Owning your own home

I would be fine with that. Ours is looking like 9 weeks... Was yours Hackney too?

nope, croydon!

@cjr

agree with howard, our buyer was using his brokers recommended solicitor. they did absolutely nothing for almost an entire month, said they hadn't got to the allotted time to work on that file yet when he said he was going to cancel and go with someone else, they said they could 'bump it up a few weeks'

looks like they just pile the files up and work on them when people start complaining

No problem with searches here, not the local ones at least. The surveys on the other hand, they seem to be 6+ weeks.

Also as above I can list out a load of conveyancers I’ve spoken to this week with some recommendations based on my initial ‘screening’.

Thats some smart material re use! Love the combo of old and new. I wish we had room/money for that kinda space but both were limited.

We just had an offer accepted in E11 and the estate agent told us local searches were taking up to 55 working days at the moment.

me, looking at your fridge: in awe at the size of this lad. absolute unit

Ha - yeah it's two separate ones for that faux-sub zero look. I have three teenagers so massive amounts of food got through currently.

Thanks. we lived with the kitchen as was (tiny) for a couple of years before the extension and grew to love the original parts of the house. The old bits of the kitchen/bedroom cupboards were handbuilt in '59 and all still going strong. Also kept blue toilet/sink and a yellow bathroom suite because they were so funky.

Crazy. Our solicitor says that 3 months ago they would consistently come back withing 1 - 2 weeks.

AMAZING. I'm into colourful bathroom. Also keen on keeping original features where possible.
So glad you kept that suite too - they are starting to go for decent money and there is an outlet that specialises in them.

We went bold colour wise too...

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Once the solicitor's start talking then the main use for the estate agent is just keeping you updated on the other bits of the chain. You can't (legally, or just generally in my experience) rely on what the estate agent's are saying so ultimately everything needs to go through the solicitor.

My solicitor didn't speak to the estate agents at all and that didn't cause any issues for me. (The estate agents bitched and moaned about it but without any good reason).

tl:dr Pick a good solicitor, someone who is easy to get hold of and can answer your questions and progresses things quickly. That probably isn't the one recommended by your estate agent.

Very nice. Like that a lot.

How often do you show guests how loud the extractor fan goes? That's my GF's favourite game. It's an odd choice of flex...

Err - never. That is a bit weird.
Try to avoid it completely unless cooking something stinky like fish.

Tell me about it. It is bloody loud though

Values seem all over the place in E11 at the moment some people seem to be kite flying and getting away with it, and others seem to have almost underpriced to get an offer quickly.

Our lovely neighbours in Chichester road have literally just sold their awesome flat and I was slightly surprised at the price they put it on at as I thought it would have been worth a fair bit more.

Our lovely neighbours in Chichester road have literally just sold their awesome flat and I was slightly surprised at the price they put it on at as I thought it would have been worth a fair bit more.

Maybe prospective purchasers were put off by the neighbours, so they had to lower the price?

Are you supposed to sit on that ?

*fryjpg

Well I didn't know you lived in my road? Which number ?

Walthamstow too, don't see why there is 100k between these two...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-84772627.html
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-97191416.html

One is "spacious" and one is "incredibly spacious."

I agree that E10, 11 and 17 prices seem to be plucked out of the air at times.

But with those houses, and I'm not saying it's 100K difference but the cheaper one has the master bathroom off the kitchen downstairs which is a big negative for many, plus the more expensive one has a better designed/bigger kitchen extension and looks like a higher end loft conversion. Plus the cheaper one looks like it's an end plot with smaller garden that has a house potentially blocking light.