julicorn's journey 2 - Moving Up 1 January 2022 at 11:21AM in Mortgage-free wannabe 470 replies 14.3K views

julicorn

South_coast said:

I see your layers and raise you the blu-tack that my previous owner thought constituted an appropriate repair!

Now that sounds glorious! Gotta love how some people just make do with what they have  

sabsob said:

Hi Juli, just found your new diary (and remember your name from sniffing around in the forum and finding the mortgage free wannabee annual threads, but haven't committed to that yet, still finding my feet. We are also dealing with estate agents (buying, not selling) - good luck with it all, and lovely to find a fellow crafter

Thank you for stopping by! Definitely join one of those challenges when you're ready, they're such a great motivator. All the best of luck to you too! Also, what sort of crafts do you do? I'm currently knitting a jumper, will probably post a picture when it's all finished

sabsob

julicorn said:

Thank you for stopping by! Definitely join one of those challenges when you're ready, they're such a great motivator. All the best of luck to you too! Also, what sort of crafts do you do? I'm currently knitting a jumper, will probably post a picture when it's all finished

Would love to see a picture of your jumper I do pretty much everything/anything, craft-wise, but lately, mainly quilting and crochet. I am embarrassingly well set up for all kinds of crafts, lol!

julicorn

sabsob said:

julicorn said:

Thank you for stopping by! Definitely join one of those challenges when you're ready, they're such a great motivator. All the best of luck to you too! Also, what sort of crafts do you do? I'm currently knitting a jumper, will probably post a picture when it's all finished

Would love to see a picture of your jumper I do pretty much everything/anything, craft-wise, but lately, mainly quilting and crochet. I am embarrassingly well set up for all kinds of crafts, lol!

Sounds like you're a person after my own heart, haha! I'm also a serial crafter, and will pick up pretty much any project that comes my way Finishing is another matter though, I definitely have more works in progress than I'd like to admit. 

Sistergold

Happy new diary! 🥰🥳

julicorn

Sistergold said:

Happy new diary! 🥰🥳

Thanks so much  

julicorn

After an extremely busy weekend, we've had 2 out of the 4 estate agents coming round today!

On Saturday, we moved a whole lot of our things into storage. The removals people were absolutely fantastic, I'm definitely keen to use them again for when we eventually move. Just very friendly, very helpful, right on time, and super careful with our furniture (I trust them to transport our ginormous fiddle-leaf fig, haha!). 

Yesterday we spent 13 hours (!) tidying and DIY-ing, and it's really paid off. Our flat looks nicer than it ever has. It's a bit like living in a show home right now, although one with slightly more eclectic / darker colour schemes than usual. 

The first 2 estate agents both seemed to settle on a similar figure, which is higher than I would have thought so that's nice to hear. 

EA 1 was slightly more pleasant to be around, very complimentary about our flat, would do all the viewings himself, and seemed to think around £310-320k was achievable. He was weirdly torn about whether to list at 'offers over £300k' or list it at £325k and take lower offers, and would aim to get people booked in for a viewing on a Saturday morning (but without advertising it as an open house per se). 
EA 2 talked A LOT which was mildly exhausting, but seems to have more experience selling flats on our street over the last few months. He's actually had all the viewings for one today which I've seen online, it's only on at £250k (similar flat to ours, but no garden and needs a new kitchen + a lick of paint) and got 6 offers (over asking price) all in one afternoon. He would want to market ours as 'offers over £315k', and book everyone in for an afternoon (he seemed quite conscious of when the light would be best in our garden).

EA 1: 8 weeks contract, 1%+VAT fee
EA 2: 4 weeks contract, 0.9%+VAT fee.

I'll see how the meetings tomorrow go and will report back. It feels like a good start though, at least neither of them told me that they think we paid too much back in 2017 and will struggle to find a buyer. Fingers crossed. 

julicorn

Checking back in, a fair bit has happened

We've commissioned an estate agent, funnily enough the one who recommended the lowest list price on Rightmove, but I had the best feeling about them. Our flat is going live tomorrow, with a guide price of £300-325k. We're having an open day on the 5th, which is funnily enough when we're in Center Parcs for Mr julicorn's birthday - so we won't even need to hide away in a cafe somewhere during viewings, haha. 

We've been cheekily trying to view some houses anyway, thinking that they'd be ok with it seeing as we're on the market at least, but nope. None of them are letting us set a foot in the door until we've found a buyer. Fair enough I guess, looks like most houses get snapped up instantly. That's going to be a fun rodeo! Ah well, it means we get to spend lots of time on holiday trawling through Rightmove. 

South_coast

Ooh, exciting times 😀! Fingers crossed that fielding calls about offers doesn't end up monopolising your entire break!

julicorn

South_coast said:

Ooh, exciting times 😀! Fingers crossed that fielding calls about offers doesn't end up monopolising your entire break!

Haha yeah, we'll see how it goes! It is all very exciting though, and the EAs seemed pretty optimistic about an open day, so fingers crossed we'll get a half-decent offer of the back of that, that would be nice. But I'm trying not to get too carried away either

powerspowers

Fingers crossed Julicorn!