update...
Didn't end up writing an update on Sunday as expected as the tiredness turned into a cold, which I am currently doing my best to fend off prior to my holiday next week...
So, where was I? Hmm, well we had a fairly busy Saturday. First a house-viewing at 10am. New estate agent, new area. After a week of mostly sunshine, it rained on and off all day, which was a pain as the Victoria line was off all weekend and our plans to get to three appointments involved walking about 4 miles over the course of the day. Typical. The first house was great, much better than its photos, didn't require much work, was priced only slightly above what was reasonable and was in the sort of condition where we could move in and wouldn't need to do much. The drawback was that although it was on a lovely road, it appeared to be one of the only lovely roads in an otherwise un-lovely area. Plus the walk to the station was too long and in the main through the un-lovely part of town. A real shame as the house was really promising. However, having done the walk from the station just once, we knew we wouldn't be able to face doing it every day, twice a day, sometimes with bags and sometimes in the dark/rain/wind.
11:30 for a second house-viewing. This place was about 2 miles from the first place and with no tubes we had planned to walk it. The rain held off a little for this thankfully, so we got there with time to spare and with minimal dampness. Spent the spare time looking around the area where the house was, as it's the other side of Seven Sisters to where we've previously looked. The trade-off for it being within walking distance of everything you could possibly need (Tube, Tesco, B&Q, Boots, Library, Burger King, Pub, Argos, Park) is that it's a bit closer to the main road than some. It didn't strike us as terribly noisy though, and this is mid-moring on a Saturday - plus you couldn't hear it once in the house itself.
The first two things that struck us about the house was that it was really big (
.), much bigger than anything else we've looked at but also in really poor condition. The agents had warned us that it was 'in need of decorative updating' but this must be code for 'needs gutting'. The little old man who owns it has been in there for 30 years (he's moving back to Spain now he has retired, hence the sale) and you can tell. It's going to be many years before we'd be able to completely turn it into 'ours'. It's such an interesting house though and having seen what people can do with the houses in this area, we could see it had so much potential to be done up really nicely. The difficulty is that it's been priced well in excess of what it's worth in this condition. Even the estate agent thinks his colleague who did the valuation is a bit mad. It's priced higher than bigger houses which are in better condition and though there will be room to bring the price down, the problem is the expectations the vendor now has as a consequence of the original price. We've managed to agree with our agent that the house should really have been put on 35k less than it was, and we've based our offer on that, more realistic, asking price. Won't go into too much more detail right now, as we're not too confident about being successful with this house given the seemingly insurmountable gap between what we think it's worth and what the vendor wants for it. Briefly, our first offer (55k below asking price) has been rejected and we have made a slightly increased offer. Not heard back about that yet.
It's hard to know what to do with these things. We've been told that we should get in early when things come on the market (this second house has been on for a week) if we want to have the best chance at getting a deal. However, on the two occasions we've done this, the vendors seem to stay confident about getting a higher offer if they leave it a bit longer (which makes no sense as prices are dropping month by month) so aren't interested. One agent has said that the problem at the moment is that as we're just beginning to get properly into the declining market, it's still hard for vendors to adjust to the realistic value of their house. I guess this means we just have to be willing to walk away more often than we'd like, simply because paying more when houses are arguably becoming worth less, would be foolish.
Concerning this house specifically, it's tempting to get quite annoyed sometimes - the guy bought the house 30 years ago so only paid in the region of £50-60k for it. He is moving to Spain where £250k will get him a whole lot more than it does in London. He is asking a price for the house that bears no reflection on the amount of work that needs to be done - which isn't even something that can be disputed (the wallpaper is peeling off the walls, the carpets are threadbare, the floorboards are uneven and the house possibly needs entirely re-wiring). He hasn't bothered to sort these things out prior to selling the place, so why expect people to pay as if they were perfect? We appreciate that the size of the house and its proximity to the Tube are always going to be the largest factor in its value as in London these are probably the two most essential criteria for any purchaser - but his asking price is higher than houses of equal size and location in good condition.
Anyway - enough of that - if the second offer is rejected I think we are going to back off and see if it's still there in a few weeks. If it is, and no one else has made an offer (or only lower offers) then maybe he'll be in a better frame of mind to consider ours again.
So thirdly, we met up with Cat to go to a sort of independent comic-con where we bought lots of comics and snazzy artcards :D It was fun - really great to see the things people create and made me wish even more that I could draw! We then went for a toddle around town via some camping shops for last minute acquisition of things before our holiday. Finally, with aching feet and general tiredness, we made our way to the nearest Wetherspoons for a cheap dinner and a discussion about what we're going to do in the New Forest.
I'm so looking forward to this holiday and the fact i'm so run down is evidence that I need a break. It's just a shame it's so busy at work currently. But then, I do the sort of job where there is no good time to take leave so you just have to make the best of it.
Talking of work - my new targets kick in tomorrow. I had been on a reduced target sine I arrived in London because I transferred mid year - but our financial year ended today so I will have the full target from now. I know I can do the target hours per day but it's going to be interesting to see whether i can consistently do it every day. Plus I'm starting the year with a deficit because of the holiday which is never great morale-wise. Hey ho, I've promised myself i'll enjoy the holiday and worry about my hours target when I get back ;)
Not much else to report, the landlord is coming around after the holiday to see the flat as we've reported the few things going wrong to the management company. The contaminated water is becoming a bit of a worry so we thought it best the landlord saw it for himself. We'll need to ensure the place is sparkling clean and uber-tidy before his visit!
Three busy-busy working days to go and then holiday! Yay!
So, where was I? Hmm, well we had a fairly busy Saturday. First a house-viewing at 10am. New estate agent, new area. After a week of mostly sunshine, it rained on and off all day, which was a pain as the Victoria line was off all weekend and our plans to get to three appointments involved walking about 4 miles over the course of the day. Typical. The first house was great, much better than its photos, didn't require much work, was priced only slightly above what was reasonable and was in the sort of condition where we could move in and wouldn't need to do much. The drawback was that although it was on a lovely road, it appeared to be one of the only lovely roads in an otherwise un-lovely area. Plus the walk to the station was too long and in the main through the un-lovely part of town. A real shame as the house was really promising. However, having done the walk from the station just once, we knew we wouldn't be able to face doing it every day, twice a day, sometimes with bags and sometimes in the dark/rain/wind.
11:30 for a second house-viewing. This place was about 2 miles from the first place and with no tubes we had planned to walk it. The rain held off a little for this thankfully, so we got there with time to spare and with minimal dampness. Spent the spare time looking around the area where the house was, as it's the other side of Seven Sisters to where we've previously looked. The trade-off for it being within walking distance of everything you could possibly need (Tube, Tesco, B&Q, Boots, Library, Burger King, Pub, Argos, Park) is that it's a bit closer to the main road than some. It didn't strike us as terribly noisy though, and this is mid-moring on a Saturday - plus you couldn't hear it once in the house itself.
The first two things that struck us about the house was that it was really big (
.), much bigger than anything else we've looked at but also in really poor condition. The agents had warned us that it was 'in need of decorative updating' but this must be code for 'needs gutting'. The little old man who owns it has been in there for 30 years (he's moving back to Spain now he has retired, hence the sale) and you can tell. It's going to be many years before we'd be able to completely turn it into 'ours'. It's such an interesting house though and having seen what people can do with the houses in this area, we could see it had so much potential to be done up really nicely. The difficulty is that it's been priced well in excess of what it's worth in this condition. Even the estate agent thinks his colleague who did the valuation is a bit mad. It's priced higher than bigger houses which are in better condition and though there will be room to bring the price down, the problem is the expectations the vendor now has as a consequence of the original price. We've managed to agree with our agent that the house should really have been put on 35k less than it was, and we've based our offer on that, more realistic, asking price. Won't go into too much more detail right now, as we're not too confident about being successful with this house given the seemingly insurmountable gap between what we think it's worth and what the vendor wants for it. Briefly, our first offer (55k below asking price) has been rejected and we have made a slightly increased offer. Not heard back about that yet.
It's hard to know what to do with these things. We've been told that we should get in early when things come on the market (this second house has been on for a week) if we want to have the best chance at getting a deal. However, on the two occasions we've done this, the vendors seem to stay confident about getting a higher offer if they leave it a bit longer (which makes no sense as prices are dropping month by month) so aren't interested. One agent has said that the problem at the moment is that as we're just beginning to get properly into the declining market, it's still hard for vendors to adjust to the realistic value of their house. I guess this means we just have to be willing to walk away more often than we'd like, simply because paying more when houses are arguably becoming worth less, would be foolish.
Concerning this house specifically, it's tempting to get quite annoyed sometimes - the guy bought the house 30 years ago so only paid in the region of £50-60k for it. He is moving to Spain where £250k will get him a whole lot more than it does in London. He is asking a price for the house that bears no reflection on the amount of work that needs to be done - which isn't even something that can be disputed (the wallpaper is peeling off the walls, the carpets are threadbare, the floorboards are uneven and the house possibly needs entirely re-wiring). He hasn't bothered to sort these things out prior to selling the place, so why expect people to pay as if they were perfect? We appreciate that the size of the house and its proximity to the Tube are always going to be the largest factor in its value as in London these are probably the two most essential criteria for any purchaser - but his asking price is higher than houses of equal size and location in good condition.
Anyway - enough of that - if the second offer is rejected I think we are going to back off and see if it's still there in a few weeks. If it is, and no one else has made an offer (or only lower offers) then maybe he'll be in a better frame of mind to consider ours again.
So thirdly, we met up with Cat to go to a sort of independent comic-con where we bought lots of comics and snazzy artcards :D It was fun - really great to see the things people create and made me wish even more that I could draw! We then went for a toddle around town via some camping shops for last minute acquisition of things before our holiday. Finally, with aching feet and general tiredness, we made our way to the nearest Wetherspoons for a cheap dinner and a discussion about what we're going to do in the New Forest.
I'm so looking forward to this holiday and the fact i'm so run down is evidence that I need a break. It's just a shame it's so busy at work currently. But then, I do the sort of job where there is no good time to take leave so you just have to make the best of it.
Talking of work - my new targets kick in tomorrow. I had been on a reduced target sine I arrived in London because I transferred mid year - but our financial year ended today so I will have the full target from now. I know I can do the target hours per day but it's going to be interesting to see whether i can consistently do it every day. Plus I'm starting the year with a deficit because of the holiday which is never great morale-wise. Hey ho, I've promised myself i'll enjoy the holiday and worry about my hours target when I get back ;)
Not much else to report, the landlord is coming around after the holiday to see the flat as we've reported the few things going wrong to the management company. The contaminated water is becoming a bit of a worry so we thought it best the landlord saw it for himself. We'll need to ensure the place is sparkling clean and uber-tidy before his visit!
Three busy-busy working days to go and then holiday! Yay!