The Office Is Open Again
There's nothing worse than having a job in an office and having no actual work to do. Spending the whole day twiddling the proverbial thumb with an eye over your shoulder making sure nobody sees what sites you're looking at. The beauty of running your own office is that you don't have to chain yourself to the desk when there's nothing much going on. For the past two weeks I've been "lucky" enough to have no work on, while Karen has been on school holidays. Effectively the office was closed for business and I've been getting out as much as possible.
Even when there's no work to do there's always an endless amount of things to do. As many of you may know, we are currently in the middle of moving house. They say it's the most stressful thing you can do. Personally I think things like this are as stressful as you let them become. My theory on life has always been that everything will turn out ok in the end. It's got me this far in life and gets me through the times I feel down about things financial.
Well, everything is going ok. We had our offer accepted on the house we fell in love with on the first viewing and we've accepted a very reasonable offer on this house, from a couple with first-time buyers at their end of the chain. All we have to do now is hope nothing goes wrong before we all move at the end of July. That and I really need to pull my finger out and get some work on board. Either that or find a decent contract in the East Midlands. It's all very well doing bits of work here and there when you don't own a house but I am about to take on the largest financial burden of my life.
If you don't live in the UK you might be shocked to learn just how much a house costs. Last month the average house price rose above £150,000 (US$270,000). In the past ten or so years it's gone stupid. People are using homes as an easy way to make lots of money. To buy a reasonably sized house Karen and I have found ourselves spending a quarter of a million pounds! Had you told me this ten years ago I would have thought it would have gotten us a lovely cottage in the countryside with acres of land. Not the case. Just a detached Victorian-style house with a smallish garden, at the end of a cul-de-sac, in a medium-sized city. The only reason we can do this is that Karen was fortunate enough to buy her house eight years ago when prices were reasonable. Since then she's seen her house rise in value threefold, meaning we have 25% of the new houses value as a deposit.
Anyway, back to normal stuff tomorrow...
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Hi Jake -
The Real Estate market is pretty much the same over here on this side of the pond. The interest rates are so low sellers are making a killing on their homes. Houses go on the market and are off within a week. Some houses on my street (in NJ) are selling for 1.5 to 2 X what we paid for ours just 2 1/2 short years ago. Something's gotta give eventually ...
-- Mike
Same situation here in the Netherlands. Average price might even be slightly higher. I'm currently renting and not at all encouraged to break my back for 30 years over a pile of bricks. One thing is sure for most of us: we'll all pay all our lives for having a roof over our head, whether we rent or buy.
Jake, good luck with the move mate, maybe we might even see you more often in London now you are closer... should you wish to associate with us southerners.
As for myself I am jacking in London for similar reasons to you and heading off to N. Ireland where my 3 bedroom semi here will pay for a 4 bedroom house with 1 acre of land over there.
Try and buy a house in Dublin..the adverage is now around 330,000 euro and that will not get you much
I'll just chip in and say Sydney, Australia, is pretty much the same too. Median house price is now over AUD$500,000 (US$375,000, 200,000 pounds). The rest of Australia is only slightly better.
There's this calculator on one of the real estate sites here that tells you whether you'd be better off buying, or investing your deposit + the difference between renting and the mortgage. I find with most parameters I enter for the current market renting is actually the better option over time.
Dude, I live in the Washington DC metro area. You don't need to tell me about outrageous house prices ;)
Houses are dirt cheap in the southeastern United States. You can buy a very lovely home, often for under $100,000. Y'all come down!
I'm in the middle of moving, as well. It's a massive glutteal pain; I can't find anything I need, until I buy a replacement, and then I trip over the original.
I live in good old New York. The real estate market here is a nightmare as well. I actually just bid on a house this weekend, and my 10,000 over asking price was not even close!!! Talk about nuts!
So what neck of the woods did you end up in?
Agreed, it's like that in Rhode Island too. You're price range is really 20,000 LESS than what you are looking for, because you have to be prepared to overbid by 20,000 to even be asked to counter offer. Otherwise they just laugh at you.
It was a nasty, heart-wrenching, pride-swallowing (though definately exciting) experience that I'm glad I am all through.
But, it's so worth it. There is no greater feeling than owning your own home.
Jess :-)
I was so glad we didn't have to bid-off with anybody. We got lucky in that the couple we are buying off are genuinely very genuine. Unlike the rest of the world, it seems, they aren't in it for the money. They needed to sell the house to move to France. They liked us as a couple and they were happy with the first offer, knowing they could get more and probably that we'd offer more. Lucky then that we were the first couple to look round and went straight back to the agents to make the offer.
Sometimes I think I have a lucky aura that follows me around. As I said in the post - things just tend to work out...
Well don't sell yourself short by calling it luck - as you said, if it seemed that they liked you as a couple, then that's certainly not lucky. ;-)
Seems like the house prices come nearer to our level in Singapore. We bought a 4 room appartment, government subsidized type, at 140000 EUR a year ago. The same without subsidy (but a pool in a condo block) goes at 260000EUR. A semi detached sets you back from 400000EUR and a fully detached starts at 600000EUR.
Land is cheap in Bali, Sri Lanka, Kashmir and Burma.
;-) stw
Hi Jake, It must be doing the rounds... I have just moved too I think it is the smart thing to do.
If Bush go's, Blair will follow, I think then we will see a dramatic ecomonic shift and a huge crash in the housing market possibly 30-50%...
Well done you :-)
I'm surprised no one's chimed in from the West Coast, here in California, I think the median price of a home in Silicon Valley went from $515,000 to $565,000 bucks in ONE MONTH! And if you know anything about the Bay Area, you will not find a decent home in a good neighborhood for even that much unless you move far into outlying cities.
How long will the madness last???
Does anyone know any good housing blogs...?