I left you last time with us walking through the door of the new house, in true cliffhanger fashion. I was a bit nervous that I’d built it up to be more than it actually was. Although the sale went through from initial offer to moving day in bang on six weeks, we had only viewed the property once, I’d been a bit thunderstruck by the beauty of the house and garden, having not expected to like it, and I was wondering whether our desperation to find a house to buy (or even rent) had blinkered us a bit.
Tag: buy
Out with the old
Before I start with the new, I thought I’d sign off with the old house. It’s been so long since we put it up for sale, and then accepted an offer, that I think I’d lost all feeling I’d ever had for it. Of course, I’ve said before, it was the house that we brought Scarlett back to (and Jude, for a mere six days), but it’s been too long.
Contracts and contractions
I’m running a little behind on the news here… I have lots to share with you, and little time to type it out. I have many snaps on my phone already, but am struggling to type up words to go with them. In short, we had a baby.
Little by little
Not much to report on the house front, although our buyers have now paid their deposit to their solicitor, a mere three months later. Exchange and completion dates still to be determined.
We’re in a dilemma now, whether to move before or after the baby’s born, as we’re swiftly approaching the danger zone. Just hanging fire to see if we get any info from our bank this week about the mortgage.
On edge
Still no news on the exchange date for our own house, but remember that house I was telling you about last week? We got it!
Bit of a strange situation – we offered slightly under asking price to begin with, and then revised it to full asking when we were told the vendors wanted full asking… and it still wasn’t confirmed that we’d got it. They had another viewing. We definitely weren’t going over asking price, and we made it clear to the estate agent that we wouldn’t be entering into sealed bids again (we lost out on one that way a few weeks earlier), and even made arrangements to carry on viewing other houses. Whatever tipped the balance, they decided to accept our offer, and we’re now on with the financial side.
Wishlists and compromises
We accepted an offer on our house in late February, and hoped this meant we would have moved well ahead of the baby’s due date, which is late June. We don’t have an exchange date yet. We’re still waiting. And waiting…
Rejection
We put an offer in on a house a few months ago, it was near where we wanted to be (but not quite). We just found out that it’s been sold to someone in a better position. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it… I’m thinking it’s gone because it wasn’t meant to be and something better for us will come up. Continue reading
Ready to move in
We had another viewing this week (about time too, it’s been weeks), and this wall really jarred as soon as I showed the visitors through the door – it’s right opposite the doorway in our bedroom. Continue reading
Stop! Collaborate and listen
Everything has halted in its tracks while viewings come and viewings go as we try to sell our house.
The tiles that I’d so lovingly chosen have gone back to Homebase (after all that!), and my sneaky sofa yearnings have had to be put on hold (we have had this one for nearly seven years and I’m pretty sure I can see an outline of our bums). Continue reading
Branas, I’ve been expecting you
You may recall that we have an Ikea Expedit unit in our lounge, and back in… ooh, February, erm, 2012, I expressed a desire to pop some little white baskets in those gaps. Those little white baskets cost £15 each, and as we wanted to fill 10 of the holes (the bottom two rows), that’s a hefty trip to Ikea without all the random napkins I pick up on the way round. And the meatballs, of course.
Well, we’ve been forced into buying something for them, mostly because our five month old has just started rolling and I swear she was eyeing up those DVDs.
Our first stop was musicmagpie.co.uk, which is one of those sites that buy your stuff for next to nothing and undoubtedly sell it on for a huge profit. I couldn’t be bothered to eBay all the stuff, with all the Post Office faff and my track record in buyers (I had another one recently with a dress I sold to a person who clearly can’t read), so I downloaded the app onto my phone and zapped the CDs and DVDs with the barcode scanner. That was fun for a bit, but it gets a bit depressing getting £0.21 for your childhood. We’ve also kept really random ones (we couldn’t possibly give everything away), so I couldn’t sell Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill as I clearly remember buying it with my own money, nor could I allow Barry to pimp Con Air. He’s kept Bad Boys I and II (naturally) and Ghostbusters, but wasn’t bothered about any of his CDs.
In the end, we sold 185 items for £61.07. Don’t work out the average, it’s so depressing it’s unreal. The most we got for an item sold was £3.00 for a series of Friends. Sob!
Anyway, off we popped to Ikea, but those eagle eyes among you will have noticed that £60 will not 10 baskets buy. We’ve ended up buying two lovely baskets, and the rest cheap white cloth boxes, a veritable bargain at £2.50 each. I think they’ll get dirty fairly quickly, but they’re a good placeholder for more baskets or drawers later down the line.