Stepping Stones: From mean streets to the Festival city

One Couple's Property Story

Executive Iain Fraser has bought four properties since 1986. He now lives in Edinburgh's New Town with his wife Fiona and their two children.

IAIN FRASER first bought in 1986. He was renting a flat on a housing estate in Peckham, south London, but a mugging, and his mother's habit of removing all jewellery before visiting, prompted his decision to move: "I chose Camberwell. It is only two miles down the road, but has a totally different atmosphere."

He bought a two-bedroom basement maisonette with a friend for pounds 56,000 and lived there until he married Fiona. Three was a crowd, so Iain sold his share of the flat - then worth pounds 77,000 - and the couple began the search for their first marital home. They wanted two bedrooms, but in Camberwell could afford only a studio flat. So they decided to cast their net wider.

In 1988, it was back to Peckham, this time to a residential street where Iain and Fiona paid pounds 78,00 for a two-bedroom terraced cottage. "We really loved that house," says Fiona. "The area wasn't a problem until we had our first child." Literally. As Fiona was giving birth at home, the police called and asked to be allowed to run through the cottage to get to a "disturbance" behind.

They decided to move, but the property slump intervened. After six months of trying they sold the cottage in 1993 for pounds 64,000 to a couple who knocked on the door having seen the For Sale sign.

The search began for a good-sized family home in a peaceful part of South London. Iain and Fiona focused on East Dulwich, searching long and hard for the right house. A local agent told them of a Victorian semi- detached four-bedroom house in a popular road which he said would "go that day". And it did. Fiona and Iain paid pounds 108,000 for it in 1993.

The four-bedroom home had ample room even after the arrival of their second child and setting up Fiona's home-based teaching business. But the Frasers had itchy feet - and a problem: "The only places we really liked, Notting Hill or Kensington, were out of our reach." When Iain was offered a job in his native Edinburgh, the family decided to leave London.

Worried about losing friends and being "away from the hub of things", Fiona laid down one condition: "I agreed, as long as we lived in the middle of New Town, where the action is."

In 1997 they sold for pounds 190,000, and, for the same money, bought a four- bedroom Georgian flat "overlooking the waters of Leith". Local agent Simon Rettie of Rettie and Co calls the Frasers' timing extremely prudent: "Prices are still rising, particularly in the centre of Edinburgh where a nearby flat made history by selling for more than pounds 500,000."

After a total redesign by architects, the Frasers' flat is now estimated to be worth around pounds 275,000.

Ginetta Vedrickas

If you would like your moves to be featured in Stepping Stones, write to us at Your Money, `The Independent', One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL.

Those Moves In Brief

1986: bought Camberwell flat for

pounds 56,000. Sold for pounds 77,000.

1988: bought Peckham cottage for pounds 78,000. Sold for pounds 64,000.

1993: bought East Dulwich house for pounds 108,000. Sold for pounds 190,000.

1997: bought Edinburgh flat for pounds 190,000 now worth pounds 275,000.