Viewing / Buying a house

[Genie]

A lot of those issues we had with our previous nightmare place @Stevo985. Shed and all down the side of the house was full of junk. Our solicitor said it wasn’t worth the agro to try and recover money from them. It’s a long process with little chance of success. For the sake of £150 just lob it all in a skip.

Once we got it finished we sold it (for a tidy profit) and bought a brand new house such were the scars of fixings a decade of other peoples bodges.

[Stevo985]

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

A lot of those issues we had with our previous nightmare place @Stevo985. Shed and all down the side of the house was full of junk. Our solicitor said it wasn’t worth the agro to try and recover money from them. It’s a long process with little chance of success. For the sake of £150 just lob it all in a skip.

Once we got it finished we sold it (for a tidy profit) and bought a brand new house such were the scars of fixings a decade of other peoples bodges.

They've agreed to pay it to be fair. Think she knew she was taking the piss.

We've arranged a house clearing company to come and take it all away. We just needed to move the stuff from the loft into a bedroom as they wouldn't go in the loft.

 

I'm already up against it with time so I didn't fancy spending a day or more moving stuff up and down stairs into skips 

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

They've agreed to pay it to be fair. Think she knew she was taking the piss.

We've arranged a house clearing company to come and take it all away. We just needed to move the stuff from the loft into a bedroom as they wouldn't go in the loft.

 

I'm already up against it with time so I didn't fancy spending a day or more moving stuff up and down stairs into skips 

That’s good. In our case the sellers were a nightmare from start to finish so the solicitor didn’t hold out much hope of them being cooperative. 

We needed a skip anyway as the things like carpets we thought were ok were not salvageable so just ended up getting a bigger one for their crap. 

It’s nice when it comes together though. My lad was only about 2 at the time and were were both devastated we brought him to such a shit hole. We did 1 room at at time and did his bedroom first, seeing it plastered, painted, carpeted was amazing.

[mottaloo]

Slightly OT but I have not long returned from the council tip site. Dumped an old table and some bits .....something really therapeutic about being able to launch crap in to a massive skip, especially stuff left over from a failed relationship. 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

We needed a skip anyway as the things like carpets we thought were ok were not salvageable so just ended up getting a bigger one for their crap. 

This was my logic at first. They'd told us the seller had left "A few things"

So I said I was getting a skip anyway and as long as they fitted into that then I'd be fine just chucking them in there.

Then turned up and found out it was an entire loft and an entire shed. So they're **** paying  

[AVFC_Hitz]

Have you not had a swift butchers to see if they've got anything valuable?

[Xela]

2 hours ago, mottaloo said:

Slightly OT but I have not long returned from the council tip site. Dumped an old table and some bits .....something really therapeutic about being able to launch crap in to a massive skip, especially stuff left over from a failed relationship. 

Not the Lonsdale joggers?! 

[mottaloo]

14 minutes ago, Xela said:

Not the Lonsdale joggers?! 

They are timeless. They are my best friends. I can't ever imagine ever throwing them away.

Buy a pair. See if I'm wrong....and I'll see you in sainsburys, my friend 

[Xela]

Just now, mottaloo said:

They are timeless. They are my best friends. I can't ever imagine ever throwing them away.

Buy a pair. See if I'm wrong....and I'll see you in sainsburys, my friend 

Slazenger Cru 4EVA x

[Stevo985]

5 hours ago, AVFC_Hitz said:

Have you not had a swift butchers to see if they've got anything valuable?

Of course.

One of the boxes has a sizeable BluRay collection, most of which will be going on eBay

 

Plus some floppy disks marked "Girls (Samantha Fox)"

[AvfcRigo82]

On 24/04/2023 at 12:16, Stevo985 said:

I've worked on it every day from 13th Apr to yesterday. And all but two of those days were at least 12 hour days.

The house is an absolute cluster ****. On the one hand I admire the previous owners for taking on every single task that has ever needed doing rather than using professionals. But on the other hand I hate their guts for completely **** them all up. Bar none. Every day brings another surprise

 

Bitten the bullet and hired a plasterer to skim almost every room. After 6 solid days of stripping wallpaper for 12 hours a day (literally), I finally admitted defeat. They can't be saved

You did the right thing in the end.

As I said to @blandy, some get lucky and some don't. It's more often than not that it's a disaster that is hiding underneath.

Hope the house works out fine for you in the end though. Sounds like a b***** of a task you've had to deal with.

[Stevo985]

12 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

You did the right thing in the end.

As I said to @blandy, some get lucky and some don't. It's more often than not that it's a disaster that is hiding underneath.

Hope the house works out fine for you in the end though. Sounds like a b***** of a task you've had to deal with.

It'll all work out. Just costing more money and time than I thought. We're lucky that we've got the flat we live in now until the end of May so we're able to live here until the house is ready.

If we'd had to move in and do all this work I don't know how we'd have done it

[AvfcRigo82]

31 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It'll all work out. Just costing more money and time than I thought. We're lucky that we've got the flat we live in now until the end of May so we're able to live here until the house is ready.

If we'd had to move in and do all this work I don't know how we'd have done it

That's one good thing that you still have a place to stay while this is all going on. It would be even worse if you had to live there while also doing the work. Hell.

It will be all worth it in the end as you say and a good investment in the long run.

Edited April 26, 2023 by AvfcRigo82

[rjw63]

4 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

That's one good thing that you still have a place to stay while this is all going on. It would be even worse if you had to live there while also doing the work. Hell.

It will be all worth it in the end as you say and a good investment in the long run.

Is the garden big enough for a horse though?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stevo985]

Guess what?

They DID have woodchip wallpaper on the ceilings. And I DID have to strip it off.

It's so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Genie]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Guess what?

They DID have woodchip wallpaper on the ceilings. And I DID have to strip it off.

It's so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet you were thinking “If I could have got another couple of grand off the price I could have paid someone to do all this shit”.

Thats what was going through my mind on my last house. 

[Stevo985]

7 minutes ago, Genie said:

I bet you were thinking “If I could have got another couple of grand off the price I could have paid someone to do all this shit”.

Thats what was going through my mind on my last house. 

Pretty much. I still think we got a bargain with this house, but not quite as big of a bargain as I thought before I started the work!

The Zoopla valuation and the bank's valuation were both 65k more than what we paid for it. I know that's very finger in the air stuff, but I'm confident once we've spruced the place up we'll have immediately added a load of value

 

Plasterer started yesterday, getting that done will be a huge step

[bobzy]

30 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Guess what?

They DID have woodchip wallpaper on the ceilings. And I DID have to strip it off.

It's so much fun!

Ahhhh, there it is!

 

[Stevo985]

It actually wasn't THAT bad with the steamer, but I could have done without it.

[lapal_fan]

When viewing the retirement/pension topic I saw a few people mention houses etc.

I've always been interested in house prices and the movements etc.  

I'm about to start a new job in July, and I'll be earning a decent salary, so you always think "I wonder if this will allow me take a step up the ladder, house wise". 

The short answer to that is, no.  House prices are famously expensive now, but when I see things like this:

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/64748641/?search_identifier=d85dc712ac9002f1d56fb93dc9e50812a7bb2f517251a86f40228e16c9e58f08 (the valuation for a house near my mom and dads house and it's previous listing price)

It kinda makes my blood boil. 

How can you not extend, and essentially redecorate and put in a new kitchen/bathroom and in, and make £300k in less than 5 years?  It's also literally a grey hell hole, no personality or anything.. white and grey.. everywhere. 

Small garden too.  

Sad to say that this isn't uncommon either, it's happening in a lot of deceased houses around my area.  Buy them, strip them back, paint white/grey, install lower-middle quality kitchen bathroom, astro the garden, deck the rest - boom, a profit of around £150k..  It's incredible and I can't wait for the bubble to burst.  

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/64748641/?search_identifier=d85dc712ac9002f1d56fb93dc9e50812a7bb2f517251a86f40228e16c9e58f08 (the listing of the house) They haven't even gone over the garage extension either.. 

Edit.  It isn't just  the price of the house either, it's the interest rates of around 5.5% which means that house would only cost you £2,900 a month..   

Something has to give, surely? 

Edited June 5, 2023 by lapal_fan