Gosh, that was quick

[simont]

After a hectic week just past of house-hunting, I saw a house yesterday afternoon which was pretty much ideal for me. This morning I phoned in an offer to the estate agent, and within hours they phoned me back to say it had been accepted.

I think this is the point at which people usually say things like ‘ooh, how exciting!’, but in fact my main emotion right at the moment is dread of what will surely be an interminable saga of chaos and confusion and complicated legal manoeuvrings and inexplicable delays, culminating in it all falling through at the last minute. When (if) I have the keys to the house in my hand and a large negative amount of money, then it'll be exciting. Perhaps.

Still, at least it means I got something useful done this week. My usual use of two weeks off work is to spend the first week lying around doing nothing, and the second week doing something useful. I had vaguely intended that ‘something useful’ to be making a start on the piece of PuTTY development that I failed to get round to last September, interspersed with house-hunting, but in fact the house-hunting took over the week quite vigorously and left me no energy for coding. So it's good to have something to actually show for the house-hunting, because that suggests that the week wasn't a complete waste. (Though I suppose if I were PuTTY I might not think so, and indeed might be throwing the tantrum of a small boy whose parents have repeatedly reneged on their promise of a bicycle :-)

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Out of interest, why have you chosen now to buy, having rented (I believe) for years? I'm not saying I think you're doing the wrong thing, or anything, I just collect views on the housing market, not being 100% sure what to do myself. (-8

[simont]

Because I recently acquired a lot of extra money, so this is the first point at which buying has really been feasible for me. I've never liked renting, and this is my first chance to stop doing it. The state of the housing market doesn't really come into it except insofar as it has failed to rise fast enough to stay ahead of my increasing means.