It's a long and winding road

TwentySomethingGirl

So I've been absent from here for a little while...*hangs head in shame*
Quite a lot has happened in the last 4 months, some good, some bad.


I've lost 2 grandparents (my mum's dad, and my dad's step-mum) which led to my mum moving in with my nan, a 2.5 hour drive south. I spent a couple of months packing up my mum's house and moving her stuff there for her any my husband had been working a lot of weekends and helping with the moving too. Between the bereavements, a parent moving away and work it was getting to be a bit much so our holiday came at exactly the right time. We had such a nice time just being away from normal life. We're not really sit-by-the-pool type people by that's exactly what we did bar a couple days of excursions, we just needed a rest.


So now things have calmed down somewhat, though life always seems to have a curveball to throw your way. We came back from holiday and my in-laws said they've decided to try and retire early by moving to Norfolk (a 2.5 hour drive in the opposite direction to where my mum is) which seemed to come out the blue. There was talk of us buying their house which I rejected....


OP-ing the mortgage has taken a back seat to saving for the time being, though I do still make payments to it. While window shopping on Rightmove (so dangerous!) I've found a doer upper that is just perfect and about the only way we can afford to stay local and have a nice (beautiful!) house. So we're booked in for the open house in a couple of weeks and have made an appointment for a valuation to be done and a meeting with a mortgage advisor to make sure we can get what we need and then see how it goes. I don't hold out too much hope of us getting the house because no doubt a builder or some cash buyer will put in an offer that we can't match, or they can move quicker than us but we have to try anyway. I always hope that sellers care about the type of people buying their house, and that we might have more change being a young couple and wanting it as our family home rather than just flipping it for a profit but I know that's not how this works


If we don't get the house then the new mortgage deal will go ahead and we will keep saving and OPing to get us in a better position next time we think about moving. I'd still like to keep the flat when the time comes which we wouldn't be able to do if we moved now.

mrsp1987

Oh poor you! What a stressful time you must have had. I'm glad to see you back though!!

kirtsypoos

Hi TwentySomethingGirl - delurking to say very sorry about your grandparents.

I think there are definitely sellers like that out there - we are such! We could probably have held out for more money, but we liked the buyer and liked the fact she was so enthusiastic about our first home. Hopefully the sellers of the doer upper feel the same

TwentySomethingGirl

Thank you for de-lurking! I'm glad there is someone out there who is such a seller


I'm not sure I'm made for the world of house buying and selling, even researching what it entails makes me want to stay in the flat for the rest of my life!

mrsp1987

I felt like that when we bought our first house. It's all very scary and grownup but it's not too bad once you get the ball rolling.You either end up with the house or you stay in your flat. At the end of the day you'll still have somewhere to live, so if you look at it that way it shouldn't be too scary

kirtsypoos

I have hated the whole process so far, and we haven't really had any major hiccups - hopefully there won't be any either but I'm a stresshead generally and the selling thread made me want to take it back off the market! If we hadn't had to move to fit a family in I'd have stayed :rotfl:

Our seller was the same - she had offers from us and another lady - both chain-free but she went with us because she liked the thought of someone having a family there

Fingers crossed for the same for you!

TwentySomethingGirl

Well the flat went on the market last Friday and we've got one viewer lined up for the weekend with a second person interested but hasn't booked a viewing yet. Having never sold anything I don't know if that's good for the amount of time it's been on...it seems to be getting lots of hits on the web.

No other news to report. I haven't made any OPs and won't until we know what's happening with the house so everything is just ticking along at the mo.

TSG

kirtsypoos

Hope you get a quick sale TSG

We had one viewing in first 9 days then it went a bit mental and we had viewings most days until we sold (with 7 more that could have been arranged after we sold) so the first week is a slow start I think
This is the first time we have sold though so that's just my take on it!

mrsp1987

Fingers crossed for a quick, straightforward sale x

TwentySomethingGirl

So, progress report...

The viewers who came on Saturday to see the flat have booked a second viewing for tomorrow evening so we're hopeful about that.

We had a message from the EA yesterday to say that due to a few offers being submitted the vendor has chosen to go to best and final offers which had to be in by 2pm today. We upped ours as high as we're willing to go and sent a letter with it so fingers crossed.

Hopefully by Friday we'll know where we stand with both properties/offers. It's annoying not knowing the other people's situations so we could know where we stand but the offer we have submitted, although 10k higher than asking, is what we're comfortable with as we really want the house and aren't in it to make a buck on it. I'm hoping the other people involved just want a bargain and we'll win. Hey ho, can only wait and see.