SOLD

success. Bulbgirl has sold her flat. in this time of financial uncertainty (when you can't trust banks and financial wizards with your cash who can you trust?) she was lucky to have been offered pretty close to what she wanted for it. the deal is now done, the payment has gone through and the new owner has moved in.


apart from a text from him about how to use the oven (he's a man), he must be pretty happy with it. well we did leave it in pretty good nick, left spare lightbulbs, left a new smoke alarm (Bulbgirl thought that this would be a good idea as he has kids), and a bundle of other small details lovingly attended to.

no thanks to the estate agent though. Bulbgirl went with a local estate agent because she thought she'd get some foot-fall past their local branch, but i think most people search for a property online these days (listed on gspc.co.uk for our area). this is done by the estate agents, although they managed to cock that up too. the number on the final documents from the estate agent was back to front. this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, even on a legal document. the dodgy bit was that the number of the flat listed was also on the market at the same time, and being sold by the same estate agent! this could be attributed to a simple typo mistake, but when you are dealing with items that cost a lot (eg. houses, homes and flats) double and triple checking facts would be in order. especially when not many properties are selling, you'd think they would have plenty of time for fact checking.

i took the photos, Bulbgirl had to correct numerous errors that they forgot to put on the web, and even when it did sell they didn't put a sold notice on the gspc site. it didn't even get an under offer notice on it. after all the stress of putting it up for sale Bulbgirl wanted that most of all. well second most of all is suppose, she did get it sold.

how long do you think it will take for the housing market to pick up again?

Flat for Sale

capacious. that's a word you rarely hear, unless of course you happen to be interacting with an estate agent. they have their own lingo, most of which is lies. maybe not quite lies, but not exactly truthful either.

i had no idea how much you had to lie when selling your home. small things that haven't bothered you at all, ever, suddenly jump out at you. little cracks in the paintwork, right angles that aren't quite right, messy neighbours, pet hair, the list goes on, and on. is there a fine line between lying and "maximising potential?"

you obviously want to make your property seem to be worth the asking price. if you want to maximise the potential of your property, don't let the estate agent take the pictures. the lady that came to value Bulbgirl's place, had a camera at the ready, but having seen her previous clients' photos, Bulbgirl said "my partner can take the photos." take them yourself, or you could be lumbered with poor shots, that have a an awful flash, washing everything out. it's the highest value item that most people will buy and sell, so take a little time and consideration when composing the shots.

top floor flat

the competition

i took the top one, making a natural border out of the trees. it's not your usual home selling pic, but i liked it. the darkness of the tree frame the block nicely. compare it with the competition's picture. two flats pretty close to each other, but one pic instantly more appealing because it was taken in better light (and some thought to composition).

the flat is on the market has been on sale for a little while and had very little interest. it's the current climate they say. a neighbour nearby on the ground floor (see above pic) let the estate agent take their pictures, which didn't do them any favours. the neighbout moved in about at the end of last year and is wanting £5k more now 6 months later (he's put it at a fixed price). Bulbgirl was wanting to put her flat on at a fixed price when seeing this guy do it, hoping to undercut him. it can only be a good thing for her, as with fixed price you can only come down, whereas with the offers over option there is more wiggle room for negotiations. myself and a friend told her this is probably unwise, although there are lots more people doing it now.

the problem is that Bulbgirl doesn't really believe in her property. the main selling points of the flat are space and views. it doesn't have central heating, but electric heating instead. that wouldn't bother me. if i was going to buy somewhere i'd rather go for space over heating any day. you can always fit another heating system later on, but you'll never be able to buy yourself more space, in a wee ground floor flat. the storage in the loft is a boon, because it's like another house (filled with canvasses and junk of mine). my junk is like expanding foam. it seems to grow and fill the allotted space, but i digress, that's another story.

dining room

in the picture of the dining room there is light coming in from the left. there is a window there and it appears as if the dawn is breaking through. it does do that, but wasn't at the time of the picture taking. we left it late and needed to get the pics to the estate agent the next day, so we faked it. Bulbgirl stood holding a long fluorescent light, just out of shot, to mimic the daylight coming in through the big window. she also made the 3 little stripey acrylic paintings you see there.

another benefit is that you can go and see horses, sheep and 2 highland cows less than 10 minutes walk away, that i will miss if we move closer to the city centre.

have you told any lies when selling your property?

update: the flat has now passed to the new owner.

No Mortgage, Cash Purchase Only

today Bulbgirl and myself went to see a flat slap bang in the middle of Glasgow. we want to move there, and leave the lovely view of the Erskine bridge behind, but need to sort out financing first. the problem though is that it looks to be a cash only purchase. does this flag up warning bells to you? the selling agent said that was only one surveyor's report, and another surveyor might think differently.

the property we were looking at does needs some work, actually quite a lot of work. its been empty for a few years and is in a state of considerable disrepair. this is all the more appealing to me. Bulbgirl is a little more cautious though. taking on a project like this would mean being a lot more physically active, can my aching joints keep up? yes it would be a lot of work of work and my health isn't always the greatest but to have a focus, a goal to motivate oneself, is something doctors don't really recommend. they tend to just offer paracetemol.


i loved it. there is running water and electricity, what more could you want? a roof over your head, it has that too, although there might pigeons in the loft space. we never got access to that so can't be sure about it. there is an old safe, from the times when it belonged to a family of jewellers. the selling agent said that there was a rumour of diamonds buried under the floorboards. whether this was a ruse to get us on board is unknown, but i like the romantic notion of it.

i didn't measure it but workroom one is much bigger that the tiny house i posted previously. workroom two, i thought was a kitchen; it had a sink with running water, but was actually the sulphur room we were told. how cool would that be? naming you kitchen the sulphur room? i like places to have a little bit of history, and as you can see from the pic above it has bags of history. check out the little notes stuck to the wall, it's like a movie film set. there was even a reception (the most finished room in the flat).

a couple of gents who were also viewing the property were giving the selling agent some strange looks, mainly because he had make up around his eyes that hadn't been totally taken off. this was because he was also a jobbing actor and had a gig with mischief la bas before showing us around the property. the gents found it difficult to take their eyes off his 4-tones-darker-than-skin-colour makeup, as they didn't hear the story about what else he got up to. this can only go in our favour methinks.


we'll try and work something out and see what happens. if there are any lottery winners out there who wouldn't mind dropping £100,000 in our laps, feel free to do so. Bulbgirl and i would definitely put you up if you ever need a place to crash in Glasgow. :)

Downsizing Accomodation

rather than relocating (to another planet) another way of dealing with overpopulation and crowding is to shrink your living quarters. admittedly most developers are doing that nowadays anyway, to make more money rather than for any kind of environmental reasons i imagine. a lot of modern homes are more like hampster cages compared to the older style tenemant flats of yesteryear. one man has taken this idea and gone wild with it.

artist-builder Jay Shafer now lives in a home that is 70 feet square, smaller than many bathrooms! in the tiny abode he manages to squeeze in a kitchen, customised storage, a bed, office space, and a mini library (ok, well shelves). it even has a porch!


today i was fixing tiles in our bathroom today. Bulbgirl and i chose marble tiles for a small bathroom, but 3 tiles unfortunately broke. i had to scrape away the old fixing cement first which seemed to take ages, but thankfully it is done now. our bathroom has an area of 34.8 square feet. quite a small bathroom i would say, most of the space being taken up by the bath.

no mention is made of a bathroom or WC in Jay Shafer's house. i wonder where he spends all those pennies he saves on renting a larger property? :)

thanks to Shawn for showing me this. original source here.