Owning your own home

That article is kind of gross

they sold their home in Stockwell for £800,000; craving space and fresh air, they bought a four-bedroom house in a remote village in Dorset for £780,000.
...
Yet, almost 18 months on, country life isn’t what Emma and Daniel, 41, who runs his own business, imagined at all.
...
The couple have put their house on the market for £880,000

Why?

Yes, that bit really stuck with me too. Why should they suffer for their mistake?! Someone else will obviously pay! Classic Sunday Times awfulness really.

Aesop is not cheap.

Basically they fuck up, without even losing money.

I don’t get it. Would the morally superior position be selling for the same price as they bought?

100k in 18m doesn’t seem that mad. Maybe they hauge blued the fucker. Also who knows if they’ll actually get £880k. Maybe they think rural property markets are like London…

Also with stamp duty, moving & legal fees it’s already a pretty punchy mistake

The bit I quoted, as an example. But also the whole "we thought it would be so idyllic" and spent close to £1M without really considering the realities, now we're going to throw even more cash at moving back. The overheated property markets leaking out of London into specific other parts of the country as a reflection on a rural fantasy lifestyle. It all just makes me feel ill. Tbf I am also just feeling nauseous in general at the moment due to illness, which doesn't help.

100k in 18m doesn’t seem that mad

I admit to being likely out of the loop on this too, but it's mad to me that that isn't mad.

Yeah tbf that is more of a London kinda bump

The tone of the article to me was ‘this has been a huge mistake. Worst decision we ever made, etc etc’. It’d be nice if my huge mistakes could net me 100k and the sympathy of the Sunday Times readership. I suppose that likely just about covers the stamp duty from the process, so it’s not a real win for them but hardly a catastrophic defeat.

I guess I’ll get an agent round in ~10 months, see what we’ve cleared and start looking at moving back to Catford to resume my job on the tourism board if the numbers are good…

100k in 18m doesn’t seem that mad

You get a pass on going in the golf club for exemplary prior behaviour :)

Hadn’t actually read the article, skimmed it now. 8 days! Hah. You’d feel like such a pillock.

and spent close to £1M without really considering the realities

It’s a gigantic leap of faith to do this, not something everyone can do on a whim, how do you know they did it on a whim? This;

an hour’s drive to buy a cup of coffee.

They could easily get what they wanted by getting a place just outside a city or town that’s not London, and a hella lots cheaper!

Or learn how to use a cafetiere

Especially when you realise it's an hour and a half to Paddington from Bath with its main line train station. Bath is not at all "the countryside" it's just a city that's smaller than London.

It all just makes me feel ill

Totally with you on this.

It is mad, @dbr needs a reality check!

What's the average price of a house in the UK? £240k or something?

Edit: £268k as of October.

Yup, grim

Bath great, Bristol too, they can have their cake and eat it.

Having spent 9 days out of the last 14 in Newcastle, I am firmly in the WTF would anyone not live in London camp right now.

extremely funny article

WTF would anyone not live in London camp right now.

edit; misread your post.

Haha, let me know when you've been waiting as long as us, mid august we started the process, not happened yet.
TBF it is genuinely end of the earth type location, and right now, the 17p kwh unit charge and £2.20 a week SC for electric isn't bad compared to any new credit account you can get for that location (all deep into 24-28p kwh kind of area).

Yup, jumped up about a new golf gti mk8 in one year, mental. Especially when you consider that all the grotty dead mining villages of the north where a 2 up 2 down was £10k a few years ago, is still £10k now, only its got extra holes in the roof. So the reality is worse than the quoted numbers, also think that gov generated number doesn't include new builds for some reason, or maybe its coop/housing association owned houses that don't count (even the ones that are sold as part of diversifying the development?).

In theory the account was put in my name as of Thursday - just waiting for new meter keys/cards to start topping up without the looming debt currently on the meters… they say I have them in 48hrs (chased up to as I never received the confirmation email they said would arrive - but not sure if that’s not as the same email is already associated with our rental’s account)