That was the job that was...

... that I just put my resignation in for..

14 months of living away from home during the week and no end in
sight. 4 bed houses in Swindon just don't sell well!

Ho hum.

Anyone know of any companies in Swindon/Bristol area that
need a hands-on IT manager with good Windows/Unix/Cisco skills?

Phil

--
Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
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Ooh, buggeration.

Best of luck, Phil.

 

Ever thought of working in Belfast......

 

Hmm.. lets think.. No. I can't say I have. And I don't expect
that situation to change much...

Phil

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
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Ta.

At least I might get some
decent weather for rediscovering the bike-riding habit that I used to
have...

Phil

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
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Nah - just a 4 bed house in a town that has a vast oversupply of the
same and builders who are desperate to sell..

Phil.

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Phil Launchbury, Network/Unix Sysadmin
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'Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they
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And yet the rest of the country is fretting about the overheated
housing market. Given that prices have gone up by at least 20% in the
last year, not selling it in 14 months suggests you massively
over-priced it.

 

Nope. It was "priced to sell". Our neighbours have been on the market
longer than us (identical house) and they haven't sold either..

Swindon is in an odd position with houses - because it boomed
in the mid-late 90's they decided to build lots and lots of
'family' houses (3 and 4 beds) rather than lots of starter houses.
Then came the IT crash and places like Motorola and Intel started
losing people rather than gaining them.. and the bottom dropped right
out of the housing market with a very large oversupply of 3 and 4 bed
houses that the builders just can't sell without doing very good deals.

We also had the problem of needing to get enough from the sale to
be able to buy something bigger than a rabbit hutch in Surrey - and
even then we would have tripled the size of our mortgage.

In the end I decided that the 10K that we had put aside
to pay the Stamp Duty on a house here would be better spent
supporting us while I look for a job in Swindon. And I get to see
Cheryl for more than a few hours at the weekend. And I don't spend my
weekends utterly washed out and suffering from migraines. And even
if I get a lower-paid job in Swindon we will still be better off
with a smaller mortgage and lower monthly costs that I have had
here for the last 14 months.

Phil.

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
to juggle mushrooms"
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I bet if you'd priced yours 20k lower it would have sold. or if not
there then another 10k. Whatever it took, you could have found a true
market value (i.e. what someone was prepared to pay) and sold it for
that. Ergo, it's fair to say that it didn't sell because it was
overpriced.

Whether you could afford to sell it below _your_ estimate of its worth
is another matter altogether...

 

I'm sure it would. But we were already at the lower end of the market
in 4 bed houses and (had we priced it lower) we wouldn't have been
able to afford anything in Surrey.

True market value != the lowest price..

Nope. If anything it was underpriced compared to houses
in similar locations and of similar quality. The fact that it
didn't sell was not due to price (we had it on the market for 6
months at 10K lower and it didn't sell at that price either - and the
extra 10K we put on the price didn't significantly affect the number
of viewing we had).

Add to the fact that we *had* actually sold it twice - once
to someone who had to withdraw because of mortgage problems and once
to someone who ended up dropping out "because they saw something they
preferred".

Not my estimate - we priced it at 10K under the average of the estate
agent estimates that we had.

Phil.

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
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True market value = the highest price someone is prepared to pay.

<snip justification>

I'm not trying to say that you could, or should, have done
differently, but ...

is still a valid comment, IMO.

 

Indeed. And had we left it on the market for anouther year we may
have got what we asked for.

And I disagree quite strongly. We seem to be defining "overpriced" as
two entirely seperate things..

Phil

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
Triumph Tiger 955i
"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
to juggle mushrooms"
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Noone was buying?

 

Surely the definition of "market value" is whether someone will pay
that price for it. If it didn't sell, it was overpriced for that
market (i.e. Swindon). What other explanation is there?

 

And 2 people were prepared to - but unable to complete.

That the market in Swindon for 4 bed houses is vastly deflated?

Phil

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
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No, i mean that no-one was out looking for a house at that particular time
in that particular area.

 

Why not? could it be related to the price, do you think?

 

it smelled of wee?

 

Give that man a ceegar!

Phil

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Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
Triumph Tiger 955i
"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
to juggle mushrooms"
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Shh..

Phil

--
Phil Launchbury, Network & Infrastructure PHB
Triumph Tiger 955i
"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
to juggle mushrooms"
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