Buying A Flat – My Red Lines

Like Theresa May’s attempts at a Brexit deal, I thought I’d set out my red lines and demand what those selling houses and providing mortgages need to offer me

What The Flat Needs:

1. A view of the weather. Right now, I have a first floor bedroom facing north, and it is so dissatisfactory when most of our weather comes from the west. I don’t need to be on the 12 1/2th floor like my sister is, but a few floors up, with a decent view of the weather – with at least one window being west facing ideally. Maybe I’d accept south and east.
2. Nobody right opposite me. I’ve seen many flats where if you reached out far enough, you could probably steal some old guy’s boxers from the block opposite. OK, I exaggerate, Brexit is just a disaster rather than an absolute fucking disaster. I just want to be able to see things – not someone else’s shit on their balcony, but a view of some vague kind. I’m not asking for anything amazing.
3. Half-decent sound-proofing. I don’t want to hear next door’s children, I don’t want to hear the floor below’s children and I don’t want to hear the floor above’s children. If my future Spanish wife is reading this, then I love children and we can have babies right now. More importantly than other’s noise though, I want to be able to make noise. I want to be able to play my music. Not at unsociable times, not at unsociable volumes – but something I can hear whilst I’m working, cooking, etc.

Basically, I want to be able to watch thunderstorms, wearing only my pants and whilst playing minimal techno at a half-decent volume. Granted, we never get decent thunderstorms in London.

Affordability:

At the moment I’m paying £600 a month rent. Yeah, I know, it’s crazy cheap, but I cannot play music 9-5 during the week or walk around in my pants, unless my housemate is away. She definitely doesn’t want to see me in my pants. Nobody does.

Oh and I will be relying on the government to house me when I retire. A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Yeah, I’ll be fucked. So I do need an insurance scheme, ie to own a house.

£1,500 a month for the mortgage, service charges and bills seems affordable – my salary should only increase as I become more of an expert in JavaScript, TypeScript and React. That would still leave me with enough money to throw away in the stock market and invest in drugs, prostitutes and holidays.

One flat I quite liked was this place – however that currently works out to a mortgage of £1,439 a month. So include service charges and bills, it is over my red line. Really I need somewhere closer to £300,000 or to save another £30,000 or so. Neither seems impossible. Both will take time.

Savings:

Finally, I refuse to sell my stocks at a loss. In fact, I refuse to sell them at any less than a 10% profit. Currently I’m on a 8% loss. And it looks like it will get worse.

My saving grace may well be that interest rates rise to combat inflation (if the Bank Of England can be arsed to control inflation) – which should lead to house prices going down. Alas, it would lead to mortgage rates going up – but that is more short term.

And if by next year I still cannot achieve my goal?

Well, I keep dreaming of working in Europe – fucking off to a country in the EU where I don’t speak the language so I don’t get to find out what level of morons run the country. Almost all of which seem to have lower tax than the UK. Granted, I’ll probably never do it. It’s just talk. I possibly said I’d leave if Brexit happened and if Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. But there probably is a better life out there for me. It isn’t like I have that many friends in London.

One of my more crazy ideas recently is to give up working and go somewhere and get fit. Because it ain’t going to happen in London. But maybe during winter, on the Spanish coast or something, I could concentrate on getting fit. Or at least not fat. And find a Spanish wife. Maybe some kind of boot camp. Run by Spanish hotties.

I guess most likely this time next year I’ll be writing a similar blog, still obese, still dreaming of a Spanish wife, still living in this cheap house-share, still enjoying life but still wondering if there is something better out there.

It isn’t like I don’t have options…and I am definitely due a mid-life crisis.