Owning your own home

you on drugs buddy? hertford? thats pretty much the most expensive town in hertfordshire.
i mean it has two train lines which are shyte. like 45mins slow train through all the pikey areas to liverpool street. you wouldn't get much change out of 450k for a decent 2 bed terrace anyway. pretty much paying zone 3 london prices where you don't have to pay for expensive train ticket.

plus side is that hertford doesn't have much in the way of pikeys i must admit.

I got a recommendation on here for Gisby Harrison as a conveyancer. Worst advice I have received. Use them at your peril.

whats all this talk about these hive things as well. i mean whats wrong with just setting the timer on the boiler and adjusting it manually yourself? i had a thermostat on the wall but took that down. would rather not see it. see no harm with just adjusting it myself. you can tell i'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to this stuff...but curious to know what all the fuss is about with these things.

I get up at either 5 or 8 depending upon shifts so would rather not be shifting the Hoover and associated crap every day so I can adjust the timer on the boiler. Much rather do it from my phone/tablet/computer.

Walthamstow's full of pikeys

Gisby Harrison

I used Martin and he was brilliant.
Passed his details on to a friend - had same experience as you - terrible.
He was on leave a bit and his locum was THE WORST.

Oh dear.
What were the issues?
I've engaged him to do the conveyancing on mine and my girlfriend's flats.

Specifically with Martin or someone else?

We had good times with Martin.

We didn't have a great experience with Martin - he left on a two week holiday the week we were ready to exchange and didn't even tell us. His locum was ok. Overall I was very disappointed considering we had very strong recommendations.

#fuckmartin

James Martin?

James Martin is a cunt.

My friends experience:
they had to get docs for lease renewal or something and took forever.
Friend kept chasing but he would be condescending and say I will call you when we have it.
Waited and waited and apparently came through but he still did not update.
She got sent docs, incorrect ones.
Told him, sent again, same and incorrect - ie. not having her name on the docs.
Similar leave experience, wasn't informed of leave. Locum - could not get in contact with on key dates. Locum wouldn't chase docs which were with sellers solicitor. Got to point where they established a relationship with the seller and their solicitor and so had all the facts and found who was in the wrong.

Day of completion, he is back from leave, calls her up and he says - nah can't complete.
She's like wtf? in the van.
Then he goes - oh no, its ok.
wtf?

Have put an offer on a place out of town. Having ALL THE FEELS about the possibility of leaving London. Not helped by the insane stress of trying to buy a house.

We fell in love with a place at an open house out on the Kent coast on Saturday. Guide price is £125k less than our flat's current valuation so it would be a big saving on the mortgage whilst significantly up-sizing. We THINK we are at peace with the lifestyle changes this will involve although it's all happening so fast we're spinning. We're ready to give it a go though. Got to be in it to win it etc. So we resolved to make an offer.

Got three valuations for this place and get an agent lined up for this place on Monday. All whilst being a single dad for the day.

Offered guide price on dream-house and was told there were 6 offers and several well over guide price. Not surprised. It was absurdly under-valued.

Upped our offer by an equally absurd 20k thinking, it's big step but that the place was underpriced by more than that and still well within budget. Kept waiting 36 excruciating hours.

In the meantime our agent tells us we have a buyer in waiting who was desperate to buy in this block. I ask them to be approached direct before we go on the open market. Good stuff.

Get a call at 5pm today. Apparently we were outbid by a cash buyer. I say "oh well" ask by how much out of interest. "I can't really say but... tens of thousands". I thank them, hang up and mentally let it go. For about 1 minute. Then as we were still well under budget. I had a massive rush of blood to the head and rang back and offered another £30k. We'd still be knocking £75k off the mortgage but I feel sick.

Suddenly their agent is very interested and wants to know about our funding situation and our buyer in waiting. He calls our (not yet appointed) agent who confirms he's confident we have interest and will have an over asking price offer this week. This is technically bullshit as i'm not even in contract with them or on the market yet. I'm confident we can sell over asking in a week or so too though so am happy with this minor exaggeration. The last two flats in this building went for way over asking within days and our valuation is under than what the last one went for only a few weeks ago. I still feel sick though. I'm offering up increments close to my annual salary with nothing to back it up. Hnnnng!

I get hold of our agent and confirm he said all the right things to their agent. I need to go in and sign the papers to appoint them. Leave work late, hammer it over there in the rain to be told our mystery buyer is out. Ground floor deal-breaker. Ruh-roh.

Now I'm worried we've just made an absurdly high offer, tickled the seller's fancy and are now about to come unstuck on a bit of agenty bullshit. The whole thing is making me feel queasy. Stupid amounts of theoretical cash being thrown around like confetti. I don't have £5 to my name at the end of most months. I don't have any savings. This is all fake money predicated on the fact that our lovely but perfectly ordinary south London flat has near-doubled in value in three years.

I still think what we've offered is a good price. I just feel very very dirty and foolish about how we got here.

Oh god. I don't know if I want the offer to be accepted or not.

*cramps

My solicitor has been awesome. Would recommend. Based in Norwich though

.

I've no idea what it's like as a place to live

Rubbish - all the problems of London, i.e. cunts everywhere, but very little of the good stuff. Avoid.

Wow. The U.K. property market, eh? Terrifying.

I have constant vertigo and stomach cramps right now.

Also, I went to School in Hertford and know it very well. I don't like it at all. It's wildly over-priced. Trains are crap. The town is part TOWIE and part run-down market town. Loads of charity shops, crappy chain bars and the kind of restaurants that pump out chart hits on a Saturday night. My ladywife refers to evenings in Hertford, St Albans etc as "Jeans and a nice top" places.

Can any of you South East lot recommend a decent chippy? Need some ply boarding and cabinets made up.

@Dammit has tip top ply

So @Dammit is your top tip for tip top ply tips?

Aha! Paging @Dammit

Sadly he's jilted me - too busy to come back and finish the work he almost did, he's given me a phone number for another joiner who he says will finish stuff up. Which is a bit annoying, but there you go.

I'll give a review of the new guy when he's finished up the first guys work.

Off to Margate then?