BobbyBriggs-
Off to Margate then?
Nope. Too far. Although we do have friends in Ramsgate, Margate and Ramsgate are both too far for a 4 or 5 day a week commute. An hour (and a bit) is about my limit.
It's Faversham. Not quite the coast i'll grant you but close enough. It's on the creek with the marshes on the doorstep for runs, cycling and bird watching and the coast proper is just 10 mins away. It's a 1 hour fast train into london and I get a discount on the ticket with work.
We love the town. It's got really good vibes: nice cafes, record shops, book shops, guitar shops, a good food market, good folk music scene there and in Canterbury 15 mins down the road. It's got loads of great pubs as the shepherd neame brewery is there. It's got greenery and good schools it's closer to family and we have a couple of close friends there already. We've got a 5 month old baby and it feel like this our chance to trade up to a house that will hold all of us, any future additions, have guests over to stay and house a basement studio for me and my guitars... all for significantly less than the asking price on a 2 bed flat in SE23.
We love it here in Forest Hill but I feel like we'd mad not to take advantage of the relative state of the market in the two places to upsize our accommodation, downsize our debt and basically secure our future.
Still waiting to hear back which makes me think we've actually pitched it just right. If we'd gone too low we'd know by now and if we'd overshot they'd be all over us. Just got to wait to see what happens with this place now.
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Dooks-Fatberg
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