Houses

[danny.]

5 minutes ago, Wolfox said:

It’s a nice house that…. No second bathroom is an issue, but, could be fixed…. A lot of house!  No idea if that represents value in the area?

Ha, I was thinking that - I guess you get used to S. Knighton prices!

[kenny]

2 minutes ago, danny. said:

Ha, I was thinking that - I guess you get used to S. Knighton prices!

Its a lot for Blaby!

 

It is a nice house, but you can get a lot better for that money I reckon.

[FoyleFox]

1 hour ago, Wolfox said:

It’s a nice house that…. No second bathroom is an issue, but, could be fixed…. A lot of house!  No idea if that represents value in the area?

There's very little available in the area according to rightmove. I think that's why this is the price it is. If I had a £700k budget I'd not buy this. One bathroom and the cinema room is accessed via the dressing room. And the kitchen is small. 

[FoxesDeb]

1 hour ago, FoyleFox said:

There's very little available in the area according to rightmove. I think that's why this is the price it is. If I had a £700k budget I'd not buy this. One bathroom and the cinema room is accessed via the dressing room. And the kitchen is small. 

I'd be very surprised if it reaches near the asking price. As we've already noted it only has one real bathroom shared between four bedrooms, the kitchen is small, too small for a family home, and it's on a busy road in an average town in Leicester. The back garden isn't very attractive either! 

 

There are far better properties to spend this kind of money on. 

[Górnik Leicester]

Prices have rocketed over the last 2 years. We had an offer accepted prior to the pandemic, and by the time we finally moved in seven months later, the estimate value had gone up by 20-odd grand. Now, 16 months later and based on other properties around us, we wouldn't be surprised to see it up by close to 30% on what we bought it for.

 

Having spent years trying to get on the ladder, we're extremely lucky to have got on when we did - we'd never be able to afford the same house, now. All of the panic and worry during the first lock down was worth it.

 

However, my little sister is trying to get on the ladder herself, and it's so frustrating to see her being priced out of everything that she looks at. I'd love for her to get her own place, as she's bloody worked hard for it - but now speaking as a homeowner, it's just crappy that we'd now need prices to drop for her to do so. 

Edited 23 January 2022 by Górnik Leicester

[Christoph]

That 700k house in Blaby is absolutely bonkers. How on earth can they try to justify it being that much. 

[z-layrex]

On 22/01/2022 at 14:43, Wolfox said:

It’s a nice house that…. No second bathroom is an issue, but, could be fixed…. A lot of house!  No idea if that represents value in the area?

I mean it kiiiind of has a second bathroom. It's an amazing house just needs a bit of work in places, never ceases to amaze me what you can get for your money when you move out of the South East. 

Edited 24 January 2022 by z-layrex

[Wolfox]

1 minute ago, z-layrex said:

I mean it kiiiind of has a second bathroom. It's an amazing house just needs a bit of work in places, never ceases to amaze me what you can get for your money when you move out of the South East. 

Yep…. There’s a programme called location, location Location for a reason!

 

Blaby (from memory) is relatively pleasant…  But, I thought (at first look) it represented reasonable value…. Stick that place in certain areas of Surrey and you’re tripling the value of course…. Even stick that in certain areas of our county and it’s £1m!

[VLC86]

Has anyone got any experience of having a wood burner put into a new build? I wouldn’t be looking to do it myself but I wanted to know about possible restrictions and how I would find out about them?

 

Its probably the main reason I would move House so if I can get one sorted in here I’d be pretty happy.

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, Costock_Fox said:

Has anyone got any experience of having a wood burner put into a new build? I wouldn’t be looking to do it myself but I wanted to know about possible restrictions and how I would find out about them?

 

Its probably the main reason I would move House so if I can get one sorted in here I’d be pretty happy.

We had 2 fitted into existing chimneys and it cost around £1k each plus the burner which was £500 each.

 

I suspect these prices are now higher.

 

For a new property they take a flue up the outside of the building, generally silver.

 

 

[Houdini Logic]

I've wanted to move for ages and every few months I ask a different estate agent round, decide I hate estate agents and never bother.

 

Same thing happened yesterday, I had an estate agent come round and despite them being 'absolutely sure the property would sell straight away' they said that if it doesn't I would need to fork out the price of the video tour should I decide to leave at the end of my contract and the house remains unsold. I pointed out that if they're so confident that it will sell then there's no need for them to ask me to cover the price of the tour in any eventuality and he just started getting shitty. I'm fairly certain I'm going to live the rest of my life in my current house

[lcfc278]

9 hours ago, Houdini Logic said:

I've wanted to move for ages and every few months I ask a different estate agent round, decide I hate estate agents and never bother.

 

Same thing happened yesterday, I had an estate agent come round and despite them being 'absolutely sure the property would sell straight away' they said that if it doesn't I would need to fork out the price of the video tour should I decide to leave at the end of my contract and the house remains unsold. I pointed out that if they're so confident that it will sell then there's no need for them to ask me to cover the price of the tour in any eventuality and he just started getting shitty. I'm fairly certain I'm going to live the rest of my life in my current house

Also if he's fairly sure it will sell straight away, why would you even need a video tour doing? Can you ask them to knock it off?

 

I'm looking at houses at the minute and every time there's a video tour I don't bother watching it, if I like the look of the house and the area it's in, I'd rather go see it in person!

[Christoph]

You don't need a video tour full stop. Waste of money. Anyone seriously interested is still going to want to see it in person regardless and photos do a good enough job. 

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

38 minutes ago, lcfc278 said:

Also if he's fairly sure it will sell straight away, why would you even need a video tour doing? Can you ask them to knock it off?

 

I'm looking at houses at the minute and every time there's a video tour I don't bother watching it, if I like the look of the house and the area it's in, I'd rather go see it in person!

 

This. When I was selling my last place, I already knew the estate I was going to be using as it was a friend's cousin's business but got valuations for 3 other estate agents first. The first was Purple Bricks, and tbf the agent was really helpful and not in any way pushy. He'd obviously researched the area before giving me the details. I can't remember who the worst agent worked for (a big local EA) and he hadn't done any research, gave me a valuation £25k under what the other two had and I basically told him he was wrong, he actually logged into Rightmove on his laptop in my house to look up similar houses nearby and changed his valuation massively but didn't acknowledge his mistake. I was obviously trying to get him out of the house, and then he pulled out this shit brochure and tried to talk me into buying the deluxe photo package, only £1,200 extra. This was for a pokey old 2-bed semi in Birstall, not a bloody 7-bed manor house. 

 

Fancy photo packages and video tours might coax people into booking viewings if they otherwise aren't interested, but in the market we're in at the moment, just listing a house on Rightmove (with a price that isn't taking the piss) is enough to guarantee you some viewings.

[Zear0]

1 minute ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

This. When I was selling my last place, I already knew the estate I was going to be using as it was a friend's cousin's business but got valuations for 3 other estate agents first. The first was Purple Bricks, and tbf the agent was really helpful and not in any way pushy. He'd obviously researched the area before giving me the details. I can't remember who the worst agent worked for (a big local EA) and he hadn't done any research, gave me a valuation £25k under what the other two had and I basically told him he was wrong, he actually logged into Rightmove on his laptop in my house to look up similar houses nearby and changed his valuation massively but didn't acknowledge his mistake. I was obviously trying to get him out of the house, and then he pulled out this shit brochure and tried to talk me into buying the deluxe photo package, only £1,200 extra. This was for a pokey old 2-bed semi in Birstall, not a bloody 7-bed manor house. 

 

Fancy photo packages and video tours might coax people into booking viewings if they otherwise aren't interested, but in the market we're in at the moment, just listing a house on Rightmove (with a price that isn't taking the piss) is enough to guarantee you some viewings.

The only time I stumped up for photos was when I was desperately trying to sell my first property.  Was a 1-bed flat in the centre and had sod all interest.  When I got some proper photos done and put up I got multiples of interest and it went quite soon after.  Guess with most people having decent camera phones now, the difference between good/crap photographs is diminishing.  It helped compared to the Sony Ericsson K800 I was flogging it with.

 

As you say, I think they're only really worth it if you're after a quick sell or interest is low (which would probably suggest the price was wrong). Was a much slower market back when I was selling too.  Was opposite the delightful King's Head so surprised it didn't just sell itself.

[Milo]

All house photos need to have a perfectly blue sky as a backdrop...has anyone else noted this?!! 

[kingcarr21]

Been in my house for 10 months now and got it valued yesterday. Already gained approx £40,000 on its valuation. Happy with that

[Zear0]

5 minutes ago, Milo said:

All house photos need to have a perfectly blue sky as a backdrop...has anyone else noted this?!! 

Saw one where they'd photoshopped the sky to make it blue.  Sadly though fixing the sky between the branches of the trees was clearly too hard so showed the grey sky.  Classic.

[Milo]

3 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Saw one where they'd photoshopped the sky to make it blue.  Sadly though fixing the sky between the branches of the trees was clearly too hard so showed the grey sky.  Classic.

Haha - honestly, I think they all use the same sky template - go on to Rightmove and check out any property!

 

I asked the estate agent to fix a couple of blown kitchen lights via photoshop when we sold our house, which they kindly did!  

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

41 minutes ago, kingcarr21 said:

Been in my house for 10 months now and got it valued yesterday. Already gained approx £40,000 on its valuation. Happy with that

 

That makes me interested to find out what mine is (moved in March last year). An identical house sold a few doors down last month for £10k more than I paid, and my garden is over 3x the size being a weird end plot

[kingcarr21]

50 minutes ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

That makes me interested to find out what mine is (moved in March last year). An identical house sold a few doors down last month for £10k more than I paid, and my garden is over 3x the size being a weird end plot

I moved same time as you, March 2021. Got my house for £229k and now valued at around the £270 mark. House market is crazy atm. 

[Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo]

5 minutes ago, kingcarr21 said:

I moved same time as you, March 2021. Got my house for £229k and now valued at around the £270 mark. House market is crazy atm. 

 

Yeah, I suppose it's all relative though because if you do move, the place you'll be buying will be a similar percentage more than it would have been, just makes it more difficult for first-time buyers to get a deposit together

[fox_favourite]

We put our house on the market last week. 
 

16 viewings booked for the next day 4 offers 3 days later. Above asking price! People still asking for viewings. It was crazy!

 

Problem we have now is that we’re looking and there isn’t much choice out there for what we want. Might end up buying a new home at this rate. 

Edited 26 January 2022 by fox_favourite

[kingcarr21]

31 minutes ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

Yeah, I suppose it's all relative though because if you do move, the place you'll be buying will be a similar percentage more than it would have been, just makes it more difficult for first-time buyers to get a deposit together

Difference is though that when i moved in March i was a first time buyer. So it was perfect timing for us to avoid, as you say, the increased deposit needed now. 

 

Now i am on the ladder its much easier for us to upgrade to a bigger house. Which the wife is looking at , Women

[Leicester_Loyal]

2 hours ago, Julian Joachim Jr Shabadoo said:

 

That makes me interested to find out what mine is (moved in March last year). An identical house sold a few doors down last month for £10k more than I paid, and my garden is over 3x the size being a weird end plot

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/home-values/

 

Although this can be out, it gives a rough guide based on the area, bedrooms and bathrooms. It fails to take into account the size of land with the property though, I believe.

 

Owned mine for 6 months now, been for 4 months. Plan for this year is to sort the garden out, slabbing over the allotment patch, moving the shed into the bottom corner and levelling the whole garden out (there's raised flowerbeds in weird shapes atm). That's about all I need to do tbh, once that's sorted I can't really think of anything else, maybe decorate the hallway but that'll be a few years off if at all, might end up moving before ever doing it.

 

I'm currently overpaying on the mortgage by a decent amount every month, I've been weighing up investing money vs. paying off the mortgage, but the mortgage just seems like a safer bet, albeit one that may have lower returns. I've looked at stocks and shares ISAs, but these seem like a really long term investment, I've looked at Crypto, which I think very few hardly ever make decent money from, I've looked at maxing out my AVCs in my pensions, but I decided that a mixture was best. I overpay the mortgage by 36% each month at minimum, but I'll also pay off a lump sum every 3 or so months just to nudge it down a little further. As well as this I'm maxing out my workplace pension, and sticking a very small amount into AVCs each week, meaning that'll be given to be as a lump sum when I retire, it's not a lot but in 35 years it will a decent wedge.

 

I think it's easy to be so concentrated on paying debts and making your later life comfortable that we sometimes forget we have to live at the minute, so I think the decisions I've made seem reasonable and provide both enjoyment now and comfort later in life. As long as I continue to be able to follow LCFC & England around the world, that still leaves me fairly happy.

 

Oh and we all know that there's vast energy costs and inflation costs coming, so if possible people should try to save some money now towards the future, we know times are gonna hit us all hard so it could be an idea to start cutting our cloth accordingly now. It's proper first world problems but I'm going out boozing less and less, the price in the pubs is just ridiculous and can't really be justified when you've got almost every other cost (mortgages/rent, food, energy, fuel) rising.