise from there, or does it just feel much further away from it all?
If this is the case, I think she should stay in the Putney house. While smaller than what she’d like, to accommodate a lodger, it has great extension possibilities within her budget which could still make it work for this purpose.