We rent. When I drop this bombshell at a dinner party or a coffee morning, it systematically kills all polite chat about the mad cost of kitchen extensions or the best choice of wallpaper for a guest lavatory. Then, once it becomes clear that the reason we rent in London isn’t that we have a villa by the sea or a fixer-upper in the country, the reaction reveals the British obsession with owning a home: I may as well have said that I’ve just finished five years in Holloway Prison.
Our circle is not made up of your typical renters. We’re not young singletons; we are a family of four with two school-age children. My husband and I are both established professionals with good jobs. Yet we have been renting in the capital for nearly nine years, and, though there is no move out of town or country on the horizon, we have no plans to buy a house here or anywhere else.
Years ago, when our friends were taking those first baby steps onto the property ladder, we were living — and renting — in New York. When we got back to London, we rented to see if we liked NW3 (who wouldn’t?), we rented to see if we wanted to stay in town (we did), then we rented to see if we would like Queen’s Park as much as Belsize Park (we do.) Nearly a decade on, the astronomical cost of a down payment and stamp duty on a house of the sort we are able to rent in a neighbourhood that we love feels like pure madness, even if we could do it. To put a number on it, buying our current house would require us to drop almost £500,000 in cash — or 10 years’ worth of rent.
Ironically, I’m mad about real estate. I’m a regular on property websites, even when we aren’t looking to move. Would our family fit round that breakfast nook? Would our furniture go in something that modern? Are we the kind of people who have fake grass? There are so many options to try on for size.
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For us, renting has meant being able to find a property that suits the needs of our family at any given time, without the financial implications — and hassle — of buying three houses in eight years. We brought both of our new babies home to a charming mews house in Belsize Park that couldn’t have been a more powerful antidote to our former life in Manhattan. We lived in that little house for five years, until the landlord put it on the market — one of the great perils of the renting life. In a way, it was heartbreaking to leave, but by that time we had two small children, and the narrow stairs and small rooms made moving on a good deal less painful than it might have been.
In search of lateral space, we rented a big old flat in Hampstead that was straight out of Downton Abbey. We loved the (expensive) neighbourhood, and were reluctant to leave just so that we could buy something. The kids shared a grand bedroom that, if you took out the Lego, could have featured in any Edwardian childhood.
That flat was the perfect home for two young kids, but, as they grew, the lure of a garden and a nearby park was too much to resist — it even made us brave enough to try a new neighbourhood, though we are still close to NW3. Without too much thought or planning, we moved again, to the family house in Queen’s Park where we are now.
For us, renting has meant being able to find a property that suits the needs of our family at any given time, without the financial implications — and hassle — of buying three houses in eight years
It is this notion of a family house that really makes you stop and think about the renting life and what it means for your children to grow up without an “official” childhood home. I spent my first 18 years in the same suburban detached house in northeastern Ohio. I remember every nook and cranny of the place; the mysterious and utterly untraceable tapping noise in my bedroom that scared me half to death as a four-year-old was still there when I was 18.
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We were lucky enough to have 20-plus Christmas mornings in front of the same fireplace, and two decades of summers in the same garden, where my dad once buried an arrowhead for me to “find”. I spent years convinced that we lived on a Native American burial ground, until he finally confessed.
I had a happy childhood, and the family home plays a big part in those memories. Through agenting and now writing children’s books, I’ve spent a lot of time channelling my inner child, and that house is always there. Which got me thinking: what will my two children, the offspring of serial renters, have instead?
What they won’t have is the permanence of home ownership. Renting, even long-term, means you aren’t always in control of when you have to move. That said, when the time has come, we’ve always been ready to go on to bigger and better things. Our kids aren’t going to have 20 Christmases in the same house, but, like their parents, they seem to relish the thrill of new surroundings, which I hope makes up for the loss of that sacred family home.
The not-of-this-century proportions of our Hampstead flat enabled us to have a completely over-the-top 9ft Christmas tree. We were only there for one Christmas, so it will never be a tradition, but I’m convinced that the “hotel” tree will have a lasting place in my kids’ memories.
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They also have the thrill of discovery. Apart from getting to explore every inch of each house we rent, they are now keen to know all about the landlord — where he lives and why he doesn’t want to be in his house any more.
When we moved into our current home, our daughter went searching for clues and promptly decided that this particular landlord had moved on because the place was haunted. She found an “olden days” newspaper (from 1997) stuffed up a fireplace, which was most certainly a clue about the house’s ancient history. Clearly the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, whether that tree is mortgaged or not.
So our houses are not ours, but the stories and the memories are. In some ways, I like the way those memories are so neatly compartmentalised by each rental we’ve lived in: babies in the mews; toddlers in the flat; kids in the house; teenagers who knows where?
Perhaps the kids will appreciate that, too. Hopefully, like us, they’ll feel a connection to the neighbourhood and to London that is stronger than the attraction to the actual house within it, and they’ll understand why we didn’t want to sacrifice on location just to trade a lease for a huge mortgage.
Of course, we may be like the proverbial grasshopper who played all summer instead of gathering food for the winter. When we are old and grey, we may wish we’d invested in property. But while our kids are young and the school run looms, right now feels like the most important time to be in the house and the neighbourhood we want, without a crushing financial commitment. We aren’t going to compromise.
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And when winter comes, we’ll find a nice retirement rental by the sea. Preferably one built on an ancient pirate burial ground.
Lauren Pearson is the author of the Crabtree School series of chapter books for children aged 6 and up, published this month by Scholastic
London rentals
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Kingswood Avenue £8,450 pcm
Across the road from Queen’s Park, London NW6, this six-bedroom house has a greenery-filled rear garden. Inside, it has recently been refurbished, and there’s an open-plan kitchen.
020 8090 9800, foxtons.co.uk
Brooksville Avenue £5,417 pcm
A short walk from Queen’s Park, this Victorian terrace has four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double reception and a kitchen/breakfast room with bifold doors that lead to the garden.
020 3815 3020, knightfrank.co.uk