Owning your own home

I used boxes from the supermarkets - they tend to have a pile you can take. We also asked around the local shopping centre and got loads.

In other news I now have tenosynovitis and still have 4m of trench to dig to a depth of 75cm. Bollocks.

Moat?

Nothing so exciting. Replacing the mains water feed (you can just see the existing lead pipe at the bottom)

Once upon a time we had Irish navvies for this sort of work. These days you have to pop down to Wickes by IKEA and hire a couple of illegals.

Wickes by Seven Sisters station is also good for that

No wonder it is taking so long, that blokes digging with a yard brush.

Still looking at E17 and Leyton... Saw some places on Sat which were a mixed bag, to put it mildly. Should hear back on an offer today.

With all the hype around those areas, people seem to have forgotten about others a bit further in, so we're seeing some other options next weekend.

Get yourself a mattock and a narrow spade if you haven't done so already. If you're already down to depth, these will help you knock the rest out in no time.

In Leyton I would recommend Outlook, at least for viewings and offers etc. which is as far as I got with them. John, who is the manager there, looks like Paul Kaye and didn't really bother to bullshit about any properties, to the extent that I sometimes thought 'are you sure you should be telling me this?'

New build flat delays are a nightmare.

What's holding things up now?

No idea. They just aded 3 more weeks to the schedule.

We had this with ours too.

Original scheduled date: First week of September
Actual completion / move date: Last week of January

Good luck!

Holy moly.

Did you have to extend your mortgage offer or re-apply?

Not just new builds. Offer accepted last July, still ongoing. On our second mortgage offer but that was negotiated relatively easily by our IFA, mainly because the delay is not down to us.

We had our offer extended but the missus works for the bank that issued our mortgage so it wasn't a big problem.

The main problem for us was extending our rental contract twice. In the end, we paid rent for Feb as well and got 3/4 of it back when they found someone else to rent it.

Years ago Leyton was thought rougher than Leytonstone. That's all changed now.

I did, about 18 months ago, south of Leyton Tube station, for the same rationale as you. I was talking to a chap over the weekend who bought in E17 about 25 years ago, and he was saying, when he was looking, the wave was going in reverse direction. Leyton/Leytonstone commanded the higher prices whereas Walthamstow/Higham Hill were more affordable. Funny how it changes.

Cheers, I think we might be on their books already but I'll keep an eye out for that dude for sure. Out of all of the maybe fifteen agents I've dealt with so far, only two or three seem to fall in to the good-guy-greg category.

still renting, still dreaming

see there is a help to buy ISA coming up in Autumn - anyone gonna apply? I think I will

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414027/FTB_factographic_final.pdf

E7 is next.

Sourdough pizza is coming, the Antic pub is already here. 3 beds are probably cheaper than on Lea Bridge Road.

In fact, this crack den would be perfect, and it looks like it comes with free drug paraphenalia.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49027324.html

(That's actually a pretty good location, and could be nice with a bit of work)

You'll need to apply as the equivalent house prices will all rise by £3k.

#torysolutions

Just found out the cooker we've ordered won't be delivered until 6th May. I really should have factored that in but I didn't expect such a delay.

I'm trying to find a graded one somewhere that I'd be able to get cheaper/more quickly but it's not looking great. Balls.

Just heard back regarding an offer we made on Sat. They had loads of offers and have asked people to make one final one by 4pm with proof of mortgage agreement and deposit, plus info about us.

The thing is, we went in at our max budget so can only up it a little with credit cards and some savings.
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