When Costi Dena moved to London in 2010 she wanted to be in the thick of things and rented homes first in Holland Park and then in Chelsea.
But although she had some fancy addresses, and could walk to work, the reality of renting in Prime Central London was less glamorous. Her final home in the capital was a small, dated, one-bedroom flat.
She was painfully aware that meant she was throwing away almost £20,000 per year, with no hope of return or real security.
“I loved Chelsea, it’s where you want to be in your twenties and thirties,” says Dena. “But I had to be honest with myself. I was paying £1,500 a month for a tiny apartment and none of that money was building anything for my future. It just stopped making financial sense.”
During the pandemic Dena realised that many people were moving out of the city and began to plan her own exit strategy, encouraged by friends who urged her to put down some roots and buy a place of her own.
Someone suggested she look in Staines-upon-Thames, which has excellent train links to where she works in west London, and she decided to do some research. “I had not heard of Staines-upon-Thames, no, but as soon as I saw the development there I was in love,” she says.
Dena, 47, was also impressed by the value to be had in the town, and was of course blissfully unaware of its downmarket reputation as the home of Sasha Baron Cohen’s 1990s wannabe gangster Ali G. The Ali G effect was so great that the local council added the” upon Thames” suffix to its name in 2011 to try and give its image a polish.
Last year, Dena moved into a £279,000 one-bedroom flat at Eden Grove, a Berkeley Homes development a 10-minute walk to the town centre and railway station (edengrove-londonroad.co.uk). Her monthly housing bill has been cut by £500 as a result.
New one-bedroom flats in Chelsea are currently priced from £1 million.
Dena, a beautician, still works in London, running beauty studio The Wax Expert in Fulham. From door to door the commute takes her a little over half an hour. And while her new postcode is not as grand as SW3 her apartment is a definite step up, since it has an onsite gym, cinema room, coworking lounge, and garden.
She has joined a local golf club, and spends her weekends practicing her swing, and is also full of praise for Staines’ shopping centre. “The M&S is bigger than in Fulham,” she says.
Financially the move has been a great success and Dena feels her mental health is better too. “I feel more relaxed, more financially secure and completely confident I made the right decision,” she says. “It feels like a blessing from the skies — I am so happy.”
