I never really saw the point of a Kibbutz... Unless you're Jewish and fancy practicing your Hebrew. Isn't it more fun to go grape picking in France or something?
Scooter, I suspect the MrTYG credit card/ loan repayment plan of "buy the biggest mo-fo house for which you can scrape together 5% of the cost plus the stamp duty, get interest only loan, wait a year for house prices to rise, remortgage and then pay off your debts", isn't for everyone. It's probably a bit "fly by the seat of your city-worker arse" for most people - most people usually includes me as well. We now have a big house, yet no money to speak of. I have rooms without a stick of furniture in them becuase we can't afford to buy any. We even took the vendor's manky old sofa back in from where he'd left it for the council to collect, so we'd have some additional stuff! It's hugely frustrating in the short term, BUT we do have the advantage of not having to move house again or give yet more money to Gordy for doing eff-all. You'd think he stamped the bloody title deeds himself for the amount of money he takes from you. Ranty, rant, rant.
Regarding the "dream house". I'm sure I annoyed the hell out of SOH for saying this before, but there really is more than one. It's good to have a high standard. We would have got lumbered with an expensive sh't-hole had it not been for the fact it was pulled from under us. Thought "we'll never get another great house like that", then found another and then another! The high standards were great in the end. I was so desperate to move that I would have taken anything at first, but once I resigned myself to not finding another "dream house" again straight away, it made me broaden my options. Ended up feckin' miles from where we orignially looked and only looked in N10, because we'd been looking in E8 and my mam kept sending me links to houses in N8 (Crouch End) by mistake and started thinking, "Hang on, we can afford this and it's MUCH nicer than etc." N8 got broadened to include N10 and here we are.
It's a lifestyle choice, isn't it? Can you cope with being cash-poor for a couple of years in order to skip a rung on the property ladder, or would you prefer to be more "comfortable" and have a bit more disposable income until such time as you can really afford to move again. And if you pay a penny over £250K, then you're in the 3% stamp duty bracket. It really eats into your profit if you move again quite soon. It's a big consideration.
Really hope you find something and you get a wonderful buyer who is chain free and not a numpty.
Gawd, the bar really is raised on the nursery stakes. Is the mural really going in a magazine???
Mmm, patchwork. Easy enough. Effective... Good thinking.
All this talk of Jaffa cakes and ginger bread. Dammit, was doing well today, but I'm tired now and I want a sugar hit.