We’re moving

Last week we found a decent flat in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. After wrangling with the agent over a small issue, it grew out of all proportion so we decided to pull out.  A quick search on Gumtree last night revealed a property that fit much of our criteria. We phoned, was told the advert was posted just 10 minutes before we phoned (lucky or what?), arranged a viewing for the same evening, saw it, liked what we saw, phoned the landlord back and said we wanted to move in.

This evening we met our new landlord, provided references and the deal was done. We start to move our stuff in on Friday and actually move in next Tuesday.

The place is closer to work so I now have absolutely no excuse not to walk in to work every day. We’ll only be in there 3 days before we fly to Iceland for Christmas.

I can’t believe how smoothly the process has been at finding this flat compared to the hoops the previous property agent made us jump through.

Couple raffling their flat in Brunswick Road

For £5 you can buy a raffle ticket to win Flat 4, 5 Brunswick Road. The couple selling their flat seem genuine and the terms and conditions are simple. If they don’t make at least £200,000 out of ticket sales, that’s 40,000 sold tickets, they reserve the right to award the winner 70% of the monies received so far. The current winner’s pot stands at £4,595.50, which is 70% of 1,313 £5 tickets sold so far.

If they can generate enough publicity to push up the number of entrants then I may consider entering myself. So why not enter the competition? According to the site,

A provisional date for the draw has been set for
01/08/2006.

Good luck to anyone that enters, and, if you win, invite me to the housewarming!

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Studio flats – No thank you

Over the past few weeks, Steinunn and I have been looking at flats for sale, with no intention of buying just yet. We have a vague idea about how much the banks will lend us but nothing in concrete. We’ve based our figure on what the online mortgage calculators say on the respective banks’ websites (Abbey, HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Bank of Scotland / Halifax), so have been looking at flats at the lower end of the market.

Yesterday we looked at what was billed as a cottage, but was simply a studio flat, which, unlike all of the neighbouring “cottages”, didn’t have a downstairs. The owner tried his damnest to use the lack of 2nd floor as a selling point. The place was too small, with 1 large room doubling as the lounge / bedroom and dining room, a tiny kitchen with no storage space yet fitted with a window alarm just in case we managed to fit in something worth stealing, and a bathroom, the best room out of the three.

Out of the 5 or 6 flats we’ve looked at so far, space-wise, this was the smallest. A studio flat is far too tiny for a couple. Like Steinunn said yesterday, she would have nowhere to escape to when being ill ( I don’t get sick), or one of us is tired and needs sleep. Let’s rule out studio flat from this point forward.