Owning your own home

Nothing to stop you from taking this position and it’s where you should start but unless the buyer is an idiot, or you have a queue of buyers, or you have underpriced by the cost of the estimate, it’s not where you’ll end.

Consider making the asking price the asking + the s20 estimate then only accept the asking price - if you don’t want to pay any of the s20.

Incredible. Perfect house:skatepark ratio on that floor plan

Has anybody ever used a service like Habito Plus? We're about to go through the process of buying somewhere for the first time and are completely clueless so the idea of somebody else orchestrating the moving parts is pretty appealing.

My assumption is that it will end up being more expensive than organising everything separately, but might be less hassle.

Fees don't look much more than doing it separately.

I'm not sure how much hassle they're going to take out of it. You'll still need to make decisions regardless of who you employ. A good solicitor is the main thing you need to make it a bit easier.

You'll need to conduct viewings like a normal EA would do, i.e. impersonally, coldly, impatiently. Anything else is weird.

A well known estate agent with a big Insta following specialising in modern houses actually offered us a discount on the fee for doing the viewings ourselves because they thought our flat would sell for more/faster if we did them.

You're not selling a flat you're selling a lifestyle etc.

It's difficult to tell how much this puts you at a disadvantage.

I respectfully disagree. It's easy to tell - not at all. Anyone interested in buying a place in a given area is going to be looking at Rightmove. If they're not, they're not actually interested in buying.

Brilliant, just as I'm thinking of selling my flat a Section 20 notice for £16K drops through the letterbox

:((

Fuck the Stow brothers sky high.
Coppermill area is where you want to move to.

My pals made a vert wall in their hallway at Uni, that was pretty fun.

Banham locks weren't too pricey in the big scheme of things. As they were doing the survey though they noticed my shit letter box and said they could put one on the quote for me to add if I wanted to.

Turns out Banham letterboxes are over £300! I opted to go without.

Yes, it is.

The houses down by the waterworks, backing on to the reservoir are incredible. Not sure if they ever actually come up for sale though?

Not very often by the look of it:

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/london/coppermill-lane/waterside/e17-7hq/

I've got some friends who live round there on Salop Road. I'd like to move there.

I wonder if they're owned by the waterworks and rented to staff, or something like that? Or just passed down within families, who know how lucky they are.

Bit of a volte face from the village life q... am I daft to consider a new build?

Have you found a decent-looking one? They're like hen's teeth.

I love smashing the Waterworks Rd segments in the morning before going to the Olympic/Victoria Park. One day I will get the KOM on Reservoir Flogs. Probably should have tried today.

I mean, it's not exactly beautiful but there's not much to dislike? On paper its relatively good value for what it is. It's the show home, so a couple of years old and hasn't fallen down yet. Perhaps they put more effort in when building the one everyone looked at?

Perhaps they put more effort in when building the one everyone looked at?

You mean the one they rushed to finish so they could start selling the rest off plan?

I bought the show flat in a new build block, the only thing that I would say was an advantage was that all the trades were still on site so I could go and find the relevant one to fix whatever had broken/fallen off/turned out had never been fitted correctly.

Yeah, the more I read the more I am put off... it's a bit odd as it was sold to an individual, who then leased it back to the developers to use as a show home. The development is finished and he's now selling it off at a 20% markup- not a bad gig if you can get it.

We considered one, @soul is a fan.

Probably would have gone ahead with it if it weren’t for the stupid conditions and charges associated with it.

Oh and the garage wouldn’t fit a T5.

Two things concerned me - the inevitable shit fest of post move in snagging and resale value. Can’t help but feel nobody wants a second hand ‘new build’ house.

First flat we bought and current house are new builds. Definitely a fan of the convenience / ready to go element as well as having brand new fixtures and fittings and good energy efficiency.

Worth noting that both places were in small developments (current one is 14 houses) with smaller companies who tend to put a little more care into them than the barrat types.

Very happy with the current one.

I live in a new build flat, was also the Show home. It's been ok.

I have a better spec kitchen and floor compared to the other flats but other than that it's all been pretty normal.

I think you can still call all the snagging faults out for repair if you're the first to live there. You have 30 days, so make sure you do a good job on this. Make a huge list.

Is there a general rule / price logic when looking at purchasing some land to extend a garden?

A neighbour who has no access to their garden other than via our driveway (There is an access clause for bins only) has a very odd shaped garden - L shaped which in return makes our garden L shaped.

I want to start conversations about buying a bit of their garden so I can extend our driveway. But I have no idea what I’m doing and what approach I should take.

They are getting a valuer to take a look but they could honestly invent a number as I have nothing to base this on.

This is rural Scotland in a village if that makes any difference.