Relocation part 2 – Building from the ground up...Nearly.

Well hopefully you all read my last post about moving house, if not find it HERE.

If your too lazy then shame on you, but the basics are, we want to move. We want to move out of the area we currently live in and we want to move closer to Christine’s parents as Grandma will be looking after BB when the wife goes back to work.

Our house has been on the market with a local estate agent since November and we have had a grand total of 1 viewing. The feedback we got was that the house was lovely but they wanted to live closer to work.

So, until recently, we haven’t even entertained the idea of looking at homes for us to move into, because what’s the point if you haven’t sold your house right?

Well last week a house came on the market, close to the street where we would look if our house ever sold. We made an exception and went for a viewing. The reason we made that exception was because the house looked at is a repossession and is about £40k cheaper than the houses in our price range.

Another major reason it is so cheap is because it’s currently not liveable. Well, technically you COULD live in it, but you could also live in a wheelie bin, but nobody wants to!

We have made an offer, which has been accepted, the money should be in place next week and hopefully we can get contracts exchange within a couple of weeks.

It is going to be a crazy amount of hard work. The place needs to be stripped down to the bare walls and floors, kitchen needs ripping out and starting again and garden needs a whole lotta love, but hopefully by the end of it all, we will have our dream home and the satisfaction that WE made it OUR home for OUR family.

All of this of course depends on a few things, such as survey and nobody else putting a higher off in. (As it’s a repossession, the banks leave it on the market with hope they can re-coup as much money as possible).

If anybody has any experiences buying a repossessed home or you have had a similar project, then PLEASE pass on your experiences and advice. We need all the help we can get.

Thanks for reading FTD

PS, I have created a page just for updates on the house, so if you’re interested, clicky da linky.

It’s not just dancers who need a routine!

Humans are a creature of habit. I am also a creature of routine.

I wake up and my mornings go the same every day, give or take a few minutes. If ANYTHING interferes with that routine, then my whole “schedule” is ruined and I end up being late to work, or I forget to do something. Thanks to my beautiful wife, my morning routines haven’t changed all that much, even after becoming a parent. Unless of course it’s the weekend, in which case anything can happen!!

One person who doesn’t have a routine is BB. C tries to keep a routine during the day but as any mummy or daddy will probably tell you; babies do what they want, when they want it.

So 2 days ago C announces that she is going to try and install a bedtime routine for BB. This involves Bath, Boob and then bed. Unexpectedly, it didn’t go to plan. The first night, he needed bathing about 6pm because of a “Poo Incident”, so it was far to early too go to bed, so he was fed and put to bed later than planned. The second night didn’t go well either. I arrived home to find a VERY grumpy, VERY tired boy who was asleep by 7:15 without getting any food at all. We decided rather than wait till he wakes from a nap and the put him to bed extremely late, we would put him to bed and give him a feed if he woke in the night.

So here we are, night 3 of trying to get a routine. He has been bathed. He is currently being served a delicious course of mum and will shortly be whisked away to the land of dreams.

Hopefully, this routine will stick. Hopefully it will help him relax on an evening (He lives such a stressful life playing and sleeping and eating and playing ect ect) but it will also help him sleep a little better and stop him waking during the night. More on that next time we meet!

Hopefully of the few that read this, you will have also gone through the trials and tribulations of trying to get a bedtime routine going and can pass on some tips or advice.

If this doesn’t work, I fear he will grow up to be disorganised, unpunctual and useless...just like his daddy.

As always, thanks for Reading.

FTD

Re-Location Re-location Re-location.

We knew that once BB came along, the house we currently live in wouldn’t be ideal. The main reason for this is that when Christine goes back to work, BB will be looked after by his grandma. The problem with this is that, grandma lives about 6 miles in the wrong direction for BB to be dropped off in the morning. Another minor reason for us wanting to move is the area in which we currently live.

Although, we have rarely had a problem on our very quiet cul-de-sac, the estate that our street is built onto has a certain reputation. When we originally moved here, it was described to me as the Beirut of Bradford! We moved here 7 years ago because not only was it closer to mine and Christine’s work, but the house prices were considerably lower.

We love our little house. We have made it into a beautiful home for us to live in and if I could pick this house up and move it to a different location I would do, but we can’t, so the only alternative is to put the house on the market.

Our little home has been on the market for about 3 months now and with only 1 viewing, it’s not looking good but there isn’t much more we can do. The house is up for a reasonable price, its well taken care of; we can only hope that the New Year brings new buyers into the market.

Our other options are:

1 – We lower the price significantly. Although this sound OK and we can afford to do this, it means we have less money to put towards a deposit on our new home which will no doubt be considerably more expensive than the house we sell. BUT we would be willing to do this if it meant a move.

2 – Worst case scenario. This is to sell to a “Quick sell” company. If you have never heard of these, basically these companies will come along and offer you considerably less than the market value. So for example, let’s say your house is worth £150k, they will probably offer you £105. Now that obviously sounds like a stupid deal, but they focus on those people who are probably going to lose their house anyway due to non-payment, so 70-75% of the value is better than losing your house all together. This is NOT the case with us, so we feel really begrudged about taking so little.

So, there we have it. We are stuck here for the time being. If we are still here when the wife goes back to work, it’s going to get really complicated having to take BB to his grandparents every morning, but it’s just one of the many things we have to as parents!

If anybody has any suggestions, or you have or know somebody that has had experience selling homes quickly, please give me a shout.

As always thanks for reading

FTD