Owning your own home

It all comes down to whether the £10k or whatever you might save is worth being a bit of a dick over.

Ultimately if after the mortgage valuation the property is still purchasable and if the survey report doesn’t highlight anything that’s not “priced in” at the point you made an offer then the ‘moral’ dictates your offer is your offer and you had the information you needed to make a good one - it’s not the sellers fault that the mortgage co thinks you are overpaying.

You could fib and whatnot to not come across as a dick but then you’d have to live with that.

Yeah, that's the crux of it: being a little bit of a dick might equate to buying an entirely new bathroom.

Experience tells me that a surveyor is likely to low-ball his valuation too, which means I'm probably going to make the dick-or-not decision on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed the surveyor finds something for you to negotiate on :)

Made an offer on a place in Walthamstow, under min asking by 20k because imo in needs about 50k of work - new floors throughout, new bathrooms and kitchen. Layout has a few things I’m after (lowered rear of house) so kinda want it. Feels odd offering such sones of money on something I’m not too fussed about atm (but I know with work it’ll be amazing).

So presumably you ain't selling your flat? Have u checked the sums out for the tax you'll be paying in a couple of years if so?

Eta: the one with the triangular roof yeh?

I have a colleague doing this at the moment (ground source - air is waaaaay less worth it) - drilling 3 wells.

I'm going to suggest my brother install some too, once he gets round to rebuilding his place.

Nah ran the sums and the hassle vs profit wasn’t really worth it IMO. 2020 changes fuck people with two houses pretty well.

Triangle roof one? Grey pebble dash? Nah that one is on for 50k more than it’s worth IMO.

Where abouts? Just moved last week to e17 . Lots of works needed also. But house next door also for sale at same time that had been ‘done’ and 85k more than we paid.
Imo better to take out shit that’s shit than shit that was someone’s design project that was shit.

Got 15k off asking price also

Ah right. Have u sold Ur flat then? If u ain't some agents won't take Ur offer forward on what u want to buy (hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs etc)

Between you and me- no. But last time we nearly took it to market we had offers before it even hit Rightmove. Sounds a bit arrogant to say maybe but it’s a unique flat that will sell instantly as it’s value is oddly low.

@Simpson looking around copper mill only, and yeah 100% agree, quite a few places being flipped with shiney kitchens and faux industrial that makes me want to die inside... and the prices are getting silly for e17.

Good luck with it man. My mate Is a shit hot property lawyer as and when u need someone to do the papers if you haven't got one already. She's fucking ace and has done work for me, my parents and friends..

Oh cheers man I may take you up on that offer! I can’t even remember who did my first one. My mortgage guy is an independent a friend recommended and he gave a much more realistic appraisal of owning two places opposed to Foxtons... prefer to use recommend folks for sure.

Next up, concrete floor and plywood kitchen planning!

Yeah reckon there’s a flipper doing up houses with exposed brick work, dodgy features coloured walls chimneys. I’m still on many EA emails and they are all being reduced month by month week by week etc. Market has definitely calmed and I wouldn’t be offering more on anything you see. One to avoid imo is stow brothers as they still do this OIEO, one day open houses then best offers , central has a bad rep but Shah in their saw us good and was bang on it for us. Showed us lots of stuff we didn’t see on zoopla/or not even on yet.

Yeah 100%. There’s a couple of not too over done Stow brothers ones that I thought I could handle but that one day viewing bullshit put me right off. I actually questioned why they did it and after a lengthy empty explanation I told them I wasn’t into it and wouldn’t be playing along but to get in touch if they don’t sell in a week or two, don’t think he was expecting that and he started trying to tell me their might be some flexibility. Joker. Think I dealt with Shah, stuck me as an ok guy, another wide boy tried to flog us a shithole for Stow brothers -25k prices, told him to jog on. Joker.

It’s defo an odd situation out there atm, a bit of a game of nerves with folks trying to panic people into paying more than places are worth because it’s people who’ve made a decent amount moving out of hackney. Good to hear its cooling though, friends have just bought and they had spent 6 months getting outbid by about 40k over asking.

Yeah we moved from Stoke Newington and the guy at Stow Bros literally said “you moving from stokey” too us the moment we sat down, a guess or just fact probably.

I think the 1 /2 flat situation is still a bit mad 300-400 ish, as have a friend trying to buy and it’s all one day viewings whoever it is with, but they say it’s still going for asking or little below. Mainly on your situation.

We were in a good situation in our flat, under offer. The place we bought was on for two weeks in what I guess now for E17 is middle ground price for a 3 bed. And for that we could view them
When we wanted rather than with a hoard, bar stow bros.

We’re up off south of forest rd and east of hoe st.

Saw some nice ones round st James just wanted to be a bit nearer Lloyd park and ‘the village’ which we thought of as wanky and kind of is but kind of familiar for wanky people from Stoke Newington 🤷🏻‍♂️

One day viewing? You get an hour out here in Oz... It's total bullshit...

We've actually missed viewings because two have been on at the same time, it's ridiculous...

are there any forum approved landscaper sorts? nothing too onerous - we want to grade and pebble-ify our backyard, maybe put up a decent fence.

Both @amey and I can vouch for Vlad.
If you want to come and kick the fence, jump on the tiles, spit on the shed, let me know.

depends on how fancy you want really.

Just throw the Halifax data out today at them -3.1% Month on Month. The fall is about to get interesting. They're the ones being dicks if they've pushed you to very near asking price after the house has been on the Market a year.

ping me yer man's deets... tx

surveys, what survey should i get done ontop of the mortgage one? and who with?

its a 2 floor block of 3 flats on floor 1 and garages underneath. EX-LA but seems in good nick. Has had new windows 8 years ago

Is it possible to partition my living room into an extra bedroom in line with building regs?
https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/33/internal_walls/3

Was thinking to cut in half with new bedroom having both window and balcony door with living room portion having no window but getting natural light/ventilation via kitchen and hallway.

On second floor so probably above 4.5m but assuming balcony which connects both sides to neighbours counts as fire escape route.

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Generally speaking the amount of light has to be 15/20% minimum percentage of the floor area of a habitable room, so you'd probably need to have an open plan living room/kitchen then work out the overall floor area and see if the window will suffice.

Fire on the other hand I'm not 100% sure about check the approved document Part B, you also don't have to have to walk through the living room to get to the new bedroom just put a door close to the existing hallway and extend the hallway up into the livingroom slightly