Owning your own home

Move to the better part of Devon (East of Exeter).
Has all the benefits of Devon, but with better access back to London/ hills/ sheep.
https://www.stags.co.uk/properties/12741945/sales

It will be one day.

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Hmmmm, I should move to Devon

We all should.
Pipe dream for me:
https://www.stags.co.uk/properties/12850431/sales

And live 5 minutes from me... Not sure the Porsche would enjoy driving up through Egland...

You'd still need to drive to Tiverton Parkway (into Paddington) or Honiton station (into Waterloo), it's a busy train early in the morning and takes 2.5 to 3.5 hours. Train station parking: ~£1.5k a year, season train ticket: ~£9k... it would be an insane commuter life.

It's ~£7 for day parking and ~£50 per return if heading to London infrequently.

Gittisham (or equiv.) would be a nicer location than Awliscombe. Although the average age is very high for both. There are great walks on the edge of most towns/villages, so you don't need to live next to a moor/beach to benefit from Devon life (we're 20mins from Exeter, 20mins from the beach and 40mins from Dartmoor).

Cycling up past Awliscombe Village Hall to get on top of Egland is a real treat..!

I would go with Dunkeswell, of course...

I can get to Tiverton station in 20 minutes, from there easy into London and Reading. Exeter Airport half an hour away.

Oh I know this- my family is Upottery. I've done the 6:15 journey a few times.
But assuming post-C19 life is different- people might be willing to bear the occasional schlep?
(but ideally not as the Blackdowns are just a little special).
Sadly for me I'm tied to London. Unless I jack it in and take over the farm (unlikely unless we diversify a bit) and or become a vet.

Exeter Airport half an hour away.

Exeter FlyBe to Paris used to be the dream, alas, Exeter airport's future now looks a little bleak... hopefully another airline sees an opportunity.

I do love flying from Exeter, rock up half an hour before the plane departs, park about a minute from the terminal, stroll through customs, stress free.

I do know someone who works from Stags, apparently they have had a lot of calls from people since they reopened looking to leave cities and move down. hopefully not too many, property prices are already out of reach of most.

With lots of lost people looking for the gates as you have to turn back on yourself... fun times.

If you need help smashing shit up, knocking things apart with a hammer, I could help.
#therapeuticsmashingshit

Careful now, there might be bears living in there.

bristol airport (post renovation ~2016) was/is the same. such a pleasant experience vs london airports. same with flying into bristol... <15 mins from wheels touching the ground you are out of the airport

Yes, Bristol tends to be where I fly from now (makes it sound I fly a lot, I don't!), as they have a bigger range of destinations. My only issue with Bristol Airport is that it is in the middle of bloody nowhere! My first flight from there was at 5am, I was convinced my sat nav was sending me wrong and was panicking that I was going to miss flight...

London City Airport is (was) brilliant. 40min from leaving the plane to my front door.

Had been planning on exchanging a few days before lockdown. 5 or so house chain that seem to be in limbo waiting (after the top pulled out of selling). New top of the chain planned on renting (is going through divorce so needed to sell).

And now seller at the top has decided he'd like to find somewhere to buy rather than rent. This is 6 months into the purchase and at odds with what he's been telling everyone for months. WAC

...
I'm the start of the chain. My seller wants to sell.
Stupid to consider buying her place and renting it to her so that she has money in the bank to go house shopping?

Fuck a duck you've been through a saga, hoping it works out.

Look, I know the whole C19 thing has been a massive shitter for people, and estate agents are people, but how about this for raging incompetence.

tl;dr estate agents WTFlol

You are a branch manager of a reasonably well respected national high street chain. Your office is told to WFH so you put a rambling 2 minute monologue on the office answerphone then list the three mobile numbers of your staff at the end of the message. Of course you say the numbers quickly and don't repeat the number so that anyone without lightening memory skills has to listen to your message again. Because that's how people like it, right?

You make a special effort to never answer your mobile, you turn off your answerphone and do not reply to texts, as do your two colleagues. You don't contact your clients, you just vanish. Two weeks in to lock down restrictions lifting, in the midst of a so called 'spike' in demand, you are still awol and your branch is shuttered. All the contact details on your listings still point to the rambling answerphone message and dead mobile numbers.

You are now in the shoes of the area manager. A week in to restrictions being lifted, a client of the mysterious disappearing office - let's call him 'Howie' - manages to find you and express his concerns regarding the disappearing office and the sale of his flat which is not happening. You provide assurances that no, everything is fine, and agree between you to drop the price of the flat by a £10k to drum up a bit of interest and try to get things going again. You update the listings on the Portals.

Now, today, a week after the initial call, 'Howie' calls you again, slightly panicked, saying that although the price reduction has gone live on all the portals, all the Enquiry buttons are still ringing through to the mysterious dead office and the rambling monologue answer phone message. You assure him that no, this cannot be possible, you have full visibility of the situation. Steps have been taken. You promise to update Howie on the situation as soon as you are in the office.

You get in to the office to discover that yes, you've fucked it, and any enquiries from the portals would vanish in to the ether. It gets better - you have not updated the numbers on the digital / print literature so anything that went out after a ring round would also leave potential buyers stymied.

You do not call Howie as you promised.

Howie calls back at 11, you tell him that you've got IT 'looking in to it'.

The sale was so straightforward. List to completion in under 7 weeks...

7 months and counting on the purchase, including a lady in her 80's who was understandably not keen to move house with Covid, and the mid-divorce bloke changing his mind every few weeks.

My searches have expired and now need redoing. Been on the phone to First Direct to get my porting gap and mortgage offers extended as they've been impacted by Covid related stuff...

Now I just need to time it so that there's a market crash immediately after it finally completes and my house buying fail will be complete.

Hence thinking I might suggest just breaking the chain, buying the place and then renting it back so that at least my bit is mostly done...

Howie sounds hot af.

Not with this hair cut. Or lack of it.

Move to the better part of Devon (East of Exeter).

Has all the benefits of Devon, but with better access back to London/ hills/ sheep.
https://www.stags.co.uk/properties/12741­945/sales

Love it, but it'd need to be cheaper.

surely time to ditch this EA and go elsewhere?

Yep. Response was “I’m coming to pick up my keys”.