Buying A House: C or D?

Jesus, is that in London?
I found a £30 million apartment online in Kensington the other day. Thirty. Million. Pounds. THIRTY!!

Yeah, North London. Apparently all the bankers who are feeling the pinch after the financial crisis are buying £650k flats in places like Highbury rather than £1m flats in Kensington these days. This one has gone up in value by about £100k in the last three years.

Fucking hell.

Have had an offer accepted on a house two streets away from where we were buying, £2k cheaper and much nicer; all the things we'd have wanted to do to the other one (knock through livingroom and diningroom, put original fireplaces and stained glass back in) are already there. So things appear to be working out for the best.

Hurray!

Excellent! One thing that's been slightly annoying since we moved is seeing incrementally better houses in our area become available as the market drifts down into our price range - like if we'd waited a few months we could've got further from the main road, then a bigger garden, and now an extra bedroom. But then we'd never've got our flat away if we hadn't moved when we did, and we're years older now anyway, so put this down to an unexpected stroke of luck and forget about it imo.

Hope all goes smoothly, Sick!

Went to look at a house last night. Lovely garden and conservatory, unusual in our area/price range, but the inside rooms were tiny compared to our 2-bedroom flat. A bit disappointed by how few houses there seem to be in this town where the latter isn't true, though, even if I bump up the max price to something well out of our range.

I fear I'd have to type the best part of a million into rightmove to get somewhere with a main bedroom and living room noticeably bigger than those in our flat - which isn't even a particularly huge or expensive flat. (At least, it's a lot smaller than the one in another town the bf moved out of to join me in it.)

Our flat has a big living room/dining room/kitchen open plan area, because it's the top of a Georgian town house basically. Finding a Victorian terrace that could take our sofa (and hifi) has been a ball-ache. But methinks we've done it.

I'm sure I typed "I think" there. I'm not fucking Blackadder.

hope it all goes through sick.
the legal/paperwork side of house moving is just nasty.
the shit/hoops we had to jump through when we bought ireallylovemusic hq 13 years ago still sends shivers up my spine, hence why when a few weeks ago at a local 'do' i was asked by two seperate people if the place was on the market (small town rumours due to probate valuationsi suspect) i was quick to make them realise that i aint going through that stuff for a very long time. (hopefully !).
as i said, good luck sick, sounds like things are working out for you.

man this is a sweet deal in turners. right down the road from greenfield. i could walk there. anyway, one of the good things about buying a place around here. lots of 2-families for sale. rent out half and pay no mortgage.

http://www.trulia.com/property/3093363102-5-Chestnut-Ln-Turners-Falls-MA-01376

Oof, $165k for 6 bedrooms... or live here and pay at least $450k for 3

hang on scott

.. is that really $740 per month !?!!?

f&ck us brits get ripped off ..

i would seriously want to know how many mass murders/people under the stairs etc there are at that price ..

honestly there are all kinds of houses around here for that price. nice ones. i mean are house is really nice and we got a steal.

love owning a house, best move i ever made

― buzza, Monday, March 28, 2011 9:46 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

chestnut lane looks nice, but the commute would kill me.

here there's a newly listed 1 bed flat over the road from me = £300k

I like it but really old houses (built in 1880!) creep me out a bit. I just don't want to deal with all kinds of funky construction methods, ancient wiring and plumbing, old radiators everywhere, lead in the paint, asbestos in the floor tiles, crap insulation. That said, I wish their were more duplexes/quadplexes around my neck of the woods. I live in one now - two addresses encompassing four total units, but I rent. The last one that sold - and that was about 5 years ago even though there are about 40 of them - went for over $1 million. And that's for half the building, 2 units.

Mine was built around 1790, it's solid as a rock and brilliant. Didn't have radiators, had to put in a v good central heating system. Same as SM, in a top of a Georgian building and looking to move into a house.

I do like old houses and old buildings - just not sure I'd want to own one and be responsible for the upkeep.

ok, just to check, in US is a 1939 build regarded as "old" ?

cos in UK this is still a new-ish house i.e. all elec/plumbing/ec meet modern needs

our house is turn of the 20th century. 1910's. its totally solid. we will have to rewire though.

all depends what the people have done before you. how good they've kept it up. how much they replaced. our heating system is new. roof is relatively new. chimney was recently redone. electrical is our biggest expense. everything else is great.

lots of old houses around here. i like old houses. i feel at home in them. i grew up in a house that was built around 1825.

if you buy a nice cheap older house around here and have to put some money into it, chances are you're still gonna get a great deal.

i like old stuff though. old wood. you can't get the kind of woodwork an old house has unless you're rich. it costs too much now. i like our humongous old windows. and the fireplace. and the crazy ancient wallpaper that came from that hotel in the shining.

you can see the wallpaper here. be warned though, when i filmed this we had spent the whole day at home and we wrecked the place. to be fair though, we always wreck the place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEeUd0Yf-pY&feature=plcp

old houses are cool, but I wouldn't want to be on the hook for maintenance and upgrades for a big one. My brother has a 1930s Craftsman-style house that I may buy in a year or two - I'd want to rip out all the interior sheetrock (at some point was redone in 1/4" drywall), reinsulate, probably rewire (CAT-5 and grounded electrical throughout) and replace the windows with double or triple-glazed. Thankfully it's only ~1300 sq ft, but heating and cooling costs a fortune. When I patched a wall for him, the insulation in that part was shredded newspaper.

xxxp - 1939 is 'old' in most of the US, yes.

My 1950s home still has some original knob-and-tube electrical wiring, odd since that was mostly phased out by then.

There are definitely things I like better in old houses, like real attics that can be turned into an extra bedroom, rather than the useless attics in newer houses that are full of trusses (diagonal wood beams) holding up the roof. And then there's those interesting floorplans that have things you just wouldn't find nowadays, like the house my aunt lives in that, in addition to a main staircase that runs through the four levels, also has stairs leading directly from one of the third-floor bedrooms to the kitchen. From what I understand, this was so a paid cook could walk to and from the kitchen without disturbing the rest of the household. Some old houses I know have had several renovations and additions over the years, leading to a hodgepodge of architectural styles and rooms without any obvious purpose.

also we wanted something in town that we could afford and there aren't really any newer houses in town in greenfield! its an older town. you have to go out further into the woods for newer stuff and those houses are more expensive. so we figured $140,000 for almost 2,000 sf house with 4 bedrooms was worth the future upkeep.

yeah our attic is amazing and huge and could definitely be turned into something. our basement is great too. and relatively dry which is rare around here.

and its not like newer houses don't have problems too! they can be just as much of a headache sometimes. depending on who built them. i figure old houses have stood the test of time. this house has seen a ton of northeastern winters and storms! and its still here. need that kind of solidity in a post-warming world.

agreed - especially the McMansions that were built all over the US during the housing bubble 10 years ago. Cheap, cheap, cheap. It's like the builders used a computer to determine the thinnest possible walls and floors that wouldn't collapse by themselves. Forget listening to vinyl - the floor will shake with every step you take, causing the needle to jump to the next groove. Rare in the US, my house is built mostly of masonry and steel framing - I could jump up and down on the floor and it wouldn't shake. I can barely hear the people upstairs.

We had been trying to come to a price agreement on a house we liked (long story short, vendors have reduced the price three times now but can't let go of the original price and so are determined not to budge on what it's on for just now, whereas we're looking at it knowing it needs building work to make it good) but after a week of being £10-15k apart decided to look at other things. Viewed another yesterday (the first to look at it), put an offer in this morning which I pretty much know is too low but is really for them to tell me what they want/need for it because we are definitely buying it, the only debate is how much for.

Do you mind saying whereabouts it is? I think we live in the same city so wouldn't mind picking your brains about neighbourhood s. We've been looking for ages. Webmail might be better!

Yeah, drop me a email. We're moving out of the city to Three Counties but have been in Bristol for 15 years so have plenty of opinions on areas.

our house is turn of the 20th century. 1910's. its totally solid. we will have to rewire though.

We call that relatively new around here. lol Part of the shop we rent is 18th century. You can see it on the tiles (engraved date).

We don't own ourselves. We live in my parents owned house. Really great (4 to five bedrooms, three bathrooms). Big yes, but it really doesn't feel that way. Probably cause I stuffed it full of furniture. lol
But we'll be the "naked owners" of the flat my inlaws will be buying. OMG!

I wish I could afford this house: http://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/1048-W-Oakdale-Ave-60657/home/13364482

woah, flicking through those pictures, specifically 3 and 4 and 7 and 8, it's obvious that they are systematically replacing that wallpaper with magnolia paint. 9 and 10 also. leave it alone!

Oh yeah, I'd want it as is.

oh, it's just photoshopped. can they do that? mock up pictures like that without pointing out what they are doing?

"We call that relatively new around here."

well, duh. you can buy an 18th century house around here, but most of them are expensive show house historical landmarks or museums.

for instance:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3089609239-26-West-St-Hadley-MA-01035

this is dreamy. 14 acres. next to a lake and the mountains. deal of the century.

http://www.antiquehomesmagazine.com/Properties.php?task=View&id=14906

woah, flicking through those pictures, specifically 3 and 4 and 7 and 8, it's obvious that they are systematically replacing that wallpaper with magnolia paint. 9 and 10 also. leave it alone!

― koogs, Thursday, August 30, 2012 10:36 AM (2 hours ago)

Yeah, what's the deal here? It's like, "hey potential buyers, here's what the rooms would look like if you painted over the wallpaper"....

One house I looked at was advertised online with several nice-looking photos. When I drove up to see it, I found out it was the last house in the residential-zoned area, and backed up against an ugly industrial complex behind the rear fence, full of dumpsters and trash bins. I took some pictures, which I later compared to those that were posted by the seller's agent. The latter had been 'shopped to remove the trash receptacles.

This is around the corner from she we are now. Wish I had £1.65m.

http://search.knightfrank.com/exe100278

See I would change nearly everything about that! No original fire places or Coving or ceiling roses! Plus I have a personal loathing of beige bathrooms. There's one coMpletely clad in those beige tiles on the place we're interested in and my heart sinks to think of ripping them out but I want to re create our current bathroom.

have to say sick, that place looks clinical and heartless ..

give me a lived in home with scars of life over a showcase house anyday ..

Oh I like both extremes. Every house had to be new sometime! Also the non-furniture furniture they've filled that modern house with is the absolute WORST, and they don't have any window treatments, probably to show you the maximum views etc, but who lives in a house with no shades or curtains??? That's ridiculous.

Coveting those bathrooms hardcore.

I like the rooms where you can sit around and look at the views, but I'd feel a little ridiculous doing my cooking business on a pair of kitchen worktops dumped in the middle of a giant open-plan non-kitchen area, even if those two worktops + the space between is bigger and more kitted out than my whole current kitchen

(but then for me cooking involves making a mess and dropping stuff and swearing and being too tired to clean up afterwards, so that's not really something I want on view to any guests who are sitting in other parts of my imaginary spotless luxury design house. Not that I'd actually be able to keep those tastefully uncluttered either)

omg we looked at this amazing place today. Detached Georgian place, want to sell quickly so will accept an offer we can afford, amazing huge rooms like a palace, everything we've been looking for, just unbelievable. BUT it's right on a main road on one side so the garden is really noisy. Inside the house it's ok. We've already nixed another nice-enough place on the basis of noisy garden (is as good as no garden?) so we're totally torn up about this one. Argh. Is there such a thing as noise-sucking machines?

Shrubbery and water features?

A tall baffled wall covered in vines on both sides oughtta do it.

Yeah, foliage and water, soak up that noise.

Doing some google-fu on it. There's already a fair bit of foliage but not all the way along. It's always going to be a gamble!