Liv and house viewings
Apr. 14th, 2014 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWeek
Liv has been working from home from Cambridge all week. It's been really lovely to spend just ordinary evenings together.
This weekend we went to her parents to help with passover prep for tonight. That's always a huge bustle, but I think we are actually coping a lot better than we used to, in that it's not constantly stressful.
I finally sold and transferred some shares left over from my previous job into my normal savings account. This is a thing that has been stressing me for years, not because it's actually that complicated, but because I was cross with myself about it.
House viewings
We went to several serious house viewings. A couple which were nice, but look un-insulatable, and one which was perfectly good: nice inside, medium living room plus small conservatory, nicely acceptable kitchen and bathroom. Off the east side of Ditton Lane (the opposite side to "the bulge").
We need to check if that's near the flooding area, because we don't want to risk that. Does anyone know how to check? (Obviously we can confirm that during the survey, etc, but there's no point going that far unless we think it's ok and we only need proof.)
If that's ok we're seriously intending to make an offer. The asking price is £250k (just below the stamp duty threshold). I'm not sure what to expect people to actually offer -- I think the competition in Fen Ditton is noticeably less, so I don't know whether to expect "most people will stick below the threshold so a cash offer of £250k might be at the head of the queue", or "even at the stamp duty threshold people will bid up by several thousand" or "any offer less than £275 is naive and insulting".
I'm not sure how much we value a slightly larger house (say, three medium bedrooms rather than two medium bedrooms) or living in arbury/chesterton instead of fen ditton. I like the fen ditton area, but I think arbury is probably better because it's closer most of my friends. I think we'd be equally happy paying the market value for this house, or paying £270 for a house which was larger or closer to the area I want to be in (even if we have to borrow a small amount).
Liv has been working from home from Cambridge all week. It's been really lovely to spend just ordinary evenings together.
This weekend we went to her parents to help with passover prep for tonight. That's always a huge bustle, but I think we are actually coping a lot better than we used to, in that it's not constantly stressful.
I finally sold and transferred some shares left over from my previous job into my normal savings account. This is a thing that has been stressing me for years, not because it's actually that complicated, but because I was cross with myself about it.
House viewings
We went to several serious house viewings. A couple which were nice, but look un-insulatable, and one which was perfectly good: nice inside, medium living room plus small conservatory, nicely acceptable kitchen and bathroom. Off the east side of Ditton Lane (the opposite side to "the bulge").
We need to check if that's near the flooding area, because we don't want to risk that. Does anyone know how to check? (Obviously we can confirm that during the survey, etc, but there's no point going that far unless we think it's ok and we only need proof.)
If that's ok we're seriously intending to make an offer. The asking price is £250k (just below the stamp duty threshold). I'm not sure what to expect people to actually offer -- I think the competition in Fen Ditton is noticeably less, so I don't know whether to expect "most people will stick below the threshold so a cash offer of £250k might be at the head of the queue", or "even at the stamp duty threshold people will bid up by several thousand" or "any offer less than £275 is naive and insulting".
I'm not sure how much we value a slightly larger house (say, three medium bedrooms rather than two medium bedrooms) or living in arbury/chesterton instead of fen ditton. I like the fen ditton area, but I think arbury is probably better because it's closer most of my friends. I think we'd be equally happy paying the market value for this house, or paying £270 for a house which was larger or closer to the area I want to be in (even if we have to borrow a small amount).
no subject
Date: 2014-04-14 09:52 am (UTC)a) Usually, the asking price is what people hope they might get and the offers are less. If it's through an agent, they should tell you if someone else is offering more, but watch out for dodgy agents who try to boost the price when their commission depends on it. You'd only need to go above the asking price if there is another buyer willing to battle for it.
b) There are various ways of checking flood risk. The local council has a risk report you can look at. The Environment Agency has maps of flood areas but the most local online covers the whole of Anglia.
c) You may know someone who lives in the area - try #debian-uk.
d) Knock on the doors of potential neighbours. If they object, they're not going to be good neighbours anyway!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-14 12:46 pm (UTC)We got our house for £200K when they were asking £220, but that was in September 2008 just before house prices took a small dip. (Scarily Zoopla currently estimates it at £249K!) Zoopla isn't a bad place to look for ideas of what similar houses in the same street/area are valued at.