Kate Fincham bought her flat in South Norwood for £310,000 on Valentine’s Day in 2018. “I was chuffed because we got it for below the asking price,” says Fincham, who is 41. She bought it with her partner Ibrahim Mustapha, and it was the first home the couple, who met at university, had owned. They loved putting their mark on it; painting the walls and building flat-pack furniture. They chose the up-and-coming area for its train, tram and bus links and because it was close to family.
The couple had two daughters and it wasn’t long before they realised it was time to look for something a bit bigger. “We originally tried to sell in 2023 at £350,000. We had one ridiculously low offer and other than a handful of viewings, nothing, so after nearly six months we took it off the market,” she says.
Fincham, a nurse, and her partner Mustapha, a sports journalist, put the property back on the market a year later, with a different agent and at a lower price. “It took six months to sell and we had to accept a lower offer than we wanted.” The couple completed on the sale in August 2025, after accepting an offer of £298,000. “We were told at the time that there was a lot of uncertainty in the market, especially with first-time buyers who were taking a long time to make decisions due to the higher costs and risks that came with borrowing.”
