Owning your own home

This is solid advice. Will rustle up some local toe rags to loiter...

I get the feeling the EA is trying to create some sort of frenzy,

They are - because they can’t do it any other way. Market is slow. Everyone knows this. Now is not the time for offers at or above asking price, don’t get sucked in.

Know anyone who plays the bagpipes? They're handy people to know if you want to get people worried about noise. A chalk Saltaire on the payment opposite and an enthusiastic bagpipeist should do the job nicely.

sausage frozen hammers their into lawn

Also, borrow a rusty, shitty, massive van. Park it right outside. Find some local scumbag kids and pay them £20 to hang round outside being a nuisance. Organise a fixie beers meeting outside.

Or hire a full white tuxedo and top hat. And a diamond topped cane. And just waltz around the house. All day. Keep £200 in your pockets. And occassionally just let £10s slip out on the floor. But don't pick them up.

Sorry.

A quick look on Rightmove at Walthamstow, there's a lot of competition around the 600k mark. And plenty seem to have been reduced. So might be a buyers market.

I play the banjo. badly. will work for commission.

lolz

MOAR SOLID ADVICE everyone. Massive thanks.

Will put on my big boy pants and poker face and see what transpires. I have fallen out of love with buying a doer upper as life for living and aint no one got time to project manage a full rebuild/remodel plus where do you live in the meantime. I totes have time seeing as I'm planning on not working in Jan but thats not the point...

I actually do know bagpipers, 'ol mans Scottish so we always have a piper at any family get together, will give one a shout...

They are - because they can’t do it any other way. Market is slow. Everyone knows this. Now is not the time for offers at or above asking price, don’t get sucked in.

Unless it genuinely is cheap. If everything else the same is £700k and this one is £600k prepare yourself for a bidding war.

If you've been looking around you should have a good sense of whether it looks cheap, about right or expensive.

Its a tough one to call, it's been renovated perfectly by people with similar tastes, which is a rarity. The middle class conservatory is perfect, and the ply kitchen is just the right size (I HATE big kitchens). It also has a cheeky "studio" at the end of the garden. Similar priced properties tend to have one more bedroom, or more actually, that one I linked on the last page is 15k less and 4 bedrooms and near twice the square foot... but the usual disgusting-bought-to-flip-shiney-kitchen, hmmm...

turns out we have more equity in our current flat than we initially thought. which is nice.

current plan is to smash as much of it into the new mortgage and pay the peripherals (stamp duty, lawyers fees, survey etc) out of our savings.

strong / dick move?

Depends what your long term goal is, but if that’s to be mortgage free before you die then probably the best move.

On the other side of the coin. I'm seriousy thinking I might invest in a do-er upper. Potentially try to flip 3 or 4 houses. In the next year or so.

Has anyone done that kinda shit for a living? Any advice?

I don't wanna do it forever. I've got a job. But I think it might be a good option to work my way towards a larger deposit, for the house I want. Like, if I could flip myself from 65k deposit to about 120k deposit, that'd sort me out.

(I did do a total renovation on house I'm selling now, but over like 6/7 years, and never planned to sell)

Just did some calculations... I could prob get mortgage free in 15 years if I actually tried, thats pretty nuts. I need to pull my socks up and get on with getting on.

I'd do that if I were you given your new place is all done up you won't need cash as soon as you move in .. I want to become a London landlord before I go back to colonies.

yup that's the plan. also want to keep the mortgage under 350K if poss.

If it's tough to call I'd day it's about right.

Play it cool.

I've never done it myself but in a flat to declining market (assuming you are in London / SE) I can't see it being a route to getting rich quickly.

Stamp duty, agents, legal etc all mean you have to make at least 5% profit on purchase cost just to break even.

I think the people that made money in that game between 1992 and 2007 made most of their money through highly leveraged (90+% ltv) exposure to a strongly rising property market, rather than because you get such a huge pickup from money spent sprucing up a property, new kitchen and bathrooms etc etc.

Ya ya, I know what you mean. Not in London. Selling in North West, but may do this in North East. Stamp duty is negligible nowadays, certainly on sub 200k anyway.

But yeah, I don't wanna get rick quick or owt. Just increase my deposit for my own home. So more like, make 10-20k per house. Do it three or four times. That'll make up my shortfall for what/where I want to buy.

Yes but it’s on an A Road.

No thanks.

In other news, I’ve just painted, tiled and grouted our staircase. How many middle class points do we get for that?

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All the points. Is that F&B paint, too?

Obvs.

My wife just won a F&B photo competition, winning us 10 litres of free paint.

Lolz.

Nice work.
Please use some of it to paint the entire rail the same colour :-)

Nice. You could have a bath on them.