Owning your own home

Sorry to hear it but it seems you've got a good handle on the process. The only thing you can do is offer what you're happy to offer, and if it doesn't work out, you've not lost anything. Bidding over what you're comfortable with is a permanent problem for a temporary solution - at some point during the buy process the niggle that you'd paid over would reach critical mass one way or another. Hope your wife recovers soon - it's such an emotive thing. Sometimes immediate viewings of other properties help.

Similar to the house we offered £20k under on. Really nice location and good bones but needed a ton of work and no way it was worth what they were asking. The seller was a landlord and it hadn't had any offers in weeks but he refused to drop the price so he was obviously only in it for the money. It would have been a good project but only for the right price.

Give it 6 weeks and the winning bidders will have no mortgage on the overpriced house and you'll get a call asking it you still want it...

Haha, could well be!

I've made a slightly lower offer on another place. We had originally put in an optimistic low ball offer on it because it has been on the market for many months now, just to see if they were desperate to shift it. We went off it for a bit because the seller came back and said they wouldn't accept less than 1% below asking price, which we felt was unreasonable given the lack of other interest.

I think it's a great place, with many positives over the other one we put in an offer for, albeit some negatives as well. The issue is that my wife is still grieving the loss of the other place, and isn't sure she is in love with the place. I've told her that if she isn't in love with it, it's not right for us, but I personally would be gutted if we didn't get this one.

In previous weeks we had gone in with an offer 15% below asking, then 5% below asking. Last night I put in a revised offer 3% below asking, and the estate agent says they're putting pressure on the seller that this is a very good offer that they'd be mad to decline in the current market. Let's see!

Stopped in at Waddesdon Manor, one of the Rothschilds' pads. It's a fair size but what really got me was the painting they had done of some of their houses

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You mean you don’t have a painting like that in one of your houses?

I've got plenty of blank pieces of paper which serve an equivalent purpose

Well we got the other one for 3% below asking price, which I feel great about, and my wife is very excited about too!

They had previously said they would not give more than 1% below asking, despite having been for sale for more than 4 months now.

Housing market seems funny right now. Nothing is selling round here, but only very few seem to be dropping their prices as a result. What ever happened to supply and demand market forces?

EA came around yesterday and said he could sell our place within 4 weeks for 0.75% (which seems a super low fee).

He said he'd recommend putting it on for offers over £x and expect to get somewhere around x+5% to x+10% "depending on how many people from Hackney are trying to buy it" lol.

So far so good. Now just have to decide if we really cba to move and if so, to where. I'm starting to feel some anxiety at the prospect of being more than 10 mins walk from the victoria line. Is that a bit like moving to watford or something?!

I've only seen a couple of places that I vaguely like, one is over budget and the other needs a huge amount of work...

Thinking about moving and looking at houses on Rightmove is great and I love it, but actually moving is a right stressful pain in the arse.

Same with renovation, thinking about it is good fun, the end product is (hopefully) really rewarding and satisfying, but there's a huge heap of a shit bit in between.

My concern would be that doing all that but ending up in a slightly smaller place in a similar location might not seem worth it unless there's a real, tangible difference in lifestyle or mindset that the move facilitates.

ending up in a slightly smaller place in a similar location might not seem worth it

yeah, this is pretty much the conclusion i'm coming to.

the houses that I like are only slightly smaller than our current home, and the financials of moving to one of those are at best marginal.

we could go to a significantly smaller place and the financial side of it would be good, but then when I start thinking
"where do my floor standing speakers go?"
"where do our bikes go?"
"where will we have a desk to wfh?"
"where will my 2m x 2m weeping fig go?"
"what is it going to be like when both teenagers are back from uni or otherwise at home and one wants to have friends stay over?" (as is the case currently)
etc.

then the reality of what it would be like to live in a much smaller place start to hit home, and how spoilt for space we are in our current place becomes apparent.

all very golf club / 1st world problems, i know.

What are the likelihoods that your teenagers may at some point have kids and not live near you?

Yeah, it's possible although seems unlikely in the foreseeable future (at least the grand kids bit does, anyway). It's possible the elder one may decide to stay in Leeds next summer rather than coming home to live with us for the whole summer.

There is also the theory that if we have less space, hanging out at our place becomes less attractive so there is an element of self fulfilling prophecy in having a large house which has lots of people in it.

1.94% to 5.85%. Two year fixed (interest only) so payments have (just over) tripled.

Have until 16th Sep to accept the deal, so if the rates fall in the next two weeks I can just pick up the newer rate.

Doesn't kick in until existing mortgage ends on 3rd October.

Now to focus on paying off a sizeable chunk in the next few years before Mrs GB wants to retire.

My parents did this, one does not follow the other, most of the time it's just the two of them knocking about in a huge house, rare that there's a big enough event to justify many people travelling from all corners of the country.

We need more bedrooms but not necessarily more space, therefore kitchen/ receptions usually feel a bit pokey in anything we've looked at.

it's just the two of them knocking about in a huge house

I think I'm coming at this from the other angle - if we move to a smaller house the kids might spend less time with us.

It's nice to see them but also as the country song goes

how can I miss you if you won't go away?

if we move to a smaller house the kids might spend less time with us

I think this is deffo a thing. My parents moved from Walthamstow to Chigwell and into a smaller house and I see them less. It could also be that I don't really like their house too though...

also... Chigwell. :-/

Well, quite.

Haha! Right, yes well I can't fault your logic, although there's a scenario where this backfires massively.

People can't afford the financial hit? Plus ego?

What ever happened to supply and demand market forces?

supply is still constrained, which is preventing a collapse in prices. prices are nudging down as affordability is getting stretched but there are still lots of people sitting on loads of equity who can afford to move and buy another place.

the rental market is massively overheated due to lack of supply which is keeping the first time buyer market afloat. how long that can keep going is another question...

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16915856/

The house is ours and the tree is nearly gone:

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wow - that was a big 'un.

leyland cypress? i like trees in general but getting rid of that is a good bit of community service. good work.

How can I tell if my floor is solid? This is in the context of getting a compression shelving unit, they are asking me if the floor is solid but not sure how I can actually tell how solid it is.. it’s a apartment building constructed 5 years back if that helps.

In other news I completed on the above flat a week back so just want to thank those that offered advice during the process!