House hunting

Our house has been in the market for a month now. We’ve had at least 5 viewings and it looks like there’s an interest in it. However, we haven’t received any offers yet. I’ve been watching all kinds of “home-related” TV programmes on the channel “Home” and both Jon and I are quite confident that the house will sell eventually. It ticks all the boxes: uncluttered, not too busy, recently re-decorated, commutable area, etc. So we just have to sit back and wait for an offer!

In the meantime, we have started looking at potential properties ourselves. We shouldn’t really, as we may fall in love with a house and be unable to put an offer on it (beacuse we can’t until we have an offer on ours first), but still, it is a good exercise in order to judge what there is out there, what we can expect for our money, which areas are best, etc.

Rightmove.co.uk has been my best friend in the last couple of weeks

We’d like to stay in the area where we are at the moment. We already know the place, it would be near work, it would save us a lot of money in petrol, and all that. But at the same time, we know that the further we go, the more value for money we’ll get. For instance, for £220k in the Woking area you get a tiny semi or terraced house, with three bedrooms, one bathroom, a living-dining room and a kitchen. Basically, the same that we have at the moment, but with an extra room. In the Basingstoke area, on the other hand, for £220k you get a semi detached with three bedrooms, maybe the master bedroom will have an en-suite too, bathroom, large kitchen, separate dining room, garage, off street parking… So much more for your money. But it is one-hour drive away…

We’re going to have a look at a new build in Basingstoke today. We’ll be able to judge the distance and realise if it’s commutable or not, but we’ll also be able to look at other towns and villages in the area.

Who knows where we’ll end up!?