The Adventure of the New Home

Previously on The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan: I finally found myself in a financial position to start looking for a home of my own to buy and grappled with a world of jargon and estate agent bullshit. 

I've been holding off writing this post for some time as I didn't want to curse things but I am very excited to share the news that I'm mere weeks away from moving into my own home. 

I'd spent quite a long time looking through online listings and had driven around the areas I was looking at to get a sense of which areas and streets were better than others. Then I began to book viewings to some of the places that looked good. The first viewing fell through as the flat sold but the estate agent had a similar property on her books so I went to look at that one instead. 

It can only be described as a shithole. As I waited for the estate agent in the rain I couldn't help but notice the terrible state of the exterior. The interior was better and I suppose habitable if you have quite low standards but there was an endless list of things that were broken and a weird layout. The view from several of the windows was over next door's garden which was full of smashed up cars and car parts. I left the property pretty swiftly and more than a little concerned that this was the sort of place I'd be stuck with on my limited budget. 

Then it was onto the second property which was nicer in every conceivable way. It was on a quiet street and the exterior looked nigh-on immaculate. Inside the flat was recently refurbished and I found myself considering the practicalities of living here rather than the amount of things that I'd need to fix. It's safe to say it was exactly what I was looking for. 

I found myself facing a tough decision. I knew from my dealings with estate agents that if I hesitated someone else would likely swoop in and put an offer on the flat. But at the same time it seemed a bit hasty to buy only the second property I'd viewed. In the end I concluded that I'd looked at probably hundreds of comparable places online and this one had always stood out, so next thing I knew I was putting in an offer. 

I've heard it said that moving house is one of the most stressful things that you can do. Whilst I was vaguely aware of the process, I'd previously thought that it was the literal moving of all your possessions between houses that was the stressful part. I have now discovered that there's a whole heap of stress that comes before you get anywhere near that stage. 

First, the drama of the offers. With anything else you buy, negotiating a price is simple. You say the amount you want to pay, the seller says what they are willing to sell it for and you meet in the middle. The process is essentially the same with a house except you have to pass on the negotiations through an estate agent and as I have discovered over the last few months, no interaction with an estate agent is efficient or straightforward. I faced an agonizing wait between phone calls whilst still having to worry about teaching lessons on separating materials and all the usual stuff I have to deal with.

Fortunately it all worked out OK and an offer was eventually accepted. This triggered the next stage which was to get a solicitor involved. I was very lucky that someone I lived with in my final year at university happens to be a solicitor who does conveyancy so this part became less stressful than it might have been. I knew her to be trustworthy and generally the sort of person to do things properly and that has certainly proved to be the case. 

I'm not sure I'd even heard of the word "conveyancy" before all this and frankly I'm still not entirely sure what it means. All I know is that it involves a lot of paperwork, which is not at all my forte. As the client I don't really have to do a great deal but there's always information to read. I found every bit of this extraordinarily stressful- the sheer amount of information was overwhelming and there was always the fear that something in the contract or one of the many necessary surveys would bring up an issue which would cause me to have to withdraw. Mostly the things you're prohibited against are things that no normal person would ever want to do, like building a shooting gallery on the site.

The other challenge comes from the fact that I currently own virtually no furniture or appliances. As I write this I am sat next to an assortment of boxed items that I've gradually purchased over the last few months. The 19inch TV I have in my bedroom currently is being replaced with a 43inch TV for my living room courtesy of my grandfather. Buying furniture and appliances is really annoying. There is so much choice! 

I've found myself scrolling through lists of literally thousands of toasters etc and wondering why there are so many when every single one of them does the same thing. Even with really boring things like dish drying racks or bath maths lead to thousands of possibilities. Why?! You end up forced to read reviews to make a decision. Who are all these people that have the time to write reviews for dish drying racks. You'd have thought that all you could say is whether it can hold dishes or not but no, some reviewers go into minute detail. But every product basically has the same reviews and you realise that this is a colossal waste of time and just end up buying the first item listed in the search results. 

At the time of writing a completion date is being discussed so things are almost certainly not going to fall through now. Every day I think of another advantage of my new flat from not having to sit in traffic for anywhere near as long to not having to clear up when the cat decides the best place to throw up is on my laptop. 

The whole thing feels like a series finale of a TV show where previous characters have come back for the final battle. Obviously it's a lot less exciting than that but in various ways people from every stage of my life so far have been involved. It seems rather fitting that I'll basically start the new year in my new home. It's really exciting to escape my parent's house for the second and final time and feels very much like a new beginning. You'll no doubt here more about how it all goes in a future installment.

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I've recently started the challenge of watching all the films from "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" and I've started a blog where I discuss each film I watch. Currently I'm deep in the silent era of cinema which has elicited all sorts of discussions about race as well as less serious subjects like ghostly carriages. You can join the adventure at Dan and the 1001 Movies.

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