Owning your own home

Reported for Cockney appropriation! Boycott Amey!

Mostly the path along the Thames and cut across south of the O2 and then continue along the Thames path. Haven't tried it in the morning yet just evenings.

You'll be seeing me on Q1 soon no doubt. Ruining it with KOM efforts.

Question for the hub mind - I own a flat 50/50 with my brother. I'm looking to buy some of his half from him so I have a bigger share (He has bought with his wife). We are both happy to do this and it's just a case of getting a valuation.

How would you go about getting an accurate valuation of the property?

I was going to get a number of estate agents to value it, remove the highest and lowest then average the rest. But do I tell them I'm not actually selling? I want an accurate value, not a 'we can get you xxx'.

I don't think there are enough similar flats sold recently to go on sold prices.

You can normally pay a surveyor a couple of hundred to do a valuation survey, equivalent to what they would do for a mortgage.

Is that lime plaster on wood laths?

Putting modern materials on old walls may cause more problems over time than it fixes now.

@GwGs I have told you several times: I'm not moving to Plumstead (until June).

I thought about that, but have had mixed experience when it comes to valuation reports from mortgage providers. I want a realistic market value so the deal is fair to both of us.

I did a similar thing with my brother last year - we got three different estate agents to value it and give us a range 'from x to y' - then averaged this out. We also asked them to be realistic considering that the market has slowed down recently.

A friend did this a few years ago when their tenant (also a mate) wanted to buy the flat.

They put it on the market as if it was legitimately for sale, did some viewings and waited for offers.
Then they took the estate agent's fees off the highest offer (i.e. what they'd normally accept) and sold it at that price that to the tenant.

Wow, next level time wasting...

Maybe. Or they outsourced the time wasting to an estate agent

Seems pretty thorough! Not bothered about the estate agents so much, but the people putting offers on a house they could never buy seems a bit harsh.

Thanks. Were you open with them about the reason?

Paging @rogan

He means next level wasting the agent's time, no?

I'm not a massive fan of estate agents but that really seems to take the piss...

It wasn't quite as bad as I've made it sound. If the tenant was happy to match the highest offer then they got it minus fees. If not then the flat would have been sold to the highest offer.
The flat was being sold basically, just tenant had first dibs

I suspect so. The plasterer assures me that with the mesh it would be nice and strong. We did discuss replacing the whole ceiling briefly but I didn't fancy it at this point. Time will tell...

Why plumstead?

sydenhmanz full.

Affordable, loads of green space (Plumstead Common, Winn Common, Abbots Wood), quiet, low traffic.

And yeah, Sydenham’s done.

we left the velux window open in our top floor bedroom the other night and woke up covered in plant jizz.

#livingnexttoaparklife

I'm at the beginning of the long road to home ownership so apologies for the noob question. I don't know exactly how much deposit we have/we need. Can I make an appointment with a mortgage advisor without a clear deposit figure to discuss what we need/what we can afford?