I actually have doors but it wouldn't take much to modify them from sliding to opening ones. It's a 6ft built in wardrobe I want to go from sliding doors to pully out ones.
Oh I see. £150-200 sounds about right.
We bought an 111 year old house back in May, which we realised when we moved in needed a fair bit of work. We knew the roof would need doing (circa £6k), but there were loads of little things that needed doing - there were hardly any sockets, just fucking extension leads screwed to the wall! The house has been bodged to death over the years, which is hilarious as the previous tenant's father in law is fucking builder!
We're slowly working our way through each room in the house, living room is decorated, dining room next. Main bedroom after, so we're currently squatting in the second bedroom. It's time consuming and sometimes soul destroying, but will be worth it in the end.
I'm looking to buy in the next few months. Will likely be a 2-bed flat (fuck London), but hopefully in a nice part of East London. Going to cost a fucking bomb but I should have a solid deposit.
I've got about £13k factored in for buying/moving costs (including stamp duty). Does that sound right?
You know the stamp duty, £13,000 should be more than sufficient. £1000-1500 on a decent solicitor plus disbursements (do not use an online conveyancing company or anyone based in Leeds, aka O'Neill Patient, Premier Property Lawyers, Enact. They're just conveyancing factories and you get a team of paralegals rather than a solicitor, it makes the transaction time double and massively increases the chances of it falling through).
Plus removal company (PM me closer to the time, there's a Finchley based one I can get you a £250 discount on), couple of hundred on a survey. £13,000 should be more than enough.
That's disgusting. All in all it cost us about 7k to buy and sell.
If you're like me get ready for weeks of going from joy and excitement to feeling really sick once you put an offer and stuff in. Well worth it though.
A mate of mine is looking for a place to rent, I've offered him my spare room at a discount compared to rent for flats near me. He's been to look at the room tonight, seemed keen enough.
Work in progress for the apartment. The Eames guest chair-inspired navy-grey chairs are fantastically comfortable. The other chairs will eventually give way when a couch comes in, but they're a '60s Danish vintage. The two tables are from my grandpa's car lot in the '50s.
Note the dining area has a scale and no food. It's an art installation based on anorexia.
I bought my first home with the missus in Jan, nice place. Single floor, good size garden, three bedrooms. Kitchen needs to be replaced though, bit dated.
Got a builder mate, to put a a few 1.8m fences so the dog does not jump and run to the next door neighbours place to see there dog.
Spending a small fortune at the moment.
Cool - thanks for the info. I think I'm over budgeting a fair bit (I've got £1k as 'misc.' and one month's rent in my current place which I may not need, so that's around £2k extra). Stamp Duty is around half of that. I'll give you a shout about the removal stuff (providing Phonics hasn't killed the place with an upgrade
I'm in London. Everything is ridiculously expensive.
I'm going through that now as I'm in the process of selling my mum's place, which I inherited. It's a gigantic pain in the arse and buyers are fuckwits. The whole process is set-up purely to benefit the legal/agent people and the buyers/sellers get screwed.
Raoul this is what it cost us. Not London but 280k house and doing our own removals with borrowed van:
1 months extra rent - £775
extra bills from switchover - £200
stamp duty - £4000
valuation fee - £270
conveyancing including searches etc - £1010
Total - £6255
Yeah but they actually do work. We don't need estate agents it should be like autotrader where you sell it yourself and pay a nominal fee for advertising.
That's your opinion, it's going to take one vendor being raped by an applicant to put an end to that.
The selling it bit is not difficult, it's the three months afterwards where it could all go tits up. It's a bit different in Scotland, where an autotrader system could probably work. But in my opinion you need someone who knows what they're actually doing to keep on top of it, especially if there are complexities or chains involved.
And solicitors do work. Pull the other one. I come across a good solicitor once or twice a year.
I'm just winding you up. It's a good system in Scotland though where is the seller's responsibility to get the survey done and renewed if required.
The system in England is fucked.
What needs to happen is prior to marketing the vendor has to take care of the survey, searches and prepare an entire legal pack.
Then make it work like an auction system where it's legally binding on acceptance of offer.
At that point I'd completely agree that anyone could sell their own house.
So I hope it never changes
Although to be fair, if the vendor is paying for all of those things anyway, the selling costs will be close to what they're paying an agent any way, it would just add more security.
We're looking into buying a new build, which I still think feels way too grown-up but then it turns out that even the shittiest mortgage we'd get would see me shelling out less per month than I currently do in rent anyway, with the added bonus that I'd be able to nail stuff into the walls and have them a different colour than beige if I fancied it.
Any home owners rented a room out?
My mate had been talking about moving, he rents a flat with someone who's never there so I offered him my spare room. He's coming the end of the month.
He's going to be paying less rent than he does now because I'm nice, he'll still be paying more than my mortgage payments are
Congrats
Had our application for a lush flat rejected, as we're both new in our jobs. Fucking annoying really, as it's not like we were sacked from the last place, we just happen to have had new jobs within a short space of time within each other (both holding our previous jobs for three years +).
The gutting thing is, there's not going to be many flats like that where we're looking. Feel like we've missed a gem, compared to the other shit available.
Was that to buy, Benny?
How does Benny go from steady girlfriend to steady girlfriend while I've been single pretty much the entire time I've noticed him posting on this board
I don't think I could do flats again, or at least none near Chinese students. Is door slamming part of the etiquette over there?
No not buying yet, I've saved up enough for 10% deposit on a reasonable house round these parts but I'm in no rush to buy one until I'm with a girl I know I want to be with longterm. I can wait a couple of years and see if this relationship goes that long and then make that decision, but I'm eager to live with her prior to that.
Bitches want to put a saddle on this bronco, can't avoid it.
Oh, I assumed buying as I didn't think having changed job recently would have stopped you renting.
Can't you even get a guarantor?
I can get a guarantor if they'd have asked but when I mentioned to the guy showing us the place that we're both in new jobs, he said it wouldn't be a problem. I think the other applicants had been in their jobs for a long time, according to the agent, so they were chosen over us... It could be they're boring middle aged people and thought it would be a 'safer' option, who knows.
Pretty good first time buyer guide here: http://images.moneysavingexpert.com/...BGuide2015.pdf
I've just seen Jordan's place. It looks like where American Psycho would live.
Painting the window frame from 90s varnish to a nice white colour (eggshell gloss).
Keyed with fine sandpaper, 3 coats of undercoat, another fine sand and then 2 coats of the gloss. Two day job as I can't be arsed doing 5 coats in one day including the drying times.
I've never given a shit about buying a house and doubt I ever will but if ever I'm tempted the idea of having to spend my time doing shit jobs like that will correct my position.
Why is it shit? You're improving something that is yours, do you not think you'd get a tremendous sense of achievement? I'm that bad at D.I.Y when I actually do get something done it makes me very proud. Such a shit little job as well but honestly it will improve the bathroom no end, it's fucking ridiculous having this horrible varnished wood everywhere. Just wait until I tackle the skirting.
Not a criticism mate, if you like it you like it. It just isn't something I'd care about. I can't say I'd feel a sense of achievement but then I got that from eating home-grown tomatoes in an omelette last week and they were going to grow whatever I did with them so I'm in no position to judge. House stuff just bores me.
It's called 'The House Thread'. I live in a house.
I bet it's absolutely littered with Corona Pine and the occassional bit of Next/Oak Furniture Land furniture.
I don't even know what that stuff is.
I bet Laur does. She's probably got 3ft high piles of TESCO Home Living magazines at her bedside. It's probably blocking out the abortion of a love poem vinyl you've got on the wall.
She has not. She might have that sort of thing somewhere but it's well hidden if so. She knows better than to engage me in that kind of conversation too. I leave her in charge of that stuff. As a result the house looks nice and our furniture is comfy. That's where my interest ends.
She did take me furniture shopping the other week and I wanted to buy a mulitcoloured suite so it's definitely better this way. Instead we have some grey suite coming next week. It was nice enough to sit on in the shop so it will do for me. The fit sales assistant made me a logely cup of tea as well.
Yep. I lived alone for the first 6 months then had a mate move in short term. He left and a month later another guy from work moved in. It gives you less control of how clean the flat is (which doesn't bother me too much as I give it a once over at weekends). Other than that I don't notice it much and I get an extra few hundred quid a month.
Might start ploughing some money into my mortgage if I'm not sacked in the next few months.
Cool!
He's moving in next week, looking forward to it really, be cool to have someone to just up and go the pub with whenever I fancy. He's also pretty tidy from what I've seen. We've agreed that I'll clean up on a Saturday morning while he's at work and he'll clean up on a Wednesday while I'm at work. Sounds good to me.
If you're both pretty clean it's not an issue. The guy I live with at the moment isn't much of a cleaner, but he tidies away his dirty dishes / dishwasher and bins often enough.
I actually quite like having the company too, it's very easy to slip into a lazy routine in the evening when you're by yourself.
Yeah, big improvement.
My flat is in new build and as it's settling it's starting to get a few cracks and stuff. I was expecting this of course. My plan is to start saving after Christmas and then during the summer holidays I'm going to get everywhere painted and looking fresh again. I'm not looking forward to it.
Now do something about those tiles, Magic.
I've been out looking at flats/houses the last couple of weekends. Christ it's depressing. Ex-council shithole for £400k? O RLY?
Demerit - hook a brother up!