Owning your own home

Yup it's had a loft extension added recently. It's not a fixer upper

You Londoners and your crazy house prices. I'm already in the North and selling because of human-leaving-human stuff, and I might move further North 'cos the amount more house you get is just insane.

You guys could trade in your half million pound gaffs for bloody castles I tell thee.

Yeah but think of the commute.

Bullet trains. Or something.

I hear ya... We chucked down a 40% deposit on our place, don't know how people do it otherwise...

Nobody* goes in with the most they are willing to pay. So ask for more.

Is this true?
We went in at asking price when market was fairly buoyant, they asked for more (said they'd got a better offer etc), we said no, they said ok. We bought it.

You are suralan sugar aicmfp
Nice to call the seller's bluff if you can, we were too scared when we bought our place.

Which place?

Glenfarg Road. The one @greenhell is buying.

Ah ha! Nice, @6pt is a pro catford-er @greenhell .. hopefully soon I'll be your neighbor and we won't have to ever talk IRL!

I always, out of morbid curiosity, compare what my budget could get me back "home" (Norwich) and it always makes me a little sad. You can find perfectly nice 2 up 2 downs for sub 200k.

Friends who feel priced out of East are talking about moving to a place called Crystal Palace which makes me sad as I have never even heard of it and it prob doesnt have Bullet trains.

Took me ages before I worked out suralan...
It wasn't calling their bluff, we just went in at max. We figured there's no point messing around - if they get a lot of offers why would you deliberately go in lower. We offered our max precisely because we were serious.

/releases the hounds

We made an offer on a place yesterday, man it's nerve racking. Got no sleep last night and can't stop staring at my phone waiting for a response.

First place we offered on (asking price, early 2007) the EA never called us back.

Eventually (a week later I think) we rang only to be told "Oh, no, you were outbid by a long way. Sorry, did I not ring you?"

Luckily this meant we dodged a place that really wouldn't have worked for us. The second place we offered on (again asking price) we got and it's still working well for us 10 years later.

Survey came back, needs around about £5ks worth of work doing. Just knock that off the offer?

^ yup.

Depends on the market, and type of property. When we bought our flat 2 years ago you had to fight other prospective buyers in a bear pit, whoever survived got to purchase at above asking price.

I think we are in a much better than that. They had no offers in 6 weeks, we are the first. I assume their viewings have dried up too.

Must fight urge to call the EA for an update...

In the end we got lucky and found one that had a buyer pull out before exchange, the builder/seller was desperate and the EA never wanted to see it again. Got it off the market there and then for under market value as we were seen as a quick sale. We must have seen 60 flats by then, and been 'outbid' on about 15.

sadly those days are long over.

I reckon now is a good time to buy, esspecially given you are not selling the other place

Thank fuck! Generally we refused to play the game hence seeing so many before getting a relative bargain.

Good on ya, I remember pals buying a few years back went to so many viewings and always lost out by some cash buyer offering 50k above. Jokers.

I'm the same. Can't help but compare.

But this time I have to. I'm in Manchester and the market has just gone up and up in the last 10 years since we bought. Ours has increased in value by 70%. (Some is home improvement) If I take that profit "home" to Teesside, I can get a 3-4 bed semi, anywhere between 120k - 180k depending on area. And drastically reduce my mortgage.

Just means a 2 hour train to Mcr, but I'm freelance these days, so maybe it's the right time.