julicorn's journey 2 - Moving Up

julicorn

jenni_fer said:

Sorry to hear you missed out. I too believe that when it comes to houses, if it's meant to be it'll happen so you've just not found the 'one' yet.
Fingers crossed for this next one! 

I'm intrigued by your scoring system... is there a list of criteria? 

Thanks jenni_fer! And sure thing, although bear in mind some of the criteria are a little bit tongue in cheek It's not a perfect science, but helps us get specific conversations going, and remember the the houses a little better as well. 

The categories are:

Area

Curb appeal

Entrance

Living space

Kitchen

Garden

Main bedroom

Other bedrooms

Bathroom

Layout

Utilities (washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher)

No need for redecoration

Potential to extend

Feeling of space

The je ne sais quoi

Can see ourselves living here

Merri approval

Value for money

Haunted?

Energy rating 'Merri' is a mermaid Pusheen plushie that travels to viewings with us in my backpack, and lets us know how much she liked the house after. Yes, we're definitely in our 30s Yesterday was a fun day, felt like a bit of an adventure because the weather was still horrendous (aside from a nice spell early in the morning). We visited the tattoo convention (Brighton Centre, seafront) and went to the vegan fish & chip shop here in Brighton, so spent a fair bit of time on the seafront trying not to get blown away or drown in the rain. I got a super cute tattoo of Pusheen holding a strawberry on my leg (did I mention yet that I'm definitely not a 5 year old girl?).  House hunting wise, we 'only' saw 2 properties. The first was a maisonette and a bit pants for various reasons (Me: 62, Mr: 58), but also helped me re-confirm that there's an area Mr julicorn quite likes and I just really can't stand. So we learned something, again The second was the one in the Roundhill area with the yellow door, this one: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/119902796#/ It was lovely and would suit us really well. Mr julicorn is utterly in love, I didn't think he was capable of such feelings! I like it a lot and would love to live there, but am feeling more chill about the whole thing (me: 89, Mr: 90, so both very very good scores) We're going to try our luck again with this one, this estate agent actually uses an offer sheet that we need to complete by 6pm Tuesday. It's 'guide price £550k-575k', we think there'll be lots of interest, so were thinking of just going in with £575k straight off the bat, but please send advice (we still have no idea what we're doing, haha!).  Funnily enough, there was a couple with a young child viewing the house before us, and we've actually met the woman before at a friend's birthday party! They seem super lovely, so I've decided that we'll just pretend they got it if we end up missing out again   I hope you're all having a lovely Sunday and manage to not get blown away.

savingholmes

Just caught up on your diary. Another crafter here. I am so glad I am in a different price area for housing!! It would be lovely to be near a beach though. 

Hope you get somewhere you are happy with without breaking the bank. I am very pro space - including outdoor space. The amount of light you get in each room is critical too. I am noise sensitive so the party wall issue and sound would need consideration - but it sounds like you are okay with noise...

julicorn

savingholmes said:

Just caught up on your diary. Another crafter here. I am so glad I am in a different price area for housing!! It would be lovely to be near a beach though. 

Hope you get somewhere you are happy with without breaking the bank. I am very pro space - including outdoor space. The amount of light you get in each room is critical too. I am noise sensitive so the party wall issue and sound would need consideration - but it sounds like you are okay with noise...

Hi there fellow crafter And thank you for the well wishes. 

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure if the bottom paragraph is meant to be helpful? We won't be in a position to get a detached house around here, the house we're trying to buy now is significantly under our budget, has a comparatively huge entertaining space,  and was super light even on what was a really gloomy day yesterday. And no, I don't want noise either (the reason we ruled out the maisonette yesterday was noise and lack of light), but this house is on a super quiet road, all double glazed just about as quiet as we'll be able to get. 

It's just not that easy competing with 12+ people on every property we're interested in, we don't need to at the same time keep thinking about how we can't get a good location, big garden and big living space all at once. So apologies if I'm reading more into it than I should. x

D123456789

Love the yellow door house @Julicorn. 😊

South_coast

I think the house looks fab. Nice and solid-looking, not much to do except put your own stamp on it, ready-made office space, etc etc.... I can see why you're keen, I would like it too 😀 

Good luck with getting your offer in 🤞 I think you're right to go in at the higher end if you know other people are going to be interested too x

powerspowers

Good luck with the yellow door house! I love it’s pops of colour and it seems flexible if you wanted to swap the spaces around. 

Competing for every property is a really difficult situation, fingers crossed for this one ☝️ 

julicorn

D123456789 said:

Love the yellow door house @Julicorn. 😊

It's always one with a yellow door somehow 😂🥰

julicorn

South_coast said:

I think the house looks fab. Nice and solid-looking, not much to do except put your own stamp on it, ready-made office space, etc etc.... I can see why you're keen, I would like it too 😀 

Good luck with getting your offer in 🤞 I think you're right to go in at the higher end if you know other people are going to be interested too x

Thank you! With this one, I'm quite excited with what we could do down the road in a few years time as well. The one next door was just for sale as well end of last year, and it's quite fun to see how it's virtually the same house, they're just using the space differently:  http://www.rightmove.co.uk/s6p/113972438

julicorn

powerspowers said:

Good luck with the yellow door house! I love it’s pops of colour and it seems flexible if you wanted to swap the spaces around. 

Competing for every property is a really difficult situation, fingers crossed for this one ☝️ 

Thanks so much! Yeah, it really feels like we could use the space in a few different ways over time. 

It feels like even more competition this week somehow because not that many houses came up for sale over the last week. Ah well, we can only try 🤞

julicorn

We sent through our offer this morning, and expect to hear back on Wednesday (although I wouldn't be surprised if it went to some sort of 'best and final' stage). I'm definitely feeling a lot more relaxed than about the one last week, but I don't think the same can be said for Mr julicorn Bless him! 

We have a few viewings booked for the weekend, mostly for flats though at the moment. There's less and less coming on the market, I wonder if it'll pick up again at some point.