Owning your own home

Underfloor heating. Worth it?

Something to think about if you have wood floors is that although under floor heating tends to give a good overall temperature, wood is a bad conduter. So when it's cold out you don't get that nice warm cosy feeling - you get a stable ambient temperature.

In most rooms it doesn't matter, but in a sitting room you'll probably want something to give you that extra blast of heat.

Where there's tiles or carpets though it's amazing.

Quick question.

Surveys. Worth it? A mortgage broker has said they're not. I thought it was par for the course and never thought of not having one.

Having shelled out on one, I'd say do without - just go for the cheapest option.

But maybe I just had a shit surveryor

it's the most expensive thing you'll ever buy in your life, you want to know what's going to fall off and how much it's going to cost to fix if it does. do a full fat survey, you wont regret it - you can even use the results to knock the price down if something looks iffy.

great stuff! hope it all goes smooth.

ooow this is cheap http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52906117.html
wonder what terror those pics aren't showing

I accepted an offer last night, now I need to find somewhere to live.

We have our eye on a place, so fingers crossed.

surveys - yeah what greenhell said.
I did that and found out a lot of stuff about how non-regs compliant my house is.

This one ? :) http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-57678860.html

No, other end of town and a bit more pricey than that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-GnqqTvWzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxmCCsMoD0

you can even use the results to knock the price down if something looks iffy.

This is London, my friend. The price only ever goes up.

"Oh, hai - You haz rising damp, subsidence, and an ancient burial ground, now filled with zombies, poltergeist and illegal immigrants."

"Y thnx, those are features that we are now asking an additional elevety thousand pounds for on top of the original price"

"Bargain - I'll take it for twelvety hundred pounds more than that!"

How much electricity do people use per month? I'm only interested in elec-only homes.

you can even use the results to knock the price down if something looks iffy

Yep as @TW says this is the principal but not the reality when people are falling over themselves to outbid each other.

We got our flat by £500 when it went to best and final, fortunately because this was in 2012 it only went slightly over asking, nothing crazy. Nonetheless when we got a red for electrics in the survey we didn't try and use it as a bargaining chip because we knew if there was any bother the seller would just go to the people who'd offered £500 less. Fortunately the electrics were fine, old and not totally up-to-code, but not dangerous or in urgent need of fixing.

I'd still recommend a full survey because you do need to make such a huge purchase informed.

As others have said, pushing down the price at the moment could be a struggle.

On the other hand you don't want to buy somewhere and discover it immediately needs £40k of work to be made safe.

For the price you may as well.

There is the in-between option of a homebuyer's report. Gives some info but there will also be a reasonable amount of "this could potentially be an issue, have an expert look at it". Depends if you're happy with that.

I'm so bored of buying a flat and the dicks that are selling it to us, they've been fobbing off my solicitor for months and not answering requests for building regs/planning permission documents.

Each time my solicitor digs deeper the seller is painted as shadier and shadier fuckers. Last ditch attempt for clarity/some concrete answers is going to the council to get categorical answers on the planning permission status.

It's looking an awful lot like I'm going to be £1.8k out of pocket (fees/searches/survey) and have wasted the past 6 months not looking for somewhere else. There's a slim chance it will work out fine but I'm not feeling good about it.

Cunts.

Valuation booked in for 22nd Feb...

Am I being cynical in thinking that the vendors have booked so far away in the hope they get a higher offer? They have kids, so it's unlikely they're going away on holiday during term time.

Rep so hard

Bad luck moog. It is a f8cking ballache process even when it doesn't go badly.

On a positive note, I had the weirdest experience this morning. I was on the train because reasons. Crammed on the Jubilee line at Bermondsey noticed the guy next to me perusing a property website. Nosey me looked over at his search criteria. My area. My price bracket. Then he scrolled to... my flat. Couldn't help myself. Tapped him on the shoulder and said. "That's my flat". He scrolled back one in the listings, showed me and said "That's mine!". Turns out he was checking to see if his place was up yet as he is also selling and moving out. Ended up having a good chat. Nice bloke. Small world.

The downside to the conversation was that his place, also a 2 bed in the same area was up for considerably more than ours and according to him, had attracted loads of views and second viewings already. In one day. We've been up a week today and I'm really starting to think we've gone with a duff agent. Already had to re-list at a lower price after getting no enquiries over the weekend. Despite one second viewing last night (which looked promising), I am underwhelmed at the level of interest being generated.

Too late to jump ship this week though. Just annoying to have the place listed as having not sold in what is apparently a buying frenzy. Further undermines the valuation innit.

Feb 15-19 is half term. They might just be busy this/next week and then away until the 21st.

up up and away
https://media.timeout.com/images/103113857/image.jpg

@hippy I'm electric-only and pay about £700 a year. However, I don't have access to my meter (have to ask the freeholder every time I want a reading) so it's probably not very accurate as I don't often bother to get a reading. I suspect I'm using a LOT more since Mrs Sparky moved in and started wasting electricity on fripperies like heating and lighting.

That feels like a lot now I write it down, but I guess it's not too bad as it's water, lighting, cooking, heating, etc all in one bill.