Author: Diane

Oh my! I’ve never seen a bathroom with an outside door before. I’ve seen outhouses but not one like this!

Flat for sale in Gilbey Rd, Tooting, London SW17 – 2 bedrooms

It has an ssking price of £279,999

This house is very small at the front and gets bigger at the back. Great if you like strange shaped rooms.

As well as three bedrooms it also has a decent size garden and a row of five garages.

Barratt depends on shared equity for around 25% of its sales.
This is interesting to know when you realise that they’re looking at selling off that part of their loan book.

Shared equity is a horrible idea! It’s propped up house prices for many years now and will continue to do so whilst it’s supported by these idiotic schemes.

It makes a mockery of trying to help someone by offering to let them buy a share of a property they can’t afford. Whilst some people might be able to staircase the whole thing is going to start hurting sooner or later.
On various forums there are horror stories about low valuations meaning people are struggling to sell their SE home.

Why would you buy 25% of something and volunteer to pay for repairs on the whole 100%? Even to the most simply person that should strike them as unfair. But swathes of people have been convinced that this is their only chance to get on the property ladder.

The worrying idea of bundling up of mortgage debts and playing financial pass the parcel with them is strongly reminiscant of the sub-prime bundle selling that happened in the recent past. Has no one learnt anything from the financial disaster still unfurling?

Debt is bad. Encouraging poor people to get into debt is bad. Selling that debt on to someone else is bad.

Let’s just be honest and say that house prices are overinflated and until they come down to sensible levels, some people shouldn’t buy a house.

The telegraph has a story about how first time buyers are at an all time low – one can only hope it’s because they have realised house prices are unafforable and that the shared equity schemes are a bad financial decision.

I don’t like this style of advert. It doesn’t list the property – just telling you there’s an expensive house somewhere that you might like to buy if you have more than £3.5M to spend.
This mystery house is in DT6. That’s your only clue. OK you are told it’s got 8 bedroms.

Tenure: Freehold
• A Period 8 bedroom Country House offering in excess of 10,000 sqft of accommodation.
• A range of 1 to 4 bedroom secondary accommodation suitable for staff or to generate secondary income.
• A large barn suitable for storage.
• The property sits within 5 acres of gardens and woodland.
• Located edge of village and within walking distance of the local beach and coastline.

Whilst I respect that some people might not want the nosey world looking at their house – I really don’t like this bit: PLEASE NOTE: To purchase a property through this company an agency fee will be incurred by the buyer.

I’ve just had a thought as to which house it might be. You could describe it on the edge of the village and within walking distance of the sea. Although it’s not in woodland…

Perfect House?

I worry when I see people say they’ve found their dream house. They describe it as perfect and say they love it!

Don’t buy a house with emotions! I know you need hard cash and a level head.

You need to establish whether it is indeed your perfect house or whether you’ve just fallen for the style of the house, the furniture or even the smell!

Step back. View some others. Write a list of what you like about the house. Do a score card.

Do not make an offer on a house in the first moments of falling in love with it. It’s a guaranteed way of paying too much and maybe even missing some of the glaringly obvious faults.

Do a second viewing with a sensible friend. Get their opinion on it. Let them look at it objectively. They’ll spot the leaky gutters, the problem with the kitchen and the small third bedroom size!

Get a good survey done and take notice of any issues on it. Don’t gloss over them just because you like the house a lot.

Buying a house is a serious business and whilst it’s nice to find a house that seems to tick all your boxes you have to make sure it really does!

If you don’t like tidying up when you have viewings then you’ll perhaps appreciate this untidy house.
The cobwebs have taken some time to grow!
View the whole house here.