House! What House?

Sitting here relaxing, looking out on to my patio and garden beyond through the French windows, I realise what a fortunate person I am. 

It’s not because I am incredibly wealthy or that I have been amazingly lucky with things in life but sometimes I feel it is important to sit and think about some of the advantages that surround me. 

commons.wikimedia.org

Of these there are many, but one of the largest has got to be my decision to invest in my own property.   It’s not a massive property, just a standard middle of the road, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, (one that I added after being there for a dozen years and having two children who always wanted the bathroom when I was up to my ears in water), kitchen, lounge and dining room.  Now in this case it is defiantly a time where the term ’quality is more important then quantity’ comes into force.  Although it may be handy having a large extension built to the rear of the property and giving the Wife a kitchen to be proud of plus addition space on the first floor I realise all this comes at a price.  By this I don’t just mean financial, although this is a large consideration, but the many other things that additional living space will bring with it.  Such menial things like cleaning, heating and decorating to name a few.  To top all this comes the compulsory maintenance that will inevitably show its head at any excuse.  Be it a brand new room that took many hours of planning or not, it is certain that the idea of changing the layout when everything is in place will be mentioned, which will involve yet more work.

With all this being put to one side I feel that my house is defiantly my home.  It is of a size that is controllable with regard the cleaning and heating while I have been lucky enough to be able to afford to maintain it to a level that stops it from collapsing around my ears over the years.  I feel that one can always have a bigger home but along with that it brings its own problems.

So what is all this waffle about you may ask?

Well, back in the day, when I decided to invest in a property as a single guy, it was at a cost whereby I could afford to find the deposit within a sensible time period, followed by regular monthly payments over the next 25 years.  Now I have come to the stage where it is nearly paid and completely owned by myself – Super Stuff!

Which brings me to the reason behind my out-burst!

Just a couple of weeks back I was around my friend John’s house having a nice family meal.  Sitting aside of me was his Daughter, Julie of 22 years who inevitably found our conversation slightly boring.  To try to eleviate this problem I started a conversation that involved the relationship between herself and her Boyfriend of 5 years.  When do you see yourself moving in together was one of my questions?  The answer came back – with the cost of property around here I don’t know if we will ever be able to afford a place of our own so I can see us renting somewhere instead. 

‘But rent is just dead money’  I said.  Well we have been saving for the last three years and don’t seem to be getting anywhere plus the cost of property is getting dearer and pulling it further out of our grasp.

When leaving my friend that evening I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the younger generation and the realisation that a sensible future is getting harder for them to achieve.  The reality is unless they have a massive deposit plus two good wages coming into the pot each month it isn’t going to happen.

I mulled this situation over during the next couple of days when suddenly the penny dropped!  I rushed back to my friends house and confronted his Daughter and Boyfriend.  In this area a property can be obtained for around £100k but when counting the finances they could only afford up to £80k!

How would you feel if we can get you a property of your dreams for a figure you can sensibly afford I said?  But we can only afford up to £80k which is £20k less then anything that is likely to stand up for the next 30 years!

That’s fine I said.  You just leave it to me and I’ll show you how!  I will lead you through the maze and out the other side.  Not only that but I will get you a brand new property of your dreams designed especially for you!

And this is what I am going to do for you too.  I will show you how you can have the place you thought was out of your reach without breaking the bank.

See you in my next article!  I can’t wait to begin and I know you can’t either!