Favourite things

In the 60s, I saw The Sound of Music so many times, I could probably act it on my own.
Actually, my favourite piece was Climb Every Mountain, and recently we have had to deal with ‘bumps’ that escalated to mounds, hills and then Mountains, yet not once do I regret selling our house.

Today is crunch day. The men have gone off for The Survey and our fate will be settled by the end of the working day. No-one foresees any problems, and Hubby is really excited.
I can’t remember if I actually said many posts ago that all of our possessions are stored in a 20 foot transport container, including my car. As you can therefore imagine, we had disposed of the surplus in readiness for downsizing.
ALL furniture now has to go, and personal stuff re-sorted as space will be extremely limited in our new life.
Our friend’s cooker rattles and clunks every time you switch on (turn on one ring, and all four light up) so he is happy to accept ours together with a brand new memory mattress for his guest room and a couple of sets of bed linen.
Once again, we shall call upon the Age Concern Charity to collect the unwanted furniture, and various other charity shops will benefit from boxes of knickknacks, books, videos, DVDs and CDs.
Sadly there is no room for our teddy bears so they too will be reduced to a select few.
Crockery, cutlery, saucepans, bedding, and the microwave are all required, but our 5 mirrors, umpteen pictures and framed puzzles will be passed on.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be materialistic, but when packing up for The Move, it was amazing how much we had accumulated. It’s said that if you have space, you naturally overflow into it. Our dining room just had the table and 4 chairs in it, plus a computer desk and 2 leather recliners. It never looked right, no matter how things were arranged. The kitchen was basic but easy to keep clean (loads of storage with the scullery and walk in larder), the bathroom had a bath and separate shower cubicle, and our lounge was light and airy, having 2 large windows at the front (sunset) and patio doors at the back (sunrise). All three bedrooms were long but narrow and the female half of the couple who bought our house intended to use the single bedroom as her ‘wardrobe’.

Our decision has not been made lightly, but we have had to weigh up all the options and are taking a massive chance.
Bro in NZ thinks it’s the right and best thing to do in the circumstances.
Our friend, to be fair, is happy for us but in two minds, and as for other members of my family? Oh boy.
When They of  The South find out, though it probably won’t register with my Mum, Sis will throw her toys into orbit, let alone out of the pram and will not understand in a thousand years.

Basically, we have been priced out of the property market.
We lost A LOT of money on this last house, and what is available to purchase with the proceeds of our sale are totally impractical for us. Why purchase something that needs at least £20K (that we haven’t got) spent on it to make it ‘nice’, when you are unlikely to get your money back?  We cannot get a mortgage (new restrictions for the over 40s and we’re not working), and if you also take into account that our income is likely to reduce,  eventually we could lose everything.
Factor in the areas cost restricts us to buy in, it’s either run down, has a bad crime rate, a bad area overall, neighbour issues and no work prospects, so problems could arise when we tried to sell.

Renting to us has always been dead money, except for the landlord!
No work, or prospects of work, 3 months deposit required, having a dog, and pickings are almost Nil, unless you know someone, or are prepared to pay through the nose, money we would never be able to replace.

Retirement homes.  We actually qualify as we are both over 55, but no pets are allowed and warden fees equate to up to £200 per month on top of basic outgoings, local taxes, maintenance fees and lease.

Shared ownership seems to be the latest ‘con’ in the housing market. Sensibly priced homes until you see it is a 55% or less share, and we wouldn’t qualify anyway as we are too old and not working.

Residential Park Homes are selling for MORE than what we got for our house. Ground rent, maintenance fees, utilities, restrictions, most no pets, and even if you bought the home, you aren’t guaranteed the site it’s on. Come to sell, you have to pay the site owner a percentage as well as the estate agents. As a buyer, you also have to pay the site owner.
We know a couple who went down this path at the last Financial Crunch, and in the beginning as they were the on-site grounds-people, their gas, electricity and water rates were all included in their package, plus a small wage. The wage hasn’t changed, but since April 2012, they now have to pay for their utilities at a mark up cost via the site owner, but can’t afford to move.
Park Homes on holiday sites are for 10 months of the year only, 11 if you’re lucky, with no sub letting, and both management and maintenance fees apply. As they are on holiday sites, there are always activities, noise, and then nightly entertainment in the holiday season, so for us wanting a quiet life, this is not it.

We thought we had it cracked with the possibility of buying a new home on a new development in Gloucestershire. It was just a little over our budget, but worth going after. Two phases were already complete, and the relevant site for ‘ours’ had only just been cleared. The property available would be completed hopefully late November or December, depending on the weather. We were in June.
We were however invited to go and see where the footings (3 – 4 feet deep) were being dug on the adjacent phase, which were all sold off the plans. The entire project was being built into the side of a hill……… a big steep hill……. a hill made up of  unstable sandy soil.

So, we are going to go for something different. Totally.

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