Owning your own home

Until someone blocks you in obvs.

Loads of options with the ground floor but depends on how much you want to spend.
Replace conservatory with an extension and /or side extension. Make a nice kitchen - dining room.

Knock through two front rooms and make a big living room.

Keep garage, you never know. Utility/boot room behind garage, add a downstairs toilet/shower room with a skylight behind that. build kitchen into side return, join up with dining room for big entertaining space, knock through two front rooms for large reception room one, second more informal one where the conservatory is. Shitty first pass below, ran out of brains at the back of the house.

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Just a bump for a previous question:

Anyone have any experience of applying for and successfully (or not) getting planning permission for a listed building. We're looking at a Grade B* listed building which has had some extension work done however it was only turning stables at the rear into a kitchen.

If we ended up buying this place we'd want to ideally extend the bedrooms (x2) which are in the roof over the top of the kitchen at the rear as the bedrooms are pretty tiny and in the eaves.

I realise its a bit of a case-by-case basis but be interested to hear anyones experience of this.

*Property is in Scotland.

Haha this is excellent thanks!

Hah! It doesn’t quite work but it’s the first step in the direction I’d take it.

It’s pretty close to what I was thinking but I hadn’t thought to knock through the living room and create a storage wall. The

The upstairs config is also slightly confusing but have asked to view it, so will have a better idea after that.

That's a good size house in a nice area, and it could definitely be a very cool house, but would you want to go from a nice Victorian house to something a bit more suburban-looking?

Something in the Aldersbrook area on the other side of the flats could be a lot grander looking for similar size and outlay I would have thought?

Yeah it doesn't have the looks or a victorian house but the size of the plot and location are what I like. I wouldn't really want to move further from Leytonstone than this. With a wedding to plan and pay for I'm not sure if it's the right time but this is the first place in a while I've liked. Viewing it next week.

We bought a house and then got married 5 months later last year.. Can't say it was without stress, but fuck it, once it's over it's over.

The marriage or the co-ownership?

TBC

Selling. Do Foxtons stick to their guns when they say they charge 2.5% + VAT? Or will they 'negotiate'?

Why would you even be thinking of getting Foxtons to act for you?

Curiosity! And that they sold a similar place in our block a couple of weeks ago that had been on for a couple of weeks. Or so they say...

(places in our block don't come up often, and when they do, they seem to take a while to shift.)

Because he is smaller then @Chalfie?

We’ve just sold through Yopa, get your local agent round for a chat. Mine was real good.

PM if you want a £100 off code.

Fair enough. I'm sure you'd get a huge amount out of it given your work where you are now.

I guess a Bushwood place of a similar size, if that existed, must be close to £1m if that is upwards of £800k?

Think Bushwood would be £1m+ tbh (though Victorian curb appeal).

I really want somewhere that we can build a home office/studio. Likely that one of us goes freelance in the next 2 years but also a place for parents to stay.

Tbh it’s more the stress than finances - wedding, house and likely to go through an intense period with work over H1 this year. Not complaining mind, all good stuff but just a consisderation.

Fair play though buddy, wedding + house is daunting af for me!!

Perhaps London estate agencies are a different world, but sold an inherited house in East Anglia last year and had quotes of 0.75% to 1.25%. Got it sold for 1%.

Oh, yeah they are a bit. I’m not sure anyone will quote less than 1% + VAT but 1.2% all in is possible.

I would avoid Foxtons if I were you. Every property I saw through them went on high and sold for at least 100k less. They were telling me to put my old flat on for 650+, which obvs appeals to a persons desire to maximise profit. However it’s the market that determines what things sell at, not Foxtons, so you end up paying +1% for nothing really.

Foxtons seem to send me a lot of mail saying they've sold a flat in my block recently despite me not seeing any on the market.

Yeah it is stressy, no way around that. Just head down chin up and get on with it. I'd say try not to knacker yourself out too much when you move in with house DIY etc etc. It takes all day every day and leaves little to no energy to be useful with the wedding planning.