Survey Pending

It's incredible how slow the sale of the flat is going. It's not that we were not warned in advance. Our (excellent) solicitor Rita Greaney told us that we would exchange in early November so we're on track but it seems that the lats 2 weeks have been lost in meaningless exchanges between the 2 solicitors.
From our point of view, we prepared the seller's pack as soon as we instructed our solicitor and we thought it would be sent straight away. That was without understanding that solicitors don't work fast. Our solicitor was waiting for the seller's solicitor to send her a notification of instruction, which she never reveived. Luckily, we are getting on well with the buyer so we got the solicitor to communicate yesterday and things are going to move again!
Anyway, I don't want to sound downcast, since it's all going according to plan so far. The buyer's survey is taking place on Tuesday and we'll be expecting some questions regarding the property, which should be quite similar to the ones we asked when we bought the place...
More news next week... :-)

Visiting Bristol

Following last Monday's survey, it's been pretty quiet on the selling front (partly thanks to the buyers enjoying the autumn of Tenerife) so we got busy on the renting / buying front in Bristol.

What we realised is that we needed an address in Bristol quick, if we wanted to get Issy (our 3-year old princess / monkey - depending on moods) in a good school. So we went through 100's of Ofsted reports, studies the school result league and selected 5 or 6 areas to visit.

For those knowing Bristol, it will come as no surprise that Clifton, Redland & Cotham (CRC) were our No1 target. But (and there's always a but) £300,000 does not get you very much in posh Bristol and certainly not a house, which was the No1 reason we decided to move in the first place.

So we also looked at St. Andrews & Bishopston and Southville and in all these places, we could afford a 3-bed Victorian house so that's pretty cool, even if it doesn't have the charm of CRC...
We also went to Totterdown, where our friends (Andrew & Amy) from Stoke Newington bought a lovely 3-bed house last year and I really loved their house. It felt like so much space, after living for 4 years in a flat and I really can't wait to move now...

Surveying

For a week, I completely forgot that I had a blog (there must be reasons why I never managed to keep a diary for more than a week) and then I remembered last night whilst watching the excellent Heroes (no link...) so here we go...

A lot's happened since last post. The buyer's formal offer came in the post on Saturday morning and they came on that day for a second viewing. I took Issy (our 3-year old daughter) out while Nicky was doing the tour. The buyer turned out to be a very friendly Argentinian couple, who are very much alike some of our friends. They seem to be keen, which is reassuring, as there is always the fear that everything will collapse in the back of your mind. I guess they're feeling in the same way.

The viewing went well and things are moving forwards. We've both got our solicitor instructed and we've given her all the house documents we kept from the purchase of the leasehold 4 years ago and from the purchase of the freehold last year. This way, we've ensured that there is no delay in proceeding.

Yesterday morning, the surveyor did his survey and we are now waiting to see the result... We expect that he'd noticed a bit of damp but we're confident that the building is in good shape!

Until next time... cheerio!

Under Offer

Would you believe it???

Nicky & I were enjoying the sunshine on Southwark Bridge for the Thames festival when Nick from Keatons called and told us that the buyer who viewed the flat this morning (1st viewing of the property) made an offer of £325k... That's exactly the amount we were ready to accept to take it off the market so we're very pleased that it's happening so fast!. We couldn't believe it and with the 0% commission on top, we feel very lucky! Keatons are GREAT!

It's quite unreal. We've lived here since January 2003 and we decided to sell less than 3 weeks ago so having the flat under offer is surreal...

Now, we're hoping that the sale will go through smoothly but Nick assured us that they've been looking for while with their Bow office and have their finance sorted.
Since both parties are chain free, we could be moving to Bristol by the end of November!!!

Selling the flat

It's looking like everything is getting together quite nicely :-)

The estate agent is now actively selling the flat (web, local press & the ES in 2 weeks time), the solicitor has been chosen (as recommended by a friend who sold her flat at the beginning of the year) and the last decorating work is taking place today & tomorrow (painting the outside windows & the ceiling of the l0unge).

The other great news is that I found out that we could also sell the flat privately and not pay any commission to the estate agent... (read this article)

That's Plan B is Keatons cannot sell our flat!

The flat is on the market

The sales guys from Keatons came this afternoon to look at the flat and they really liked it.
I told them that they'd receive a case of champaign if they sold it and they were talking about viewing this weekend, maybe one tonight (well it didn't happen...)
The property is online now and the link is here

Pictures are taken today

It's all very exciting. Kate from Keatons is coming at 4pm to take the pictures of the property.
God we worked hard in preparation. The wooden floors were waxed, the carpets cleaned and the flat de-cluttered (again!) to make sure that we don't scare off any potential buyers with our huge mess...
We've also decided to drop the asking price to £329,950 so we can get some early viewing...
I'll post the link to the estate agent page when it's published!

We're selling up!

After a lot of discussion between my wife & I, meetings at work and a mountain of doubts, we've decided 2 weeks ago that it was time to sell our 2 bedroom garden flat on the Harringay ladder (north London) and move to Bristol, where Nicky is from.
This blog will tell the story as it unfolds of our next 6 months, when we are planning to sell our flat, rent a house in Bristol before buying one there.
Maybe some background information is necessary at this time.
Nicky & I are both 37 and we're the proud parent of a 3-year old devil called Issy. London's been great for us and we still ove the fact that everything that can be thought of actually exists but we also feel that we need more space in preparation of our 2nd child and could do with more family support.
Bristol ticks all the boxes and it's a coincidence but 3 couples we're close to have moved to the South West this year so the time is right too.

Anyway, we started the process by contacting 5 'local' estate agents last week, which valued the flat between £300,000 & £350,000.
Keatons offered a 0% commision deal, as part of their marketing drive the enter the area so we chose them on a 4-week basis.

Since all the agents had their specific style, I'd thought that I'd use this plage to share it with anyone who's interested:

Castles: Director Panos was very friendly and claimed to be the first one in the area (17 years ago) so his knowledge of Haring ay was amazing. Like others, his agency was linked with one other in Crouch End, to benefit from the overflow of people would like the lifestyle but can't afford to live round the broadway. Commission: 1.25% (down to 1% when we announced that we went with Keatons)

Winkworth: Michael was very friendly too and with wealth of knowledge (he worked for Paul Simon before setting up Winkworth in N8 1 year ago). Commission: 1.5%

Foxtons: Caroline was very professional and she was convincing regarding the strength of Foxtons (huge marketing...) but we thought that we wanted some more personnalised service, plus Foxtons had no local presence, the office being in Muswell Hill. Her valuation at £330k was correct but with a commission of 2.5%, we declined.

Bairstow Eves: Ruben made a repeated claim that he sold No.4 and had 2 buyers waiting. He seems to have a strong bias towards the buyers and had we wanted to sell our flat at £300k, we would probably have gone with him but he was reluctant to try a higher price. Commission: 1.5%

Keatons: They won our business with their 0% offer and their strong marketing, partly inspired by Foxtons. There is a question mark about their ability of get enough viewings to make a sell but the 0% offer was too good to resist and we decided to serve our notice (4-week) so if we're not happy with them after that time, we'll change agent. Commision: 0% (up to Sept. 28th) then 2.25%

The pictures will be taken on Tuesday and the flat for sale on Wednesday at £335k so watch this space...