House Hunting 2: The Offers

When last I ranted, we had made on offer on a house with a mahoosive and truly magnificent kitchen, and we were in for the wait. And wait we did, but the owners were arseholes and after their property being on the market for three months already and ours being the only asking price offer submitted, they eventually decided they wanted more money and then went, nah, we'll remortgage thanks. Buggers.

Unfortunately, that kitchen has ruined me and now all other kitchens will be compared to that one, and inevitably be inferior, and that will always be our 'one that got away.' Sob. And so we returned to the drawing board, or in this case, the map on rightmove and found our next few viewings. We had some good ones and some not so great ones and some, oh, that looked way better on the photographs but quite shit in person. And some, oh dear, they have way over priced that - because I am now an expert and can give these carefully assessed observations. And some, oh that has a big basement, that could be interesting - and also full of spiders, and it would need to be dug out and probably cost us 6 months and 60 grand to do it. And we had viewings on weekends and weekdays and even on Valentine's Day and unfortunately that was one of the shite ones and I'd had a massively long day at work and just wanted to eat something.

But there were some lights ahead in the tunnel and we found a few beauties tucked away, again in the form of the massive terraced house. We're talking four bedrooms, attic conversion already done, at least two bathrooms and a garden and a short walk to a beautiful park etc etc. Not too shabby. However, these 'guide' prices on properties are starting to become annoying. You are giving just under asking price and then being told that actually they expect to get asking price or higher, and it's like, in this market? Are you serious? And also, WTF?! People always make offers lower than the price listed and then go higher if they need to, but what is all this demanding the price or higher malarkey? I don't get it!

Meanwhile, we had to prepare the flat for going on the market, which involved being screwed over by the valuer and eventually reasoning with them to make them see they were wrong. Obviously A dealt with that, though I did have to spend an hour with the extremely posh back up valuer we hired to get a second opinion on, which was scary. He immediately called out my accent and then explained he had family in Bolton. But I have literally never been in a room with someone so posh. Luckily he was also lovely and we ended up having a good chinwag.

Then came the de-cluttering which involved hiring a storage unit and getting rid of about fifteen boxes of stuff, plus other random crap and two of the three extra keyboard stands we own - who knows - and the guitar stand. Now that was a stressful morning. I moved so many boxes that day, it may have been the most upper body strength I've ever displayed in one go. We hired a van and were at the storage place at 8am, as they opened. Once off loaded, van returned and Andrea off to work, I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon cleaning the bathroom. But when I say cleaning, I mean deep cleaning. I spent hours getting rid of expired products, cleaning out bottles to be put in recycling, and breathed in far too much bleach for one day.

The next day we had the photographer coming at 1pm and so I spent all morning cleaning and moving things and generally making the place look spectacular, and when he called to say that he was running a bit late, I rejoiced because it meant I could finish off and quickly wash my face before he arrived. And when he walked in and said: 'Wow, this looks great for photographs.' I knew that despite the fact that I hated everything and never wanted to clean anything again in my life, that it had been worth it. The photos were great and now it's a case of keeping it tidy. Most of the spices now live in a small suitcase so it gives the illusion that we have a tidy spice shelf, and most of the tupperware things are stuffed in a large suitcase. We have to keep going to find things as we need them.

We have an openhouse planned for this weekend where we hope to wow everyone with our beautiful flat, despite the building still being covered in scaffolding and the communal areas being a mess and the balcony works not finished and... I could go on. Maybe I'll bake some treats to distract them. It's worth a shot.

And so, back to the houses. We found one. We liked it a lot. We had two viewings within the space of 3 days, and we were fairly certain we would put in an offer. It was very nicely done and even had a kitchen island - the dream - a wine fridge and beautiful views from the annex bedroom. But on the same day we also found another new property and were the first to view it, and the downstairs was amazing! Two massive reception rooms, a kitchen with so much space I could have a dance lesson in there. A window seat, a conservatory, a massive garden with grass plus decking and a brick barbecue. But this only had 3 bedrooms as the attic and basements had not been converted. So whilst it was beautiful, we opted first to put an offer on the bigger one, mainly due to less hassle not having to do the extension ourselves.

And we entered a bidding war and we lost. Yay! The joys.

But alas, yesterday we made an offer on the other house, and they have accepted. Eek. Argh. And other noises. And so A has already looked into architects and loft conversion specialists. Of course. And so we have to do that thing where you don't get your hopes up, but they are clearly up, because it could still be taken away or fall through, or no one may want our flat, but at the moment, we may have a house and it may or may not have a red door. Fate?!

I didn't know what to do with myself, as I only found out about it an hour and a half ago. And after freaking out a bit, I decided to tick another item off my to do list, and write a blog.

If anyone else is going through this house buying process at the moment, or selling, then I feel your pain and I too am not sleeping or able to think about much else. It's slightly consuming.

Thank you for reading as always. And fingers crossed. Eek.

Rants