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So I have been trying to by a house for over 6 months now.

I have been looking since Easter.

I haven't stayed in a proper house since June as that's when my last house rental contract ran out.

In June/July my last house deal fell through, because of the seller.

I have since been living in a rented tiny 6 foot by 10 foot room, in a shared flat with strangers, which is no place for a vintage RC collection.

I found a new place about a month ago and everything is in motion.

I was told the week before last that I only had about a week or two to go before completion.

My tiny flat contract ran out on Saturday.

This morning the solicitor told me that I should expect to wait for another two months before completion!

I am really really gutted about all this...

The reason house sales take so long in the UK is because of all the checks the solicitors need to do. For example

-one being to check whether the house is the sellers to sell. This annoys me because, to speed things up this could have been determined before the house even hit the market rather than being a bottle neck now.

-I got a letter on Saturday saying they needed more money for a Coal mining check???? This apparently is because Nottingham used to have a coal mining industry. I understand that, but I am pretty sure there was never a coal mine in the centre of Nottingham so I am going to go out on a limb and say there isn't a coal mine under the house which would make it unsafe. Also, as houses get sold there all the time and there has been no coal mining industry for years in the UK, shouldn't someone elses check be valid for me?

Sorry rant over, I am just *expletive deleted* off because I have a suitcase full of cash, a deal half done and am homeless for the next couple of months.

Hope you are all having a better time than me at the moment

Hate to hear that pal. Sounds like complete cluster. I have heard nothing but bad here as far as buying or building a house. When I bought my place in 2000, it went great. Except for the money part. My wife and the folks who owned the house, where told in the preliminary to bring $350 with them. When all the signing was done, he told the Graingers they owned $350 then looked at me and said, "that will be $..900."

I nearly fainted. And the Graingers contested the lawyer told them and my wife $350 the day before. He just said there must have been some mistake. Good thing I actually had a little money back then.

What do you do? Can't live with them, can't bake a good crud pie without them...

I have a house for ya...


My wife and I decided last winter to downsize and simplify our lives in 2007. At the time, we were living in a 3000 sq.ft house with just the two of us and a couple of cats. The 3-4 empty rooms and .5 acre lot were proving to be overwhelming for us. When we bought the house new 3 years ago, we thought it would be the perfect home to grow into, but that proved to be completely wrong. It's a perfect home, but not for us.

We listed it last February as we began making plans to buy a smaller town home and trade storage and size for no maintenance and a more manageable area. We closed on our new town house in early July and still are trying to sell the old house. The housing market is killing us right now, and the house's price is currently below market-assessed value, and a LOT below what we know it's worth.

A few weeks ago, tornadoes, floods and power outages pushed us over the edge and prompted us to move into the new place sooner than anticipated. Our basement in the old house held 7" of water in it while the sump pump was catatonic without power. The following three or four weeks have been nothing less than hell while we try to keep our lives glued together and remain sane.

Paying two mortgages, dealing with flood restoration and having to focus on EVERYTHING but leisure activities is beyond frustrating. My only real escape right now is turning my brain off in the work shop and checking into these forums.





Hang in there, it will get better, and the payoff will be worth the anguish (at least I keep telling myself that). And whatever you do, don't EVER say, "it can't get any worse."


doug

Eau Rouge wrote:.....And whatever you do, don't EVER say, "it can't get any worse."


doug

The devil loves to hear that. He knows what he is doing works and keeps on keeping on. Keep your head up and your grin on and he'll get bored and eventually leave you alone. Well, that is my sermon for the day.

over the past couple years i've been thinking about buying a house, but man the prices in chicago are just flabbergasting imo...

so for the time being, until i really decide on whether i wanna move and 'simplify' my life quite a bit, i am more than happy to rent a little attic apartment for 680 bucks. one really cool thing is i also get the house's 2 car garage, and here in chicago thats something unheard of.

Buying a house can be a hassle, but IMHO it beats renting because it's YOUR house, you can do anything you want to it, unless you were momentarily insane and bought within an association, then you're just renting from them even though you pay the mortgage.

badhoopty wrote:over the past couple years i've been thinking about buying a house, but man the prices in chicago are just flabbergasting imo...

so for the time being, until i really decide on whether i wanna move and 'simplify' my life quite a bit, i am more than happy to rent a little attic apartment for 680 bucks. one really cool thing is i also get the house's 2 car garage, and here in chicago thats something unheard of.

My sister-in-law and her husband sold their house in Chicago about 4 years ago and moved to Manhatten, just out side Joliet. I was flabbergasted by the price they got. It was a nice home with a big basement, but man did they cash out. She said it had less to do with the house and more to do with the neighborhood they were in.

Eau Rouge wrote:I have a house for ya...

Me too (if you prefer Michigan over Illnois), Me too, and Me too.... w/o the flood damage. Damn Market!

Has anyone checked there 401Ks over the past two months?

mrlexan wrote:....Has anyone checked there 401Ks over the past two months?

Let me call my accountant, E.F. Nuttin.
I bet the youngsters here don't remember those commercials.

the only bad thing about buying a house, instead of renting an apartment, is having to pay for stuff when it breaks. it was a lot nicer calling the landlord to fix it out of their pocket.

my wife and i looked for quite awhile for a single home that we could afford. we knew the one that we'd buy would be a fixer upper because of our price range. and, it is. but, it's our, and we can do what we want with it.

scr8p wrote:the only bad thing about buying a house, instead of renting an apartment, is having to pay for stuff when it breaks. it was a lot nicer calling the landlord to fix it out of their pocket.

my wife and i looked for quite awhile for a single home that we could afford. we knew the one that we'd buy would be a fixer upper because of our price range. and, it is. but, it's our, and we can do what we want with it.

I agree. Home is home.

Trying to find affordable housing here in So Cal is impossible, even with prices leveling off or dropping. Median price for Los Angeles county is well over half a million. Thank goodness, I already have a house.

Richie, need another one? The market just outside metro LA (inland empire) is falling rapidly, my house has been for sale for a while, couple bites, but nothing concrete enough to open escrow. I have already dropped the price over $50K, and I am still not the lowest in my area.

Now, with the mortgage companies failing, it seems even worse for me!!

JK Racing wrote:I have already dropped the price over $50K, and I am still not the lowest in my area.

The big city housing prices are amazing. You dropped your price by half of what I paid for my house.
I can't imagine how anybody can reasonably afford to live in an area where the median price is $500k.
Living in upstate NY I can afford to have my wife stay home with the kids and I only work 40h/wk (average)
If I lived back in NYC where I grew up I'd have to moonlight and have the wife work just to afford a cramped row house with no garage.
Move out to a small city, life is good here.

As Terry and I said in a recent thread, the houses in London and the surrounding area are crazy. Economic experts now believe this area has a micro economy that bears no relation to the rest of the UK. The kind of house that you guys in the US would class as a 'normal' family home (4 bedrooms, 2/3 bathrooms, reasonable garden) is probably around US $2Million now.

Myself and the lady bought our second house this year, I don't even want to repeat the price, but needless to say we now have around US $800 to spend after we have paid for the house each month. This sounds like a lot, but trust me it isn't!! Especially when trying to support an RC addiction

Let's just hope the bubble doesn't burst in a big way or, like in the early 90's, people in our position will be in negative equity.

Good Luck Ed!

well i'm moving house in around 6 weeks now and although it's really expensive and will be very stressful i have to say i can't wait. our current house is a 2 (1.5) bedroom terrace and there's four of us now, where as the new house has 3 double bedrooms PLUS i get my very own workshop area. it's in the country too (i cant wait to get away from the yobs that live around here) so it'll be nice and quiet. But it is costing us big time.