Owning your own home

EA rang now. After his homebuyer report he's asked for me to pay half towards a damp proof course. Claiming penerating damp. Considering there's zero signs of any damp, and that I've already give him money off, I've declined their kind offer.

A dpc for penetrating damp? Good one.

Ha, yeah, and that. I was in such a kerfuddle on the phone i didn't even think logically about it.

“Do you want the flat or not?”

My next reply to the estate agents would be "put the place back on the market."

Are they first time buyer? Probably just shitting themselves over not having a clue.

Honestly think I'd be terrified of buying a property off Howard.

The Billy Big Balls act is just that.

Howard does actually have big balls though.

Mortgage application done.. 1 thing down.

Need my friggin landlord to get back to me, concinved im gna get shafted for double rent+mortgage costs for longer than necessary because theyre slow as all hell at sorting shit out

Nah. When negotiating on this stuff - when there is so much at stake - it’s appropriate to be direct. Even more so if your counterpart has no idea what they are doing. Or are pretending to have no idea.

Hovis - Yep, first time buyer. And agent said she thinks his parents are influencing his behaviour. I think it's mainly first time nerves, which is understandable I guess.

bq - If it goes tits up (hopefully not) I'd actually take it off, partly due to the whole six months thing. And then do the structural change I was originally gonna do, moving kitchen round, and list at around 8% more.

Either is ok I guess. I'd prefer to just move on. But if not, i'll make more a bit more dosh.

What happened to The Shrak? That's a Henry! #vacuumgate

Thanks for the recommendation @greenhell I'm bloody loving mine, I haven't bought much recently due to quitting my job but it's still my favourite new thing for ages :)

Still can't get over how small it is folded up! When you live in a one bed that makes a big difference.

happy to help, boss. you're welcome to come round and give ours a once over if you're tight for cash.

There’s been lots of floor talk in this thread, or maybe home DIY one? What we talking ball park figure to redo a ground floor in a largish east London Victorian terrace? Just some nice floorboards. Might do concrete in the kitchen. We talking 100’s or 1000’s? I’d guess maybe 2k?

Need to be a bit more specific:

new boards on suspended floor?

new boards, insulated, sanded and finished on suspended floor?

Reclaimed matched boards, joists repaired / replaced, insulated, sanded, varnished?

and so on. ripping up old boards and putting down new is not that expensive - a typical victorian room could be a day's labour plus materials.

If suspended floor, it's worth getting some insulation in whilst you are about it.

Hmmmm... not 100% sure. Prob just new boards all finished off.

Edit: so maybe about £1000 per room? £250 labour £750 materials?

The sanding and staining alone could be a grand assuming you don't want to do it yourself. Floorboards are also different width and depths some are easier to find than others. Youll probably also need to carry out repairs to weak joists. If you are ripping the lot out and doing the whole lot uniform it'll be logistically easier than trying to match up what's there ...

Sod that, hire a sander for 80 quid and do it yourself.

£25 sqm here, so boards should be less than £750 a room:

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Bordeaux-Pine-Solid-Wood-Unlacquered-Flooring/p/124000?CAWELAID=120135120000016404&CAGPSPN=pla&CAAGID=52608963984&CATCI=pla-488324183232&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrLXXBRCXARIsAIttmRPYu8lFh2peZohJ6UzxWSa9DgBYju8H25a8QqbtlKap5UbLpNIEiQQaAjJBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=COi-ovL57toCFawS0wodZUgAuQ

I'm buying a little three-bed house in Hither Green. Our offer, at 1% short of the asking price, was accepted a few weeks ago.

The mortgage valuation (arrived at without actually visiting the property) came in last week at 5% under asking price. We're having a survey done on Wednesday. If our surveyor's valuation also comes in at about 5% under asking price, how much of a dick move would it be for me to start renegotiating with the seller about the purchase price? Given that we've already agreed a price, do I have any moral right to start renegotiating simply on the basis of two lower valuations?

The sellers had the house on the market for a year before we came along and they have had their own offer accepted on an onward purchase. We're chain-free. All of which means that we've kind of got them over a barrel. But I like to think that I'm not a total prick.

Anyone else using a ground source or air source heat pump? We are planning on getting ground source soon. When solar and batteries improve we will then hopefully become self sufficient for heat and power.

Depends if you want to pay over the odds or not.

Personally I would try to renegotiate and no it's not a dick movea as the valuation is based on comparible sales in the area

The sellers had the house on the market for a year

Enough said.
If it was sought after by other buyer's then I'd ignore the valuation price.
I'd say give it a go but don't lose sleep if they say no

It's not a dick move at all and you'll have to find the difference yourself, which in London famous London can be many thousands for a few percent. We had a similar situation when we bought in last year, mortgage provider valued 15 grand under the agreed price we offered an extra 5 grand above the lenders value, which with the slight reduction in deposit required worked out that we had to find about 3 grand of our own money. We were happy with that but no chance in hell would we have stumped up an extra 15 grand (not that we could have if we wanted to) and remember that everyone else applying for a mortgage on that house will probably have it valued the same. In the end you need to work out the price you're comfortable paying, we got the house we wanted for less in the long term for a bit more upfront, I'd be surprised if you can't get a reduction.