Owning your own home

If you ever have kids then you don't move too far away from the free baby sitter.

This

I'd assess your parents ability to babysit before making that leap.

I'm surprised I made adulthood given my father's child rearing capabilities.

That's all part of the growing up experience. Crazy people are good for character building.

I'm amazed I'm not in prison.

The tiles are so beautiful in situ :(
(I totally understand why you need to refurbish, it's just sad that they'll almost certainly not look as good or right anywhere else even if you sell them, the edging and skirting is wonderful)

This! Work with them!

There are lovely yes - they are from a vineyard farmhouse hence the grape related edging and skirting.

The plans are to split the house in 2x 2bed flats so there is unfortunately no room for them due to layout & style changes.

I emailed Lassco yesterday. I am happy to take a couple of days off to lift them, pallet them and deliver them to London if there is sufficient monetary value in them.

Most websites I saw were shifting them for £80-£100 per sqm so if I was getting >£30, that would be a decent incentive

We're about to complete this process tomorrow...
Plus points:

• Got the sale over and done relatively quickly, for slightly more cash (<1%)
  
• Less stress once the sale is over.
  
• Transition period between London/non-london life.
  
• Allowed us to get finances in order and plan properly.
  
  

Minus points:

• 'Homeless' for six weeks. It's a weird feeling and quite unsettling.
  
• Storing stuff. We minimised costs by filling up my in-laws house and using borrowed vans but it's a ballache.
  
• Spent a lot on travel/food due to moving around sofa-surfing with friends and staying with in-laws outside London, whilst continuing to work here. Admittedly not as much as rent/mortgage payments.
  
• Had to lend our cats to friends/in-laws.
  
• With no chain there's no pressure on the sellers to hurry the fuck up.
  
  

I think the risk and reward depends on the gap/overlap between the two processes. In our case we had about 6 weeks gap between moving out and moving in, which means there's a lot of overlap with the processes and very little risk or reward. Particularly as we knew the house we wanted but had to wait as the agents wouldn't accept an offer without an offer on our sale.

the agents wouldn't accept an offer without an offer on our sale

I thought estate agents were legally bound to pass on all offers to the vendor? I mean they can advise that you're not in a position to move and talk all the bullshit they want but they still have to tell the vendor the details of the offer.

You're right (I think) but it was shorthand for 'the agents heavily hinted that once we had an offer in place, we'd be in a good position to undercut the asking price by a decent amount'.

I live in Raynes Park. It's nice. Don't go too deep into Surrey.

"West Wimbledon"

West of Merton.

I like South South Fulham

We're in!

Edit: photo upload fail

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So happy!

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Oh and for anyone still pondering wooden worktops, this is why not!

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Is that the customary "I'm about to change the locks because I've just posted a picture of my keys on the Internet?" house moving post?

Looks like a nice old property, where is it?

Nice, I like the worktop! Is that the big old place in Hastings?

Yeah! Worktop is functional but not far away from rot. Don't think the previous owners looked after it much as the swivel seal in the spout pisses water everywhere.

That's the one! I am actually going to change quite a lot of locks. Alarm is up and running for any potential scoundrels :p

Managed to kill our wooden worktop the same way. The shame!

Hastings, there's quite a lot of them around and money goes a long way for the south east.

Hastings, there's quite a lot of them around and money goes a long way for the south east.

mine's still hanging in there, just.. better get the finishing oil out soonish.