Second Episode of Secret Agent

In Brighton (here on rightmove SSTC) a family looking to move in together so need to sell a couple of houses.
One is busy with colours and carpet designs.
Not much wrong that a bit of paint and new carpet wouldn’t solve. The big problem is the house is on for £209,950 and they want £209,950 for it. They’ve had four offers of £200,000 but that’s not enough.
They redecorate and recarpet on a budget of £1500 (So I imagine it’s not posh carpet) and get an offer of £205,000 which they accept.
Madness. They could have had it sold some time ago and negotiated a discount on the house they want to buy.
Or sell one of the houses and have an extension on the other.
The other house (the mother’s) had an offer too but she was holding out for the asking price still.

Episode 2 on watch again on ch4

<-- BN42 4NJ Orchard Close and Old Barn Way -->
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Why people sell their houses

The traditional reasons for people having to sell have been death, divorce or debt. You can probably throw in desire as a fourth one but it’s much less of a strong motivator sometime.

Of course they’re not the only reasons: people often say they want to downsize (Yes another D in the house selling list) but this is often something they dream of in a rather unrealistic way.
Wanting to sell your 3 bedroom house to go and buy a smaller place only works if the smaller places are significantly cheaper or you move to a cheaper area.
If we’re sticking with looking for D reasons then dementia would be one you could add to the list along with disease. We can throw in disability too. If you can’t get up the stairs anymore then you might want to consider selling up to somewhere without stairs.
Are there any more D reasons for moving?

Rents unaffordable says Shelter

Shelter have released a report saying that rents are unaffordable in many parts of the country.
Their report is here

* Many rural areas are bearing the brunt of high rent rates and low earnings, with rents more affordable in Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham than in north Devon, north Dorset or Herefordshire.
* London boroughs are the most expensive in England, with the average rent for a two bedroom home in the capital (£1,360) almost two and a half times the average in the rest of the country (£568).
* The least affordable local authority area outside London is Oxford, where typical rents account for 55% of average earnings.

Shelter thinks that families shouldn’t spend more than 35% of their income on rent.

Local housing allowance levels are said to be to blame for the increase in rents. If landlords can get more from tenants on benefits then rents overall will rise. Rents need to come down to be genuinely affordable.
People who can’t afford to pay the rent if they work will see no point in working. To be a sustainable economy the UK needs to be able to have people in work and able to support themselves.

For shelter’s idea to work (excluding any tax credits which younger childless single people wouldn’t be able to get) then on minimum wage for a 35 hour week – a weekly income of £212.8, shouldn’t have to pay more than 35% of that in rent which means you wouldn’t want to spend more than £74.48 on rent.

This works out at (x52/12) a monthly rent of £322.75

A search on rightmove in my area shows that the cheapest 1 bedroom property is £395 a month.

Which shows that housing is very unaffordable in my area for almost everyone.

LHA has been changed for under 35s so they have to share a property now rather than having a flat or house to themself.

Whilst I applaud shelter’s ideas of building more houses to solve this problem, in reality it won’t. House builders throw in some “affordable” housing – which usually isn’t actually affordable, but this just shows that the rest is even more unaffordable.

House on Phil Spencer’s program is not even for sale

‘My home is not for sale’, says man in new Secret Agent show

This shocking revelation is bought to light on Estate Agent Today

Wood, of Bristol, also said how dirty crockery was piled into his kitchen sink for the purposes of filming a ‘before’ sequence: “The programme is highly staged and the usual de-cluttering solutions are offered. My house is in fact always very clean.”

Confidential property sale

You know how much these annoy me.

No photo.

House for sale
Offers Over £599,950
Tedburn St. Mary, Exeter, Devon, EX6

A substantial six bedroom Rectory in approximately four acres of gardens with outstanding views of the rolling countryside.

Assuming there is only one rectory in Tetburn then this is its listing


View Larger Map

The listing on rightmove also mentions a barn that could be converted so the aerial view will help narrow it down.

I’m not sure why people want to have their property sale kept confidential. Maybe they haven’t told the neighbours they are moving.