Owning your own home

If you want a few acres of wood there are places flogging it, eg https://www.woodlands.co.uk/

3 acres of lumpy ground next to the A20 is apparently 50k. Why would you want to listen to traffic?

I'd be more after a fifth of something like this: https://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/southern-scotland-and-northumberland/gatton-wood#8.85/55.8572/-3.5318 but still way too expensive really for what amounts to a shed

That is the sensible option but I feel like normally you'd have the option of putting that kinda stuff in a shed or up the attic and I'm aggrieved that those are a luxury these days

Again this is from a place of 99% ignorance, but isn't there something special about woodland from a tax or investment perspective? And isn't that why it's more expensive?

If so shit farm land would probably be the cheapest entry. I wonder if with Goves various wildlife policies there's an easy route to renaturising or whatever so in 5yrs you could have something that looks less like a shit bit of field.

No IHT, subject to a few additional conditions. Small parcels are always more expensive per acre. Still a reasonable amount of woodland grants are available. Woodlands are quite decent to deal with, basically, they buy a large plot, then split it down, add covenants, provide basic support etc. Friend owns a small parcel bought through them, he seems happy enough, uses it frequently.

Guys did you not see my blockchain, ML, Woods as a Service pitchdeck three pages back??!

Exchanged baby. Completion date 10th June. See y'all in the reno thread.

Wrong thread > https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/157546/?offset=26550

Ha.

Our offer was rejected. Was a little more than the above but below asking. I asked TMH for reasoning on a 33% increase in property value in Blunham and they just said that’s what their valuer placed it at.

They apparently have another offer at or around asking from a couple who don’t need to sell (2nd house or ftb?). They have some more viewings this weekend and then looking to bring to a close next week. Have to decide how much we want it now…

wahey! does that mean you can share a rightmove link now?! :D

It's not meant to be. I don't know you, but knowing that area sod moving out if London to there. If you want out of London go to somewhere better. Location is so important.

Go rent an Airbnb there for a week. You'll see.

Ps sorry if anyone lives there.

^ pls this pls

What is the current wait time between getting a mortgage in principle and the actual mortgage going through after an offer?

It will take a few days for the application to go through but the big delay at the moment is valuations as it’s really busy for surveyors/valuers at the moment, we waited 10 days for a valuation and that’s with santander being so busy they farmed out jobs to Town & Country, our buyer has just had a ‘desktop valuation’ probably due to not having somebody available (this is Barclays who have good rates so are snowed under).
just getting an ordinary survey booked can take 2 weeks.

Yep, you’re thinking about it the wrong way, the MIP takes 10 minutes as it’s spat through a computer algorithm. Actually getting a mortgage requires a valuation of the property by a human, and assuming that human agrees with what you’re offering. It could be weeks or not at all.

Wahey indeed! I will send details when I am more sure it will go through, or conversely, when I know that it won't!

Hence the question😉 thanks @Mr_Smyth and @Jameo is there anything you can do as a seller to get a better idea of what the timeframe is going to look like if your buyers are waiting for survey and your agent is not ‘on it’?

We've put an offer on another house as we've got one on ours now. We've gone for a spicy 40k below asking because one sold last year a few doors down and just over that and in much better condition. Fully expecting it to be rejected but worth a try and I dont think it's worth what they're asking.

Was it really worth a try ?

If someone had offered 40k less when I was selling a few months back I'd have laughed out loud and told the agent not to correspond any further with them.

Depends where I think. Market seems to be cooling in some places. Obviously it would have been lolz in East London in 2021 to offer under asking.

Even last few weeks things haven't cooled off that much round here. You might have got an email from the thieves at petty sons etc about the tired house in my road. 60k odd over asking was the final bid. People are still throwing money about like confetti.

Oof

Its been on the market for a month with no offers and no more viewings even booked in. The seller is a landlord who's owned it for 20 years so I don't think they're in a hurry to sell. Its in a great location but compared to the one 2 doors down that sold last year for cheaper it basically needs a full renovation. If they laugh it off and block us, fine, it's too expensive for what it is.

Very similar to the house we bought which had been a student let the past 10 or so years - originally listed in August 2020 for offers over 225, dropped to overs over 215 in October 2020, we didn’t view it until April 2021 - 195 rejected, 205 rejected but then a week later after them pushing for 2-3k more and me saying ‘no thanks’ they accepted 205.

When first listed, houses on the same street in much nicer condition were going for about 240 or so, and were being snapped up in a few days to a couple of weeks.

Landlord/seller also turned out to be super slow, didn’t empty the house of furniture at all, had hundreds of letters in their name piled up, and left £300 of debts on the meters.