Well having spent a few days worrying about the possibility of having our mortgage reduced, a few swift calls to mortgage advisors have put our minds at rest. It's all fine and whilst mortgage companies take a good hard look at the incomes of the applicant, the amount of equity that goes into the purchase can have a more significant sway. Long and short of it is that we still have are original purchasing power restored. You beauty!!

 

That said, we're going to change our lifestyle a bit. Out goes the personal jet, chauffeur and caviar as we adopt a more frugal lifestyle to compensate for our impending mortgage hike once we move. 

Brilliant!!!!! In order to meet the higher cost of property in Brighton I called my current mortgage company to see what extra money we could outof them. The long and short of the phone call was that as my wife was now starting up her own business this actually affected our potential to buy a new place.

 

At the very least we though we could 'port' (as the pro's call it) the mortgage with perhaps a few fees thrown in, but no, we're walloped with having to face being assessed for a brand new mortgage. My wife's income doesn't count for anything until she has 12 months of business under her belt. So, rather than get the extra £30,000 we now find ourselves £40,000 short! By crikey!

 

So, now sat in garden having to consider the joy of a) stay put in until next Feb when the mortgage redemption fee expires b)  Pay the £7,500 redemption fee and face having to pay a significantly higher rate for a non-status mortgage c) buy that lottery ticket.

 

So not a great selection there particularly considering the best I've ever managed is three numbers....and to cap it off...some theiving bounder has nicked the ivy we planted in our window box last weekend. That's the third in  2 months. Firstly, what on earth does anyone want to do with an ivy? Secondly does anyone have any deterent tips for plant 'scoundrels' and thirdly, will we incur the wrath of property misdescriptions for no longer having a plant that is shown most clearly in the estate agent's particulars?

Well it's early days, but I have to say I'm a little disappointed to only get  a handful of phonecalls regarding prospective properties. Two of the phonecalls have been from mortgage advisors that I had asked the associated estate agents explicity at the time of registration not to push my way, so slapped wrists there.

 

I have also had a number of emails sent to me containing a hotch-potch of properties, and I just wonder....do all these emails come to me via an automated data feed based on my initial criteria or do they receive a little more of the 'peronal touch' neccesitating human input? Of the half dozen I've recieved so far only one has been in my desired location - so i'm inclined to think the former! One email was promoting a property in Littlehampton, where presumably King and Chasemore thought it's okay for me to walk the 44 mile round trip to my desired train station.

 

I think I will contact all my agents and ensure that they are aware of my specific criteria regarding location...

Well, we've now got an idea for ourselves of the 'fluidity' of the Brighton market. We saw a house (priced slighty above our range) that had the asking price achieved on the very day it hit the market! We've have seen a few others that don't move quite as fast but is does seem the good one's are simply snapped. It really confirms the conudrum that I outlined earlier which is whether there is any point in lookng at properties in Brighton whilst our own home is not under offer? Are we just teasing ourselves by seeing places we like when at the back of our minds we know that we're not quite in the postion to move?

 

We did have a viewing on our place weekend. I thought the estate agent would be arriving with the client, but I was evidently wrong so I had to put on my sales hat and try and remember all the relevant bits on Property Ladder about succesfully showing somone around a house. After 40 minutes(!) our prospective buyer had heard and seen enough. I felt I had completed my 'Estate Agent initiaitation' adequately and think I will  reward myself by buying a sharp suit and a branded mini in the next couple of weeks.

 

Feedback from the agent was that the viewer loved out property (yippee!) although they were not in a position to move right away (boo!). Perhaps the most interesting development was that the viewer was in fact the mother of one of the partners of the agency we're selling through. So how does that work? We have an agent whose main goal it is to act in the best interest of their seller to achieve the best price possibly selling our property to their partners mother! Also does that mean they are as inclined to push our property to other potential buyers as the as they would have done previoulsy? I guess I'll have to wait and see if the viewings dry up or not!

A bit of a conundrum this one. When registering with the agents the other weekend, I inevitably asked about the state of the local market. From memory the responses were 'robust', 'strong' and 'very active', all I note, words equally applicable to describing a cockroach - but I digress.

 

The point here is that the Brighton Market is a strong market for sellers and therefore a competitive market for the likes of me, a buyer. Stock questions during registration were 'at what stage we were with our current property? How long had it been on the market? Was it under offer?' and so on. I believe the intention of such questions is to elicit the strength of our position to act if the right property came our way. Good properties in Brighton are having asking price offers on them the day they come to the market. I'm sure that the even better properties don't even reach the Estate Agents windows.

 

I have to balance this active market with the very much smaller and inevitably less active market of the village in which I am selling my house. It's probably going to take a while to sell.  Even though Sawbridgeworth is only a 40 minute train journey into Liverpool St, no-one seems to know or heard of it. It does exist I tell you! It's sandwiched between Bishop's Stortford and Harlow and is host to 'Beckingham Palace' no less. Although, frankly I'm getting rather tired of Posh and Beck's 'just popping round' for a cup of tea or to borrow my Swingball set.

 

However back to my main point which is that somehow we need to consider how to achieve a balance of being in a realisitic position to put in an offer on a place in Brighton and have our own property positioned at a similar stage. Do we hit the Brighton market guns blazing, find something we like and then worry about the sale of our house later, or do we wait until our place is under offer first ?

 

If we take the first choice we may end up in the realms of bridging loans or have to compromise on the sale price of our house. if we take the second option, we may find ourselves out of our home, everything put in storage and commiting to a short term let which will likely necessitate a 6 month contract. Both choices are therefore financially penalizing.

 

 Id been keen to know if anyone has had similar experiences and which of the two scenarios is more prefereable in their experience?

Well thank you sun...stuck in bank holiday traffic with the roof down, I now have a face of an Oompa-Loompa. A great weekend for being on the beach but not for sitting in Estate Agents registering our details over and over again! The upshot is that we are now registered with 7 agents. Most are local only to the Brighton and Hove area, although there are some of the national chains there too such as Winkworths and Strutt and Parker.

 

We took the opportunity to walk around Brighton and Hove and get a feel for the different areas. There are a lot of considerations on location alone. As mentioned before we need to be reasonably close to the town centre and a maximum 15 mins from Brighton or Hove Station. Hove, we felt was a little too far out from the action, although arguably the properties there are a little less expensive. As we need parking for one van (wife's business) we pretty much had to eliminate a lot of the properties on or near the seafront. Brighton does have some serious parking issues and you can wait for up to 28 months jst to get a permit to park outside your house!

 

After much walking and discussion we decided we like the look of the Seven Dials area. Some nice shops and bars, 10-15 mins from Brighton Station, parking not really an issue, and it's on a hill which will keep us safe from any impending global warming sea level rises for the next 500 years.

 

Our budget is around £375,000 - £380,000. We're looking for a 3 bed with a bit of outside space and not too much work needed. Those are the basic criteria.

Well, I didn't think we would be moving again after just one year. Then again you just never know what lies ahead. My wife and I had a five year plan on our current place, but having settled in, found the transformation in lifestlye from 'edgy' Hackney to small, quiet English village too much of a step change. We're just too damn unwilling to commit our souls to life in the 'sticks'....just yet. Shame, as we've spent the last year turning our house into a place of our own and just as we're enjoying the fruits of our labours, we've put it on the market!

 

So with the house up for sale, we've spent recent times considering where on earth we're going to go next. Somewhere commutable to London for me and somewhere where my wife can develop her upholstery business and be close to friends. Oh yes, and this time we need to be somewhere with a bit more 'life and soul'!

 

Putting all the critereia into our (yet to be patented) 'Location Cruncher' we finally decided on.....'London on Sea' or Brighton as others prefer to call it. We've spent a number of weekends down there previously with friends and have always had a great time. The beach, South Downs, shopping, proximity to London and arts & crafts scene all conspire to make Brighton our destination of choice.

 

So, we're off this weekend for a good old trapse around Brighton (and Hove) to see what they have to offer, and establish whether we will be able to afford 'London on Sea' prices!