The day the Agents came

It’s been a long time in the coming, but we finally had our 3 estate agents visit last week.

We had been speculating about what the valuation might be, going insane thinking about the disappointment at what we thought we might get and what it will buy in Hampshire and generally worrying over something we hadn’t even been told was a problem anymore.

So first up was a local agent. One who sold our last house and even sold us the one we are in right now.  He’s a good egg, but he’s still an estate agent.  He made all the right noises when he came in the house (hubby was home, so this is what I was told).  He commented on what a good job we’d done on the house.  The new flooring, the layout, the new kitchen, the decoration.

He then dropped the bombshell – since we bought the house 4 years ago, it had gained 100k.  Even in the outer suburbs of London, in a less sought after area, the market has gone a bit bonkers and we could (possibly) be in a situation where the sale could go to sealed bids.  More on that later.  He told us he’d do us a deal on the commission. 1% for under one figure and 1.2% if the price was higher.

The second estate agent was on my watch. They originally didn’t get back in contact with us after we filled in their online form, but I decided to ring and they were very professional and apologetic and told us they had not got it, but would look into why.  The guy who came was chatty, he gesticulated alot, he was a little annoying, but he asked a lot of questions about living in the house and what we had done to it. He made out that he was interested in our home.  He gave us a 1% commission too (no deal required) and suggested an open day.

The third estate agent started really well. Very professional. Was the manager and talked really well to me.  However, he treated the house like an asset not a home.  I started repeating what I’d told the 2nd guy (who had asked) but clearly he wasn’t interested in why we had redesigned the kitchen units.  I pointed out the chickens as we headed out to the garage (people usually find it amusing) but he barely acknowledged them.  Too busy calculating the square footage of the garden no doubt.  He offered us 1.5% commission, open to negotiation, and suggested an open day.

Both of the last 2 spent most of the last 30 minutes of their visit “dazzling” me with all their brochures and the “sales” they’ve made.

I eventually managed to get the last guy out the door with the truth that I had to pick up my 3 year old from nursery.  We were supposed to leave immediately but Pickle was watching Andy’s adventures with dinosaurs and there was 15 minutes left, so we stood and finished watching then left.  That’s when I saw the agent drive past.  He may have been making a telephone call OR he didn’t believe me and thought I was waiting for another agent

All of them are suggesting an open house.  All of them talked about sealed bids.  All of them banged on about how high we could get a sale for.  Yet, I’ve looked online and yes, there are some properties that went for high amounts and I’ve no doubt it was sealed bids.  However, there is a 4 bed near us that has been on for 3 months and a few 3 beds still sitting about.  Some of them don’t look great, but some do, so who do I believe?

At any rate. The decision is with the first two.  We think we are going with the 2nd agent as they have offices in a couple of nearby locations and we think their reach is a little bigger, but in the world of the internet, I’m not sure how much of an advantage that is.

Decisions decisions.

The Valuation

I had a wobble at the weekend.

I spent Saturday night on Right Move trying to see what houses were out there in our price range and the pickings were slim.  I then convinced myself that we were never going to find anything in our price range with everything we want and we should just give up on the whole idea.

As I said, it was a wobble.

It is with renewed vigour we started the week, putting one foot in front of the other and blitzing the last bits of the house.  The spare room (loft bedroom) which doubles as a study for hubby was completely transformed to something much more light and airy and rather than a pile of uncovered boxes in the corner with a rug thrown over it, we now have one of the kids old low toy cupboards on castors.

Why do we wait until we plan to move out to finally get our house in order?

On the weekend we hung a painting I’d be working on for about 5 months (I only spend about an hour a week painting).  It’s only my 2nd painting EVER and it’s grown on me, but more importantly it’s filling a great big blank white wall in our bedroom.

Also on the weekend I quickly bashed together 2 further paintings. They are no beauties, but they are in the colours of our bedroom (pale blue and brown) and will also break up another big wall.  I intend to paint over them in time.

So today we have our first valuation from an Estate Agents.  Eeeeek.  This will be the biggest milestone for us.  This will decide whether we are really going to be able to move to the country or not.

Despite living in London we are on the very edge of an expensive borough with a different London Borough as our postal address.  We don’t command the high valuations that our friends do less than a mile away.  If we can’t get £400k + for our house, then there is a chance our dreams may be shattered, because the area we want to move in has very very few houses on even at that price.

Fingers crossed we have a hidden gem.

Our reconnaissance to Hampshire

Last weekend was a pre-organised trip out to the countryside in and around Hampshire to see if we could pinpoint some of the villages or towns we wanted to live.

We dropped our children (The monster who is 3 and Pickle who is 6) at my sister’s house in Wimbledon for the weekend and headed off.

First stop was Oakley, a popular commuter area.  Hmmm. What can I say, it didn’t warm my cockles.  Lots of similar looking 1970’s houses, very very small gardens. Soulless.  I’m sure it works for lots of people, but it didn’t float my boat.

Next up were the villages of Deane and then Overton.  Both of which were lovely, Overton with a train station.  We then headed off to Micheldever, Stoke Charity and Wonston, all which were very lovely villages and we’d be very happy to live in them.

However, our next village was just GORGEOUS. I loved it so much.  It was Kings Somborne and it was just delightful, despite being slightly flooded. We tried and failed to find a house that was on the market there, but loved how open it all was, with some lovely windy roads.

We then weaved our way out from there through Broughton, The Wallops (all very nice) and then ended up in Grateley.  This is a popular village/town because of the train that goes into Waterloo, but it wasn’t exactly what we were after.

We then saw Thruxton, Kimpton, Ludgershall, Collingbourne Ducis, East Grafton, Wilton and Great Bedwyn.  All perfectly good villages.

The trouble was at this point (and earlier) we were a little in lala land.  All of these places were too far South and West to make it practical for us to visit our family who live in Newbury and Thame.  As my mother in law is often called upon to help out with out children and the fact she is in her 70’s and we may be needed to reciprocate, we weren’t entirely comfortable having to travel closer to 2 hours to get to them.

We got a late room booking in a pub near Wantage (seemed like a good idea at the time. Too far. Too noisy. Awful food) but we digested all that we had learned that day and made plans for where we were going the following day.

First thing we headed off to family in Newbury for a quick cuppa and a bit of advice from my sister in law about what it’s like to move into a village knowing NO ONE. It was very reassuring and it fired me up for the day.

So we started by driving through Hungerford, a very pretty town that we could argue is too West for me to commute from, but a good starting point.  We then drove via Kintbury (lovely) to my 2nd favourite village for the weekend which was Highclere.  We then visited all the villages from there and south heading towards Andover and Whitchurch.  All really lovely villages and got us both rather excited about the possible move.

These villages were suddenly in our “triangle”.  Commutable (with some pain) for me to SW London but close enough to family.

We ended our afternoon with a packet of crisps for lunch (classy) and a cup of tea and cake at some friends who moved to Whitchurch 5 years ago. They gave us lots of advice and recommendations and that was really useful.

On our way back to our children we went via Alton (only because I had read that people had said it was nice) and it was. Again, much better for me to commute to but not great for family.

So, we’ve lots of things to think about now, not least the need to now try to match schools to all these destinations.

I’m still having wobbles. Keep thinking that I could do myself a favour and just stay where we are.  Life would be simpler, but I wouldn’t be happy.  However, I keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope we will have a sign soon that will tell us that we are absolutely making the right decision.

Being on TV

Once we had made the decision and started sorting the house out I did what any self-respecting tv addicted house seller and buyer would do, I wrote into a tv show.

Ha.  I really did.

I didn’t do it to get my mush on tv though.  Hubby is an actor and I’m an ex actor and we’ve kind of been there, done that.  I actually wanted to use the programme to see if I could get a better chance of finding the house of our dreams.

Whenever I’ve watched these programmes they always seem to find hidden gems or give you some information about a new location that you just didn’t know.  I have memories of Kirsty Alsopp showing someone a village and the person saying “oh I didn’t even know this village was here”.

I was convinced that they would be the key to me finding somewhere beautiful, so I wrote off to Location Location Location and Escape to the Country.

Today the production team from Escape to the Country rang us.  Squeeeeeeeeee.

We missed each other for a few calls and eventually I had a short interview with a guy called Aaron who asked me some questions I knew and some I didn’t.  When was the last time someone asked you to describe your husband’s personality?  I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing.  “Well, you know, he’s my husband. It’s just him…..ummmmm”.  Somehow I scrapped together something about him being funny, risk averse and kind.

Anyway.  He said he found our story interesting and that they are going to do a bit of digging around to see whether our story and possible houses will be feasible for the programme.  He said he’d be back in touch in a few weeks.

So there you have it.  We *might* be on the telly!

I can’t help hoping that Kirsty and Phil will get in contact soon though.   I can’t help hoping I’d be on with them.  They are, after all, proper Property experts.

The only other news is that we have decluttered the loft bedroom, bathroom, Pickle’s bedroom and just need to hide a few things and we’ll be ready to have a valuation.  We had hoped to do that this week, but as I didn’t want to do it on my birthday, Thursday, we may have to wait until next week.

I reckon we’ll be very ready by then.