Another lay-by on the road to success

A little while back I blogged about how failure is an essential step on the road to success. Well, I still believe that I am on the road to a successful life, however I have just pulled over for a little while to admire the view

Since I split up with my ex, I have been looking at buying my own place. If you are thinking that goes against everything that everyone else is doing at the moment, then you are right, but I never let going with the crowd influence me before, I’m not about to start that nonsense now. The house that I was buying (that’s not it in the picture, that is a fantasy house that I could never afford!) turns out to have so many problems with it that I have decided not to buy. I will be several hundred pounds out of pocket due to the cost of the survey that gave me the bad news and solicitors’ fees, but I know that by pulling out now I am doing the right thing. Apart from the money, I just don’t need the aggravation, and with a house that’s 150 years old, chances are that there will always be something that needs doing.

Problems included:damp, dry rot in the timbers, floor needing repairing/replacing, chimney flashing needed replacing, gutter needed replacing… the list goes on and on. Sure, I could get an estimate and get the value of it off the house, or insist that the vendor gets it fixed before I buy, but here’s the other thing. The vendor is what is known as “mortgagee in possession” which basically means that it is a company that bought the debt after the previous owner had their mortgage foreclosed. Maybe I’m superstitious, but part of me was never 100% comfortable with getting a house at a knock-down price on the back of someone else’s misfortune. Coupled with the fact that the way house prices are going at the moment I could end up seriously out of pocket should I need to sell, it was starting to feel like a millstone I don’t need and I hadn’t even signed anything yet. My feelings this evening since reading the surveyor’s report have gone from hope, to disappointment, to a kind of relief. I was starting to feel that I was being taken along a rollercoaster ride, and I’m happy to get off and say “no deal”.

But as usual, I learned something. I now know a lot more about how one goes about buying a house than I did a month ago, including the seemingly endless cast of characters chasing your cash. I also would advise anyone thinking of buying a house (if anyone still is) to pay for an independent survey. I’m not sure how it works in other countries, but here in the UK, the onus is on the buyer to make sure they have all the information they need before making a purchase. It may cost you, but it means that if you do decide to buy you are making an informed decision. I could have saved £300 ($600) by not having a survey, but then paid £71,000 ($142,000) for a money pit of a house. Part of me feels foolish for getting this far involved, but I am glad that I am only losing a couple of hundred pounds rather than tens of thousands, and then throwing even more money at an “investment” that’s never going to come good.

I am also lucky that my folks are happy to have me here. Sometimes I feel a bit like I am taking advantage of their good nature, even though I always make sure I am paying my way. But they would rather have me here than make a really bad decision on buying a property, I’m sure. They have got used to me coming back after failed job situations and failed relationships, and we get on pretty well. The road to success has some interesting detours sometimes, and if these things build character, then I have some to spare.

Picture credit *Susie*