We have decided on an Agent - we went for the one charging the middle fee but who reckon they can get the best price for our house. They're a local family fun business so we trust that they know the area well and can deliver.
That's given us a good idea of what our budget is for the new house. Our aim is to come out of the process without dipping into any savings which should definitely be achieveable even though we're not exactly downsizing. Hopefully there will also be money left over to cover any works that might need doing on the new place.
We probably will end up in a small house in terms of number of bedrooms but hopefully not in living space. We also need plenty of storage - we have so much stuff!
Of course we're trying to declutter as much as possible but it's really hard. Especially when hubby discovers a collection of photos dating back to when he took his photograhy more seriously and had even made a darkroom in our first house. Of course he doesn't want to part with those photos!
We've continued to work on the box room today. I want to try and clear the floor space so that it's just a nice tidy storage area and you can see that it could be a small single bedroom, or an office, or if anyone's feeling ambitious it could be turned into a nice ensuite to our main bedroom.
Am I sounding like an estate agent?!
Anyway I managed to empty out 2 boxes of books - these are now on shelves here:
We have also managed to gather up all the redundant computer equipment we had just hoarded away. Old desktops, broken laptops, printers etc which are now ready to take to our recycling centre. This is part of our council's rubbish and recycling centre. I'm not sure how good they are at recycling but it will definitely be good to get all of that stuff out of the house.
I hate just throwing stuff away but sometimes it is hard to find the right places to recycle things. I have found that the optician that is opposite the end of our road takes old glasses so I have a bag of those to deliver this week sometime.
Yesterday we spent some time exploring an area that might be a possibility for us. It's not too far away (20 minutes in the car) but it has lots of the things we want. I think it would work, Nick still needs a bit of convincing. We'd definitely get more for our money.
At the moment though our focus is on getting our house ready to market. We have someone coming hopefully at the end of this week to do a couple of jobs that really need doing and we have a bit more tidying and cleaning to do before we are "photo ready" and ready to go but we're getting there.
Getting ready to move is a huge job but it sounds like you have a good start! Do please keep us posted!! I am excited for you!
ReplyDeleteThanks Terri
DeleteWait, what, your moving ? {{grin}} How awesome is that! Closer to your kids/grandkids? Aren't I just a nosy rosy, smiles.
ReplyDeleteWell if we can sell our house and find the right one for us lol! We'll probably be a little bit further away from our youngest son but not by much and hopefully when our daughter and family moves (Hopefully later this year) we'll be closer to them. Our other son is much further away so it will make no difference really.
ReplyDeleteBetter two forward and one back than one forward and two back...
ReplyDeleteAfter we moved here, Mary put her foot down and told me that's the last time we're moving. Sounded good to me...
Yeah it is a bit daunting but hopefully it will be our last big move.
DeleteSooner you than me. I know that might have to happen but the thought of sorting through everything and downsizing is overwhelming. Best of luck.
ReplyDeleteSooner you than me. I know that might have to happen but the thought of sorting through everything and downsizing is overwhelming. Best of luck. Will you be moving further away from London or closer?
ReplyDeleteWell we're hoping not to actually downsize too much and we're not looking to move too far at all - the house layout doesn't work for us now the family is expanding and we're getting older.
DeleteThe shelves look great! Congrats on the move - I think??
ReplyDeleteThanks but we're just at the start of what could be a very long process lol
DeleteThis is very nice ! As I am in the same situation I can take ideas from your posts ! Thursday a real estate agent will come (he is the best friend of our son) and estimate the price for the house. We don't need to do anything, because people prefer to paint in their own colors and all the rest is OK. No repairs to be done. I get nightmares when I think what should get thrown or given away ! I think I just let somebody come and empty the house and only keep what is really important to us (and son) Ric can't do much or almost nothing and I not very much either. It's time to move into an apartment. I saw some very nice once with 2 bedrooms up to 100 m2 with basement and garage to a reasonable price. We want to rent at our age it's too much trouble to buy ! Over 70 it's not worthwhile anymore ! Let the owner take care of all troubles which may occur !
ReplyDeleteRenting here is not as stable as I'd need it to be but yes having someone else worrying about repairs etc would be good.
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