Owning your own home

Having lived in the vicinity of an AirBnb property occasionally rented by kids who just wanted somewhere to party

Plenty of leases rule out short lets for this reason. The problem is leaseholders routinely flout the conditions of their leases. The freeholder and other residents & leaseholders need to come together to sort that shit out.

We're looking for a nice part of Essex to live. I figured that LFGSS would be extremely knowledgeable about places in Essex as seen from two wheels.

Ignoring budget for now, we want to live somewhere rural with a bit of land. Transport connections to London not a big deal, both of us are able to work from home. We like Essex because it is halfway between our respective parents, in Suffolk and Northamptonshire but also close enough to London to visit other family and friends on occasion.

Are there any villages or areas that really stand out in the collective LFGSS hive mind?

The Hadhams and Pelhams are nice places; might be Hertfordshire though...

Probably Moreton the only village I stopped at on the dunwich dynamo.
Locals where surprising friendly and receptive to thousands of cyclists adding through the village I was even offered usage of a toilet in someone's home. I politely refused there where 2 pubs opposite each other.

Saffron Walden.

It's a bit UKIP central, but very attractive small town, okay-ish transport links to London and decent countryside around it.

My sister lived for many happy years in West Bergholt. It always seemed nice there.

Lived in Maldon about 20-odd years ago. Was nice then. Haven’t been back thou, so things may have changed...

Thanks peeps. Despite spending extended periods of my life cycling around the county, I have never really paid much attention to particular locations other than generally acknowledge that there are plenty of stunning looking bits of countryside.

Ah yes, the Pelhams.

Friends of my ex-wife moved there years ago and we went to visit - it's bland fucking middle England at it's worst. We were there from Friday night to Sunday morning, when they wanted to take us to the museum, and all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there and back to somewhere sensible. Fortunately I'm now divorced and never have to go there again.

£125 is a bargain. I think our schisters wanted 450 plus vat when we sold our old flat in bow. I got them down to 350 plus vat in the end but I must confess I wanted to throttle them by the end of the process.

Friend of mine comes from furneux Pelham. Some fine cycling around there.

My wife grew up in Saffron Walden. She left at the earliest opportunity and to the best of my knowledge, has never been back.

We have no intention of living in a town or really using much that a local town has to offer tbh. We don't even really do that in London.

I'm outraged by the suggestions of places in Hertfordshire in response to this question...

North Essex is the nicest bit. Hard to go wrong up there. But Thaxted/Great Bardfield/Finchingfield sort of area's good.

Danbury/The Baddows (where Alex Dowsett lives) are nice and convenient for Chelmsford.
Or you could go north up Felsted way, the bit between Chelmsford and Braintree is good from what I remember.

You could say the same about the Layers (de la Hay, Breton, Marney) for Colchester.

Avoid south Essex, the Dengie peninsula and personally I'd say east Essex too unless you like Jaywick or the snootier-than-thou Frinton types. Generally you're better to avoid the coast.

My choice of where to live in rural Essex would basically be decided by where would be a good place to ride to Tiptree (for the jam factory with amazing scones) or the Blue Egg on good lanes. Which is quite a big swath of north Essex.

Just low balled a project house. They put it on for 1 about 5 months ago, dropped it to 0.86 about a week ago and we offered 0.67 yesterday. Needs a lot of work. As far as we can tell we are the first offer. Wonder what they are thinking...

I like going to museums.

That’s probably not their first thought.

More like that northern git is a bit cheeky.

An offer is an offer

The EA seemed to let 'at least its an offer' slip in a way that suggested we are the only offer/first offer/entirely different meaning.

He is most likely thinking this handsome and stoic man from the north is a master of hard nose negotiation and we better just let him have it.... Or they laughed.

If you want lots of house for your money, look on Rightmove , put in Stansted airport , select a 5 mile search radius , and you'll see lots of house for your cash. Obviously if you are directly under the flight path then that's something to consider but there are loads of little villages especially north of the airport, where you can get a lot of house for the money and the noise isn't too bad.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72078653.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72075053.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-72057914.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-53456106.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49289925.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-50470476.html

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-62816644.html

Tbf that is a bit of a kick in the nuts, but as with everything , it's just a starting point.

This place has 8.5 acres.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61478339.html

Anyone have any horror stories about freeholders (deliberately) fucking up your apartment sale?

Feel free to share. Need to know what I might be getting myself into.

Not by a freeholder, but an RTM company tried to screw up the sale of a flat by a client of mine by refusing to produce a leasehold information pack.

The RTM company was pissed off because they'd tried to gouge a swinging fee from my client - who was building a new flat on the roof of the existing building - as a result of some minor changes to the flat being built by my client, who had been granted a building lease of the airspace above the roof by the freeholder. My client managed to avoid that - and prevented the RTM company from generally making a nuisance of itself - by some fancy legal footwork (though I say it myself) which yours truly came up with. As a result, the RTM company was trying to get their own back. In the end we got most of the information we wanted, but it was a long, painful and (for the client) expensive process.

Most freeholders are sufficiently sensible and commercial that if you bung them a relatively modest amount of cash they'll play ball. But not always.

Moral of the story, as ever, is to buy a freehold house. Unhelpful but sound advice.

Tbf that is a bit of a kick in the nuts, but as with everything , it's just a starting point.

It's only worth what a buyer is prepared to pay, regardless of what the vendor or their estate agent thinks it's worth. Might feel like a KITN but it might still be a fair price.

A million quid is a lot of money anywhere, but especially out there.

There's a world of difference with having half an acre and a small ride on mower to give it a haircut every now and then compared to something that is resembling a small farm. 8.5 acres will need a hell of a lot of upkeep!