By Jack BeresfordShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA savvy influencer wasn’t convinced by what a seller was telling her about their house, so she decided to do a little digging for herself—and what she uncovered struck a chord with thousands online.
Stephanie Savvides-Howell, 42, a mom-of-one from London, is a former school principal who has carved a niche on Instagram with videos and tips about home improvement and renovation, posting under the handle @my_london_home.
Savvides-Howell's path into content creation was “accidental," and started in 2017. “I began documenting the progress of decorating our current home when there weren't as many creators doing it and quickly built up a strong following,” she told Newsweek. “People loved that I tackled DIY in my slippers with no fancy equipment and absolutely no idea!”
Savvides-Howell has come a long way since those days in the classroom but her passion for learning has proven a valuable asset when it comes to real estate. “I'm obsessed with history and I've researched every home we've lived in,” she said. “We've always lived in a period property because I love their quirks.”
It played a crucial role when it came to uncovering a key detail about a property she was buying last summer. “It had just come back to market and I was drawn to the 'bones' of the home and the size of the garden,” Savvides-Howell said. “I knew we could restore it to its full potential.”
Buying a house in the U.K. can be a stressful experience. In a survey of 1,000 homebuyers conducted by the building society Legal & General Retail, 57 percent ranked it as the most stressful experience of their life, ahead of having a child (32 percent) and getting divorced (30 percent).
Savvides-Howell appears in her element though. In fact, she often appears more adept than the experts themselves. That appears to have been the case during the buying process for this particular property. At the time, both the seller and surveyor hired to look over the property informed Savvides-Howell that it was Edwardian and had most likely been built in 1910. She wasn’t so sure.
“Our current home is Edwardian [primarily built between 1901 and 1910], and before that we lived in a one-bed Edwardian flat [apartment],” Savvides-Howell said. “The proportions in Edwardian homes are more generous with wider hallways and living spaces.”
Looking around this particular house, something felt off to Savvides-Howell. “Nothing about the property felt Edwardian, despite the current owner and surveyor believing it to be so,” she said. “It has a very typical Victorian layout of a narrow hallway with a smaller living and dining space.”
Savvides-Howell has been researching properties since 2014 and has gotten pretty good at it. “I've been using Findmypast to search the address, which will bring up any information, such as the census, linked to your street or house,” she said. “I found an entry for someone named Anne from the 1939 register, which was taken in WW2 so the government could issue identity cards and rations etc.”
Now she had a name to go off, Savvides-Howell searched further back to 1921. “I found her listed as a teacher, living with her family at the same address,” she said. "I then found a further entry via her mother's name, Mary, listed in 1901, which would put it in the Edwardian era. However, when I searched through her father's census data, I found that he had been listed in the same address during the 1891 census."
...Having achieved “peace of mind” that the property was what her instincts told her it was, Savvides-Howell decided to create a video chronicling what had happened. It went viral, earning over 1.4 million views.
It evidently struck a chord with fellow buyers, who had been told their prospective new homes were something they were not.
One user commented: “I asked the estate agent how old my house was when I came to view it and she said: ‘1950s?’ I have the house deeds and it was built in 1760….”
Another wrote: “The estate agent thought our house was around 1900, but turns out it's 1860.” A third said: “My 1940 house was actually built in 1928 and I found the real first family of my house. A full 12 years earlier! So many features of my house make sense now.”
The response has blown Savvides-Howell away. “I was shocked at how many people had viewed and shared their own experiences,” she said. “I loved hearing everyone's stories and how common it is for houses to be sold as something completely different!”
The lesson is simple: do your own research. Savvides-Howell and her family are due to move into their new home this December and she's already set her sights on removing the pebble dash on the outside of the property. “I know when we remove it there'll be yellow brick work underneath,” she said. You wouldn’t bet against it.
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