House buying, selling, viewing and the housing market.
Story in the Daily Mail about the world’s narrowest house being built in an alley in Warsaw. It’s 60 inches wide.
That’s about 152cm – which isn’t a wide as I am tall…
The Mail also has pictures of the world’s official narrowest house, The Wedge, on the island of Great Cumbrae off Scotland’s North Ayrshire coast
Set up a google news alert for the street you are interested in. It’ll then send you an email when there’s a news item about that street.
As long as the street name is fairly unique just use that in quote marks – if it’s not so rare then add in the second part of the address, eg: “Smith Street, New Moston” as your alert.
It’s well worth doing if you’re researching just a few streets – or even an area.
Read through the news alerts you get and look out for the ones mentioning crime and anti-social behaviour orders!
Swythamley Hall Coach House i is on for sale at £2.5M
It’s a lovely house with some exposed beams, a fantastic staircase complete with a badger on the post and amazing grounds. It has six bedrooms.
A new site from Rightmove that will help feed your property addiction as it’s got a game too!
Rightmove places has articles, maps, info and real reviews about places around the UK. Just type in a placename and see.
Of course as it’s so new there aren’t many reviews at all – but there probably will be in a few months.
The first time buyer’s £250,000 threshold applies from 25 March 2010 up to 24 March 2012 inclusive.
You must both be first time buyers. That means neither of you should have owned a property before. If you are not sure if you qualify then just call them – The Stamp Taxes Helpline on 0845 603 0135.
You have to be buying it as your home – not as an investment.
You must also not have inherited a property or jointly owned one.
There is a list of questions on this Questions about Stamp Duty pdf file from HMRC which might help with any further queries – but their helpline is there to assist you more.
Kirstie and Phil’s House Hunter APP
By: Jointly developed and produced by BBC Worldwide and Raise The Roof Productions
The price for me is the biggest stumbling block – it’s £3.49
That’s the price of several ebooks or games so who’s going to pay for some advice off this TV pair?
With a guide, properties, tools and search
It has a torch which makes your iphone light up – how silly – why would you want to risk dropping your iphone down in some loft or subfloor?
It has a budget calculator – do you need this either? Your bank will tell you how much you can borrow – and a sensible guide is 3.5X your own earnings. That might not sound a lot – but it’s a historical norm banks are going to be aiming towards.
It also gives advice like don’t forget to have cash for surveys, fees and other house buying costs!
My advice – download the free estate agent search tools (rightmove is my favourite as it’s ad free and easy to scroll about on their map) and don’t buy this silly app. Save the money towards your house!
Barkisland Hall is a fine Graded I Listed medieval hall. Stunning. The beautiful flower shaped window is described as a wheel window with tracery made up of 6 circles surrounding a central circle. It’s a lovely feature of the front of this amazing building.
See it’s listing for details of the period features
£2,500,000 will buy you this amazing building on Stainland Road, Barkisland, Halifax, West Yorkshire, HX4
Landlords From Hell Dispatches, Monday at 8pm Channel 4
Could be interesting watching.
It struck me the other day that there are quite a few very expensive houses for sale that don’t have a garage! I’d imagine if you’re buying an expensive house that you have an expensive car – so you’d want to put it in a garage at night!
There’s also a suprising number of houses that have a garage – across the price range – but don’t show you the garage at all!
Here’s one house in Northgate Lane, Linton, Wetherby which is in West Yorkshire that has a garage and even shows it you! This one also has a nice gym and pool!
When you’re selling a house you should include a photo of the garage if it’s neat and tidy. Some garages are stuffed full of junk but part of the moving process should be to declutter and put items into storage. If you have a full garage stuffed with boxes and piles of junk then it’ll look like you have no storage space in the house at all.
Whilst a huge number of people don’t use their garage for their car even if they have one – you do get cheaper car insurance if you do. (It’s one of the questions they ask about where do you keep your car at night). So ensure viewers can see how much room there is in the garage – let them imagine it full of their own cars or junk and not yours!
Do ducks sell houses? Would a picture of a duck be enough to sell your house?
This one on rightmove just has a picture of some ducks. Very cute but are they some of the 100 you can shoot?