Owning your own home

I didn't even look at it, just posted for the price comparison with the Scottish Villa.

A positive for who? You maybe, not society.

The whole "I could buy X if I lived in Y" is pretty irrelevant and infuriating unless you could transport your current life to Y.

My 2 bed, 1 bath, 1 recep maisonette with a postage stamp garden is worth more than my parents' 6 bed, 3 bath, 3 recep house with 4 car garage, acre of gardens and private driveway. But I wouldn't earn anywhere near what I earn in London* so couldn't afford it and I would not be able to do any of the social or recreational things I do now.

*unless I can wrangle a transfer to the Belfast office and avoid the salary difference conversation with HR

Spent a lot of time in Oban, even got married near there. We wanted to move up there, but couldn't quite make it work. (Ended up in Perthshire instead)

Decent town, can be a tad small-town-fighty sometimes at night, but on the whole its got a lot going for it and some amazing cycling right on the doorstep.

So if a seller buys a property (1930's semi) that was in good nick but also

-crappy layout on the ground floor (3 seperated smaller rooms)
-outdated kitchen

And then proceeds to:
-take some of the internal walls down (one being structural), opening up the whole living area into one nice big space.
-brand new pretty flash kitchen
-install new combi boiler and re do all the plumbing
-new floor (quite nice)

Spend 70k in the process, and then put it for sale 9 months later (unexpected circumstances forcing them to leave). Should they expect to be able to recoup that 70k onto their buy price?

Does the property value go up by more than their cost or less? I personally feel that since no new space was created, merely remodeling of what was already okay, the added value is less than their cost.

But I'm looking at it from a buyer perspective so I'm trying to be objective.

Although, saying that, I could buy this outright with the equity in my flat, walk the 2 minutes to the direct train to the Belfast office and use my salary to fix it up...

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/45303494?search_identifier=31bc5cec2261cb4b7994d2a74f7de99c#fIpXDzidoSDlbhpZ.97

Or this and just put my feet up

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/45282307?search_identifier=31bc5cec2261cb4b7994d2a74f7de99c#AZDyzpQTKt67HKIu.97

Fucks' sake

whom*

The whole "I could buy X if I lived in Y" is pretty irrelevant and infuriating unless you could transport your current life to Y.

We have sort of done this.

Bought up in Scotland and still travel down for work each week. After Christmas Mrs Beard will prob be up there full time to set up a holiday let and I will move where the work takes me, but hopefully still in London.

It sounds daft, but a Mortgage in Scotland, car, travel and accommodation to and in London, comes in under London rent.

Old person alert!

(But yeah, bloody Essex).

My London mortgage comes in under London rent. Everything comes in under London rent.

If it works it works but it also sounds like a tremendous amount of fucking about

Generally less than their cost for the work you've described.
Usually adding Beds/ baths increases value.
Or if it's a stonking renovation.
If it's just your typical builders jobby of skittling through the ground floor to make it more open plan, it shouldn't add 70k

The structural work and the kitchen seem fair game to me. But prob not layout. The boiler and plumbing, only if it was a 'anyone would have to have done this' scenario, but the flooring not really.

It depends what the equivalent other properties in similar area/condition are I guess.

I know. I have grey hair. But so do all the fucking rockstars these days.. ;)

I've also always been living there so only know east from going out and mate's places.

We do have a much lower crime rate but that's because I tend to do all my drunken shit out your way before getting a cab back to the safety of my retirement village ;)

Then again, we had proper riots with torched cars and buildings and shit and you lot just got upset and graffed a cereal cafe so I'm not sure who's more edgy :P

This is true, i just found it lols that a decent hotel is cheaper per week than our old flat

Well that all rather passed me by...

Yeah, some people wouldn't do it, but if I'm down here on my own I get the Sleeper from Pitlochry around 23-00 Monday night and I'm in Euston before 8 on Tuesday. Then reverse it on Thursday night. Its basically a mobile pub.

Flying is bit more complicated, but we can leave Southwark at 2 and be at home before 7 on a Friday.

Does the property value go up by more than their cost or less?

The property is now, as before, worth what people will pay for it. In a stagnant / falling market there is no rule of thumb here - they may have to ultimately suck up a loss.

You can look for similar properties and see what they sold for, but it's likely they may have sold pre-referendum so aren't really that useful a comparison.

Because I'm a bastard, I'd let them stew a little bit more. If they HAVE to sell, they will sell, and because they've told you they MUST sell, they don't have a whole load of leverage.

Now replace Scotland with Girona and get back to me on how practical it would be.

That's a good call, I'll have a look this evening. If my memory serves me correctly, it was a pretty nondescript name. Half the appliances in the flat seem to be completely unbranded, took me ages to figure out how to use the washing machine as you can't even look up instructions online without any idea what it is!

Much the same, the sleeper might just take longer.

Weather would be boringly consistent too.

The leverage is in the unknown. It really depends if there is any other interest. I suspect not but who knows.

You're right though. I just wish I had a cooler calmer head. First offer rejected, we upped a little and now we wait. I think if they say no again we will have to walk. Hopefully at that point they will crumble.

My brother does Barcelona - Den Haag - Manchester. He doesn't seem to mind or has just got used to flying/airport tedium time.