Where I Live: “I bought a two-bed cottage in Lancashire for £135,000 - it’s full of character and personality”

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

House prices have skyrocketed over the last few years making it even more difficult for first-time buyers to get a foot on the property ladder. But as the saying goes, location, location, location remains the number one rule when it comes to finding somewhere that is affordable on today's property market.

The stark difference in house prices across the North West is quite simply mindboggling. Properties that are almost identical can increase or decrease drastically in value depending on where you are looking to live.

Our new series, Where I Live, takes our readers inside a different home in the North West region each week to look around, see who lives there, find out how much their home cost and how they made it their own.

READ MORE: Where I Live: "I rent a one-bed flat in Salford for £750 a month - it's my safe haven"

This week Christina Melling, 33, showed us around her two-bed cottage in the village of Adlington in Lancashire, which she bought for £135,000 as a solo first-time buyer back in 2018.

After growing up in Chorley, Lancashire, she decided to move to Alderley Edge in Cheshire to pursue a career in wealth management. But with properties considerably pricey in the affluent area, which has an average house price of around £820,000, Christina was forced to rent for four years.

At 29, Christina realised that the only way she would be able to get on the property ladder was to move to an area closer to home.

"I moved to Alderley Edge because I thought that would be the best place to go to work in that sector," she told the Manchester Evening News.

“I lived there for about four years but I couldn’t afford to buy a house there, so I decided to move to Adlington. I effectively changed my job to become a homeowner