Update avalanche

So many good intentions, so little time! There's a lot of huge stuff happening that I haven't been keeping you up to date on, although I think most of you do know the big stuff by now.

In a nutshell, since the last post, we have moved, got married, and are expecting a baby. It didn't totally happen in that order but it all happened. I'll give you the highlights here and endeavour to post each event in separate, more detailed installments later.

Back in April I discovered I was pregnant. To say it was a surprise would be the understatement of the century! It wasn't exactly planned and shock and disbelief were the dominant feelings for a while, but we quickly decided it was a good thing. You know me, quick to adapt to a situation!

We moved into our new flat at the end of June. The place was in good condition when we bought it but we spent a week or so making it our own with a lick of paint and a few new fixtures and some new bits of furniture. It looks pretty good, if we do say so ourselves. So far we love it. It's great having our own little place and we've been settling in there very nicely.

Just a week after moving in, we got married. Hey, I like efficiency! We had talked about getting married and there was a little parental encouragement on both sides, but weren't sure if we were going to do it until after the baby arrived. If I'm honest I wasn't that bothered about doing it at all and figured there would be time later, but in the end we decided it was best to do it before the birth to make things easier for Junior's dual citizenship. Things are far more complicated if it is the father that is the US citizen and the child is born overseas to an "alien mother", which I love being called, by the way!! Once the decision was made I characteristically went guns blazing into it, not wanting to wait too long and waddle down the aisle with a huge belly. In the end we barely had time to give our notices at the town hall, things happened so fast. I think it was a little less than 3 weeks from start to finish. Which I totally recommend by the way. It is the easiest, least stressful way to plan a wedding, in my opinion.

We also sold my family home finally. After a long time on the market I switched to a different agency who managed to sell it for us. We got a lot less than I would have liked for it of course but the timing was right so I took the offer. My dad agreed, wanting things to be done and settled in good time before the new arrival. It's quite weird, the end of an era, but a good move I think. Now we are in the process of buying my dad a new flat and hopefully we can get him settled in soon, so I can have some chillout time before my third trimester and then the arrival of the baby tornado.

I think that's all the major stuff. More detail later.

Property update

If this blog were a child I would most certainly be guilty of neglect! I really need to update more often.

To update on the previous post about being gazumped on a flat, we did find another flat shortly after that and the sale completes this week. Yay! We had a bit of a panic after we lost the last one as there really wasn't anything available in our price range in the area and a shortage of new properties coming onto the market, and we had a mortgage offer that was ticking away. With the interest rates continuing to come down I really wanted to avoid letting the offer expire and having to reapply as a) it was unlikely we would be offered the same low rate again, and b) who loves doing all that mortgage application paperwork?! I spotted a place in the next neighbourhood along (Kilburn, to those in the know) and we considered making the compromise of moving down the road to a not bad but not quite as swanky neighbourhood. The flat is bigger, a 2 bed, and 10 years old so in good shape, with gated private parking and very close to the tube and buses on a nice street. It was priced above our budget but worth a look so we checked it out and decided it would be the right move if we could get them down to our price. It took a few days of negotiations but luckily we managed to knock them down quite a bit to reach our price range. Bless them! Things moved quickly, thankfully, and we exchanged contracts within a few weeks. Such a relief!

We move in next week. We're dreading the packing and the moving but are really looking forward to being there and settling into our new home. It's a nice little flat and as it's so new it doesn't need much work. The owner we are buying from bought the flat new when it was built and is therefore the only owner it has had, and she has kept it in great condition so it really doesn't need much doing to it. Apart from a little paint and cosmetic changes to make it ours, it needs nothing. Hurrah to that!

I'm sure there will be photo and possibly even video documentation of the moving process so watch this space. We have hired movers to do this move though, so hopefully there will be no more falling down the stairs carrying a big box incidents this time!

Property crash chez Poon

It's been an interesting rollercoaster ride into 2009 so far. Some of you may know that Jon and I have been looking at properties to buy recently, with the prices coming down enough that West Hampstead where we live now and love, has actually become just about affordable. We've looked at a few places in the area and things got very real in the beginning of January when we made offers on 2 places we really liked. One we lost to another buyer, the other we haggled on and ended up agreeing a sale on, in the middle of January. We were excited about this flat. Although a small place it had some nice features and was in a lovely character building just 2 streets from where we are now, in prime South Hampstead. So we have been making plans to move and looking forward to owning our first home together.

The sale moved slowly, as in not at all, for a few weeks. After much chasing from our lawyer and the agent, we found out the seller was in the middle of an ugly split from his wife and she hadn't signed the agreement to sell and it was all being held up. The agent then spoke to the soon-to-be-ex-wife last week and she agreed to sign the papers and everything seemed to be on the move again. Except nothing happened and someone was clearly lying somewhere along the line. The agent finally told me a couple of days ago, he sensed something fishy was going on and he intended to get to the bottom of it but gave us the go-ahead to look at other properties so we could have a back up plan just in case it went wrong. The next day, he found out the seller had decided to sell to a private buyer for more money instead. Needless to say we were really disappointed as well as being annoyed at being messed around. The agent is furious too. And we are all anxious because despite what everyone says about it being such a buyers' market, there is nothing out there right now. All the one beds in this area have been sold in the last month or so. Crazy!

So it's a case of waiting and hoping for something else to come up. But wait, if you are angry with the seller for us, there's more. We popped into another of the estate agents for the area yesterday to re-register with them. On explaining our situation, they were really helpful and although they didn't have anything suitable right now they would let us know if something new came up. Then he asked where we were buying before and when we said the name of the street he immediately asked if it was Mr P's flat. After that followed a long conversation with some history on the flat and the seller. It transpires that this guy had been selling the same flat through this agent many months ago and turned down much higher offers than the price we had agreed, and had also let someone else down in the same way. They weren't dealing with him anymore and didn't have much nice to say about him. The agent even pulled out a log book and showed us the written entries. We were stunned, we had not expected to hear this at all and it's left us a bit baffled. What on earth could this guy be gaining from this? Was he trying to get us to up our offer? It's all very bizarre.

So anyway, we are registered with the 2 most prominent agents in the area (and I'll be signing up with a couple more this week) who are making us something of a priority given the situation and knowing we are serious buyers who are ready to roll for a quick sale. We can only hope something right comes along. Cross your fingers for us.

*sigh*

The opposite of nesting

My life seems to be all about change right now, and it's all go. My dad and I are putting the family home up for sale and it's all very surreal. I am spending my weekends at the house packing up my stuff and purging these days. It is amazing how much crap you can accumulate when you have space to spread out in and never really move out of a place for years and years. Some of it is nice, a real trip down memory lane. Some of it is just mind-boggling. All of it is very tiring! There is a lot of work to be done.

Tomorrow the agent comes to take photos and measure for the floorplans and after that it is officially on the market. He is optimistic and thinks it will sell fast, so let's hope he's right. It is really crazy and trippy to think about, and the sentimental part of me is having real trouble with the thought of leaving the house, but it's the right thing to do.

Wish us luck.

Moving day and other traumas

As most of you know, Jon and I moved into our new flat this weekend. Those of you for whom this is news, it's been talked about for a little while but nobody (including us) really thought we would make it to moving day!

It wasn't a huge heap of fun but we are very excited about the new place. We saw it a few weeks ago and took it immediately and then wondered if perhaps it wouldn't be quite as we'd remembered it, but I'm happy to report we walked in there on Friday and remembered why we didn't hesitate, we absolutely love it. It's small but the flat is great and the house it's in is beautiful too. It's in South Hampstead which is a great location for both of us and is also my old stomping ground from my Central days.

In fact, right now I'm feeling like I never want to move house ever again, I'd forgotten what a trauma moving is. I put up with a lot of jokes about there not being enough boxes or bags in London to hold all my clothes and crap, but I will point out that I have downsized quite effectively. Jon had a fair bit of crap too and we have been quite good at unpacking but are not quite there yet. This is the "before" picture of the place from Saturday.
The weekend was not without drama, there was one minor little falling down the stairs with a heavy box incident. It was the end of the day (and the second day of moving) so I was already tired but was a little ambitious attempting a box that was just a little too heavy for me and probably also a little too wide for my short litle arms. Luckily I was near the bottom and it was only a couple of steps but I did injure myself and as it was a box of Jon's stuff I was carrying at the time, I will be utilising the guilt for as long as possible. Here is the picture of my very bruised and swollen knee (swollen, not fat!!). Jon was very worried when I got the camera out, he thinks I'm going to:
a) Sue him
b) Tell people he beat me up

Being a chronic commitment-phobe this is the first time I've lived with someone full time and I have just had my first experience of what it's like to live with a boy. There I was focusing on unpacking the kitchen and he was sizing the place up for a large TV. And indeed, when we made a trip to Argos on Sunday to buy kitchen stuff what did we leave with? A shiny big flat screen TV! Check out the picture of Jon's main project for the day thereafter.Oh yes, chaos all around and he is putting the TV together! The boxes are still not unpacked, merely moved aside so they don't block the TV!! And of course the important thing is, all the games consoles are plugged in!

And, get this, it looks like we won't have internet for at least a couple of weeks. I know!!! Me and Jon, the two people voted most likely to wither and die without internet!! It's shocking. Oh well, at least we've got a bigger than necessary TV to keep us occupied. Oh yeah, and boxes to unpack!

Anyway, must get on and get those boxes taken care of. I'll be back soon with some "after" pictures once we get the place looking and feeling like home.