Help calm me. house buying and selling stress. Part 5

I'm sorry this has happened Whiff. It just shows we need to be careful what we say as I think we sometimes forget how public any social media.
Crafty, we have all been inspired by your tales of all your work in your garden and with your crafts. It would be sad if you left now.
Although I don't post very often, I am always interested in how everyone is getting on with Shandy still looking for a home and Franbern also still getting work done.

waves again, good morning. I am definitely not leaving, just stepping back for a while. I`ll still be popping in. My efforts at home are more into my crafting now and gardening and eating my own grown every day, cooking for the freezer and preserving for winter and dithering about whether to go to the supermarket but I don`t need anything and thinking about how on earth I am going to spend the cash I have stored here. Not a big amount but devaluing every day. I was a cash spender, like many

Up early this morning to help with face to face for Year 10 g.daughter. Her mum is driving her to the school for that this morning and I will be collecting her at midday. . Need to go with them when they drop her off, so I know where I will park to collect her.

This afternoon, her Dad's 50th birthday celebration in their garden, so will go to that. Enjoyed my couple of days visit away - but very glad to be back home.

Franbern you are keeping busy!

I am eager for John Lewis and other shops to reopen as I am going to make curtains but am not going to rush out in the next few weeks. I shall wait until the initial rush is over and take my time choosing a fabric. I also need new cushions but won’t make those, it’s easier to buy them ready made. A lot of the fun is in the planning!

I’m asking myself about the queues to actually get into the shops and what there will be on the shelves to buy. I imagine eagle eyed sales assistants will be placed all over the shop and if an item is touched by a customer they will have to whip it off the shelves and hide it for 72 hours.
There might not be many clothes left out to actually buy.
I’m still going to pop in here if that’s ok, we aren’t buying anything but MILs house that was due to complete a few weeks ago had to be stopped because she died, unless the buyer hangs in there it will have to be remarketed after the Will has been sorted, let’s hope she didn’t change her will!
We are going to pop down there this week and see some family members in their gardens and will be camping in the empty house, no electricity and heaven knows what the garden will look like, but no tools to do anything. That should be fun (not).

I too have enjoyed reading the posts each day and contributed sporadically. It is a shame that the thread is going to change, if it does n't close down completely.
I always argue with my daughter about her time spent on Face Book, perhaps it is an age thing but I certainly would not want the whole world to know any of my business.
Whiff's daughter in law sounds like a right piece of work. Remember Whiff, what goes round comes round and she might be glad of your help one day.

That settles it, I was going to leave this group but there are too many nice people dipping in and out here to let one horrible outsider spoil it.
Good luck on the school run Franbern. Niobe you could have bumped into Boris in John Lewis yesterday if you had gone to Westfield. I wonder where Carrie gets her curtain fabrics. Samantha Cameron had good designer taste, (and a good dress sense).

I am intending to go to my little local curtain shop to select materials for both my living room curtains and bedroom ones on Wednesday. Lovely lady there came and did all the measuring here few weeks back, but I could not see the materials until she was permitted to open her shop.

Be lovely to get that all done.

Thanks, Niobe, yes I am keeping busy. Of course, that daughter and her family are now officially my 'bubble family' so no problems with me actually touching any of them now.

Morning all, rainy here.

I am glad people still want to keep the thread going, it brightens my day

My friend works in a specialist lingerie shop and it's re-opening today. She has been furloughed and went in and cleaned everything very thoroughly on Friday, but is nervous of being in a small cubicle 'measuring' people. She isn't returning for a few more weeks, hopefully the R number will be less then. I can't believe the number of people queuing for Primark, why!

Enjoy choosing your curtain fabric Franbern, I had to buy fabric for the self catering annexe years ago, and had great fun in a huge fabric warehouse. I chose fabric with birds of paradise. I employed a local lady to make them for me, with a pelmet - she'd cut the birds heads off on the pelmet. A whole line of headless birds, I couldn't believe it! How lovely you are collecting your grandchild from school, special memories x

I'm listing my railway books on ebay today, easy to post. I need to sell all my unwanted clothes too, but the washing machine here is very small, and the washing line 'prop' is broken. I think I'll get a new prop and handwash everything I can.

Enjoy your day whatever you are doing

PS I watched the Salisbury Poisonings last night - I recommend it, all three are available on BBC Iplayer.

Ooo yes, The Salisbury Poisonings, I enjoyed the first episode. It was potentially like today's Coronavirus. Could have been a lot worse.

So, we aren’t going down to stay in MILs house, we’ve just realised that the electricity is off, so no showers. When visiting rellies we can’t go and use the loo. SIL won’t even let us in her house , so we’d have to sit out in the main road! ( she has no front garden or side entrance to rear).
If we go on down to the beach the loos are still closed ( I checked) so it all seems a waste of time, plus we aren’t really allowed to go somewhere and stay overnight.the more I remember that the loos are closed the more I’ll need to use one, DH despairs......

Sorry Oopsadaisy3, it is so frustrating but hopefully will ensure infection numbers keep dropping. I was surprised the loos at Sainsburys are open, urgh.

I've just been to the PO in the High Street with my son's parcel, they have put up many signs so it's one way, down one side, up the other. Many people happily going both ways on both sides, I despair.

lol, that didn`t last long, waves again while having my cup of tea. Got to chat with the gang. Crazy busy, nothing was planned, nothing, but I needed tomatoes and fancied cherries, so off I went. Sainsbury was lovely and I went to self checkout and got rid of some cash

I see the hand car wash is open, oh good, I cannot reach the top of my car and I like those people, one small man from romania, he works like a trojan and always gives me a toothy gapped grin, especially since I gace him a lowly £1 tip

My two neighbours have both had leaks from their showers down the tiling and the wet has appeared on their kitchen ceilings. Thank goodness I have always directed my shower head away from the tiling but belt and braces mode for me. Something I have installed twice previously and it does an excellent job. Called rockitseal, yes I hate applying mastic but I have to bite the bullet. Insidious small drips can lead to dry rot (its wet) in wood and hence major work. The strips are mitred at each end so I am hoping I don`t have to buy a mitre gauge thing to cut accurately

Gardening too and I dug all the shallots up, about 80+ all from only 8 shallots that I grew last year. They have to dry in the air now. Beetroots out of the trug and replaced with leeks and all pots washed. Absolutely brilliant, I do not feel tired, must be the daily salad for elevenses

Re the loo, I dashed around sainsbury, in case I got that urge which spoils the shopping experience

I’m sorry to butt in and I haven’t read the whole thread sounds like some of you are having really upsetting times I’m sorry about that.
I just want to ask a question, is it ok to ask an estate agent to value my house even if I’m not selling for probably 6 to 12 mths? I need to know how much so I can choose areas that I can afford and I want to take my time and research the areas first as this is going to be my last move.
Will they do it even though I’m not putting it on the market yet?

Tell the EA why you want the valuation, I’m sure he will want to come out, he’ll probably want to take some measurements so that if and when you are ready he will just need some photos, by then of course you will have 2 other EAs to give you an idea of the value, so that you can compare them.

I've been to B&Q several times during the lockdown. The queue outside is painless, but oh my when you want to pay it's awful.
I don't know why all the 'self service ' tills are shut.

Tanith, just get a local E Agent to come to do the valuation - don't mention before that you do not wish to put it on the market straight away, Can tell them when they are there. Used to get loads of cards from local E.Agents offering service to give valuations. They will try to persuade you to market it straight away and will give you all sorts of reasons why it would be best to do that. Just listen to them, smile, say Thank you and I will be in touch when I am ready.

Do remember that many people will accept an offer on their property until they know that the purchaser has an offer on theirs. So, investigate your new area re. prices, but it may take a time for you to sell your existing property - and you will be in charge of when you want completion.

I trundled down the High Street on my way to my daughters house at lunch time. It was very busy, loads of queues outside so many shops - fine in the good weather we had today, not sure how that will be when it is pouring with rain. Have been told they were starting queueing at Primark before 8 this morning. I do not understand this, as all the supermarkets have had clothes on sale the whole time.

It was rather a strange feeling in the High Street, far more people wearing masks, most of the shops were now open which is lovely, no charity shops, although people had left bags of stuff outside of them.

My year 10 g.daughter (GCSE's next year) is now going to be getting three hours each week in school covering English, Maths and Science, so I think I have a small job to do for the next few weeks on Mondays. Just six of her class in for those lessons.

Good to see everyone coming on here, I know how much I would miss this thread - first thing I look at each morning. My virtual friends. Thanks for keeping going. I have pm'd Whiff, and hope she is okay - and can enjoy her lovely new bathroom - I am quite envious that hers is all finished!!!

Tanith I found that I was unable to lie to the EAs when they came around so I told the truth, after all 6 months isn’t long for you to find something you like, however they will want you to put your house on the market sooner rather than later, so be strong!

I'm sure you know this Tanith but if you go onto rightmove and click sold prices you can get listings of all the properties sold recently in your street/town. Lots of them have internal pictures so you can tell whether they were dooer uppers or pristine properties. I think EA's will be jumping at the chance to value more properties. A word of caution, though I have no crystal ball, it might be that after this initial surge of activity in the housing market there is a lull and we see prices drop. It could be the case from the Autumn to the Spring? Maybe now or 12 months from here is your best option. Good luck.
Glad to hear your daughter will receive lessons in those important subjects Franbern. An hour with only six in her class is almost equal to a whole week with 30 in the class! And think how they can enjoy discussing the lesson afterwards within their little group.
Have a nice evening everyone!
Very grateful to craftyone for keeping this thread going.

Good answers about the EA valuation

I ended up tired and rushing, I wish plant sellers would say when they have sent plants. Good job I was not child sitting after all, 12 mara des bois strawberries came and very fortunately I had enough compost left in my last bag. I had to plant those carefully in a tiered set of pots

Prior to that I picked all the remaining gooseberries which are now beside me to top and tail. I am bottling them tomorrow and had to make the syrup as it needs to be cold. My 2 baby rhubarbs became massive very quickly, they will not die so I took some stalks off, I filtched 500g and am prepping them for one bottled jar tomorrow, there will be room in the pan, maybe 5 jars in total. The rhubarb has to be hot soaked in the syrup tonight

I had prepped for an almond traybake before the plants came, so that needed to be finished. Tomorrow is definitely going to be a lightweight day, when the bottling is finished

Mmm these frozen yoghurt lollies are scrummy, just yoghurt in lekue pop makers, the one I am eating right now is mango and even plain is nice

Thanks all for your advice to be honest it’s what I was afraid of that as soon as I was on the radar they would pushing for me to sell. I have checked Rightmove and they’re estimate of value was much more than I’d expected it to be hence my enquiry. I think I’ll start researching areas I think I might afford before I approach anyone. Thanks all I’ll probably be back for advice.

Tanith, when we were selling we had 3 or 4 agents come to give us a valuation. We told them all that we were not likely to be putting the place on the market for a while but needed to assess every agent and valuation.

We also told them not to harass us as that would be the quickest way for us to discount them but we were happy for them to touch base with us occasionally. Surprisingly they all respected that.

You may well need to talk to several agents before you find one that you are comfortable with and think they will do the job you want. Good luck.

Thanks SueH49 that’s helpful too, the fact that it’s just me now, no DH to back me up I find the whole idea daunting but I know I have to do it in the next year or so.

Tanith, I had also done my research and I told the EA to reduce my price, I was well aware that they suggest higher prices to suck sellers into going with them. I have plenty of lookers and nosey parkers,it was a different house. It was only when I reduced my price yet again that I got a very firm offer, the other offers were subject to them selling theirs. It sounds as though you are aware of their tactics

I am done now, finished bottling, 3 more gooseberries and 2 rhubarb. I have never done rhubarb before, the jars look fit for a show bench thanks to the wonderful instructions in my
old afrc institute of food book on preserving. All the jars have popped and are now safe to store

I also packed 4 jars of sauerkraut, that has been in a sauerkraut crock slowly pickling. Unpasteurised and contains all the bacteria, pasteurised destroys the bacteria

Really I am now going to have an easy day. Shower, change and then a hot chocolate