Last Sunday

In getting carried away with the whole 'letting-of-the-house' thing, I completely forgot that T and I popped into London for a quick meet and greet of some of T's new colleagues. They seemed like a nice bunch although we were only there for about an hour and a half. Most, like us, seemed a little confused but ultimately excited and champing at the bit to get going. If we thought we had it tough, one of the couples moving out there is getting married before they leave! Bonkers, that's got to be some major project management going on there. They seemed fairly relaxed about it though. Indeed the groom to be will be one of T's direct colleagues in the Drama department when we get out there.
A nice touch was that the out-going CEO of Tanglin along with two of his school heads flew in to say hello and answer some questions. The main one being, where will we be living? Think everyone's keen on finding that out!

What?

No viewings? I was expecting something for the weekend. Obviously James exhausted his little database of contacts. Get marketing my friend. We want viewings and soon!

No offers yet....

So, in the end we had four viewings and one no show on Wednesday night. I figured this was pretty good considering we hadn't got the house on the market. Our man from Coopers showed them round and the feedback was all positive. Unfortunately, we didn't get any offers. OK, well we did get one. However, in consideration of the fact they were on benefits and trying to recover from going bankrupt(!), I didn't figure it was a particularly good bet.
So the other reasons, not enough room (she had one son plus triplets), garden too small (it is a courtyard garden), and the cost was too high (she is currently paying £350/month less than we're asking). So, all good reasons and now we wait for more viewings. Rather hoping that we get a good offer soon as trying to keep the house clean with two kids. We had the carpets cleaned on Wednesday and they've come up fantastically! It does make one rather paranoid about spillages though (no more red wine for us!). The cleaners did us proud even though broke a vase. They did apologise and then clean an extra hour for free so that was good!
Having been at work all week phone calls and things getting done feel like they're lagging behind somewhat, need to get back on it. Gas service and safety certificates to organise today! Sounds like fun!

Housey, housey

So this evening was spent rapidly tidying the house after a phone on my way back from London confirmed that we would be having five(!) viewings tomorrow evening. Glad I asked the cleaners to come in tomorrow. You have to wonder how many more viewings we'll get when the house actually gets put on the market! By the sounds of it it might not make it that far. James (from Coopers), is confident we'll have an offer on the table by tomorrow night. Glad I raised the asking price by £50 yesterday. Better to negotiate down than up I say. And hopefully there'll be no negoatiating over price at all. Can't believe how quickly all this is moving now! Still, the house never been so clean. And soon we'll have a new back without a big hole in it that let the previous ecumbent's dog in and out! Funny how it's taken us to let the house to get that changed!

Decision made

So, we have a decision about the estate agent and now it all kicks off! Wednesday was originally supposed to be me at home getting my teeth fixed at the dentist and then letting people into my home to do various things. Now they'll be letting themselves in as I'm working. So we get the cleaners at 12, the carpet cleaners at 1330, the agent to take photo at 1630 and our first viewing at 1730. Well let's get started then! That means we have to get all the 'belongings' into some semblance of order and neatened up before then. And then keep it tidy. A tall order with two kids in tow. Looks like it's going to get busier and busier. Hopefully we can 'firm up' a tenant soon and see if they'll buy any of our furniture!

Uh Oh!

Thought we were going to have a nightmare there for a while! Nationwide, our mortgage lender, sent through one of their customary 'changes to our charges letters' today. Now, normally this doesn't have much baring on us. However, today's one was changes to letting fees. So, that made me nervous for a start. Mainly because Nationwide had never charged a letting fee before. Reading the appended 'bumpf' didn't alleviate the concerns that were building either. The way it read was that from the 1 September we would be liable for up £250 per month in letting fees. Something moved uncomfortably in my bowels. That would mean we wouldn't even break even on them monthly letting costs. Gulp!
OK, let's phone the bank and get them to tell me what the damage is.
'Well, Mr. Chapman, providing you start letting before 1 September you won't incur any charges unless you change the terms of your mortgage with us'.
Say that again? Your letter says from 1 September.
'Oh, yes, but only if you haven't got an existing letting agreement, which you will have. I suppose the letter could be a LITTLE AMBIGUOUS'.
Er, yeah, you could say that, anyway thanks for your help.
'Anything else I can help you with today Mr. Chapman?'
Er, CPR? No, thanks, I'm fine, bye.

So, no fees. Yippee (although it was more like pee my pants there for a while!). Let's get letting!

Decisions, decisions

Well, I thought I'd made up my mind about what letting agency to go with. Then I had a chat with one of my neighbours who has a number of properties on with Coopers. He told me last night that he's moving from Coopers to another agency. The reason? The fees were starting to get too high and the quality of tenant was starting to drop (in his opinion!). So, that put a spanner in the works! He gave me a number of the guy that he's going to be using now, so I guess I'll give him a call. It wasn't all bad and he did have some very redeeming points about them too so I'm still pretty confident. Anyway, it's good to speak to someone who's actually experienced the aforementioned agent, even if it has muddied the water somewhat! That will bring to a total of six Letting Agents I'll have had in. Oh well, it's got to be worth it to get the right one. It's not like we're just round the corner to deal with mishaps is it? I need to have absolute confidence in them (as far as I possibly can anyway!).
On another note I managed to get hold of an old acquaintance of mine to come and do the EPC (Energy Performance Certificate, seen by most in the industry as a complete waste of time!), for me at half the price the Lettings Agency were talking about. I get the feeling there are going to be a lot of 'extra' charges necessary to get going. So, although the initial 7.5% might be great there is going to be a hefty lump sum on top.
Going to have a beer with a an old mate of mine tomorrow. He's been letting properties in London for years, so he should have a pretty good idea of the ins-and-outs of the trade. And he'll probably scare me half to death will his stories!

Letting agents

So, had two more letting agents in this morning. First one I wasn't overly sure about. Bit 'laisse faire' and wasn't sure we'd reach our asking price. And was charging 12% (which although negotiable I don't think was going to go down too much). The second (Coopers) was very good and a lot more impressed with them. Spent an hour with me going through the ins and outs. Apparently they are gagging for properties to let a the moment. This is reflected by the amazingly generous 7.5% charge they are offering at the moment. I've got to be honest, I think we may have a winner! The proof of the pudding, of course, will be in the eating. But we've got to go with someone. I think I'll ask Nick our opposite door neighbour as they apparently manage his rentals. It would be good to get a reference. At 7.5% we might even manage to make a few quid a month rather than just break even!

What I will not miss

Just posted the first two things which I don't think I'm going to miss on our departure. Think it could just turn into a whinge list to be honest!

Clothes - what to take, what to leave?

Yesterday I took five full sack of clothes to the clothes bank. Five!? Why have I been wearing the same pair of jeans for the last fortnight then, when I have sooooo many clothes? Well, OK, I don't anymore and they weren't all mine. But it just shows what you accumulate. And that doesn't include the kids clothes that are/have been given to various different homes. And what's more, I'm not going to miss any of them. Good job we don't live in a materialistic society then. Ooh, that was a bit heavy for a Sunday morning, eh?! So it turns out we don't really have that many clothes worthy of taking with us except shorts and T-shirts. And possibly a couple of jumpers for  the A/C out there which is freeeeezing cold.
Not too many replies to the invites I sent out during the week. I hope somebody turns up to our leaving do!!

110 cubic feet

No, that's not the size of our new apartment in Singapore. That's the approximate cubic footage we have  available to fill when we relocate. Billy from Crown cam round yesterday and it was all quite promising. Looks like we could even take our mattress! Looks like I can also take my mountain bike. Well you've got to be happy with that!
On the front of the brochure he left with all the move details there was a happy smiling family.

Let's hope this is our frame of mind by the time we get in to our new place! It was all very matter of fact and he promised to beat Sterling's quote so it should all be good!

Only ninety nine days to go

Well, that seems like a bit of a milestone for some reason. Not sure why. But time is flying along and there's still a lot to do. Things should become slightly clearer as Crown Relocations come round this afternoon to tell us what we can fit into 110cubic feet of storage. Not much I'll bet!
On another topic, the family went up to Ashridge yesterday to see the extraordinary display of bluebells that appear in the woods every year at around this time. It got me to thinking that this would be one of the things I'd miss about living in the UK. So I thought I start a couple of pages about what I'll miss and what I won't miss while I'm away. I'm sure once we're actually over there the list will change somewhat dramatically. But until then, Ashridge is the first entry on the list of things to miss.
I'll be adding others when I think of them and I expect there will be quite a lot, on both sides!
Luckily, T's parents have said they'll come up and babysit the kids while we jolly off to London to meet up with the rest of this year's Tanglin recruits. It'll be really good to meet them in a familiar place, without the inevitable stresses and strains of having moved overseas with two young children.  Should be fun with any luck!