Owning your own home

Dayum Dammit, that is the “Sex Wee”

I get that from hanging about with my mates, most of the people I work with are either workshy twats or power hungry psychos... I'll stick to the spare room thanks...

My old editor lives in Banstead, we both worked in Croydon at the time... Ruralish and only 7.4 miles from Mitcham...

But there are places out there gestures beyond the M25 where you can do that and now (hopefully, due to enlightened and generous employers) continue to easily earn your existing London wage, increasing competition for charming rural hotspots that were previously ideal only for slacklyfe people like myself. My worry, anyway.

Of course, this does beg the question why employers would continue to pay a premium for employees to be based in London, when a person based outside is somewhere between 10-25% cheaper.

Where I work we already see a lot of people living a long way from the main office. They work from home or on other sites and commute occasionally. Which, imo, is good. It means I can job hunt, and employers recruit, across a far wider part of the country. Which put's the onus onto skills & suitability more than 'who's nearby'.

hnnng.

I do miss working in an office, you have all the facilities on hand scanner, printer, conference facility, 2 large screens and nothing loss in translation as you are able to pop over and chat with the said person if the need arises.

Do I miss working in an office? Yes, would I prefer working from home, yes too.

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/hemnes-shoe-cabinet-with-2-compartments-white-20169559/ We have this now. Picked up s/hand

We have those plastic stackable boxes also prior to getting the above. I just use them to store my 2 steel toecap boots

The buyers of my flat who pulled out came back and said they wanted a 20% price reduction.

Looks like it will be going back on the market.

The only thing it cost them was their dignity.

Absolute jokers.

Thanks looks nice, like the fact that it sits off the floor, can fit some extra shoes there..
Will forward onto the missus

Tell them it's gone up 10% on the previous agreed price. You may as well.

meet them half way and offer them a never to repeated corona discount of 0.01%.

TBF to the buyer, mortgage providers are reducing their valuations right now too based on a drop in values. Maybe that was the reason?

Could you swallow 10 -12% reduction? If so I’d be tempted to go for it given the current situation. It sucks, but you might be stuck for while.

Tell them to jog on, don't mince your words, in a firm tone tell your lawyer to relay the exact words...

they will smell the blood

But I guess the seller could ask for something in return, quick contract exchange, delayed completion etc. All pie in the sky though.

Tempted to say it's gone up by 20% due to limited supply.

If they'd come in with something sensible there could have been a discussion. 20% is over £100k and I don't think there are any indicators that the market will drop that far.

No indication that it was mortgage company prompted. Although the son was buying it on paper I very much had the impression that it was really an investment by the parents so they pulled the plug.

It's an odd approach for sure. I guess if it doesn't come down to affordability maybe they don't to buy a place right now and are just trying their luck on the chance that you were desperate.

Which is a shitty thing to do.

How much did things drop in 2008? I imagine that that's a reasonable yardstick.

Dunno, but by 2011 things were roaring along again. Largely thanks to QE. Brexit dealt a more severe blow in central London I think. No data to back that up though.

-16% in 2008

15.9% in 2008 according to some very light Googling. 20 seems excessive, but then lockdown seemed excessive at the time of Cheltenham.

It doesn't really matter when you've already agreed - in principle anyway - to pay the pre-lockdown price. The place is as valuable to you as it was the day before lock-down, what the market thinks is, at the point after that, mostly irrelevant.

Unless you find that you now can't finance it. In which case you come back with pretty stonking apology and a begging bowl, not a demand for 1/5th off.

Rubbish situation if you are a seller.

We got an offer accepted in March, but I think we were paying over the odds (the estate agents were proper pushy twats and listed it 20k over an identical property down the road) and they had us over a barrel because our landlords were threatening to kick us out in June forcing us to go right to our very limit.

Obviously the world is now completely different, the landlords are no longer putting pressure on us (this year at least) and prices are likely to be lower. I think we’ll be negotiating a discount when the negotiations open up again.