On Houses and Estate Agents

Posted on 2011/04/22 14:59:38 (April 2011).

[Friday 22nd April 2011]

It has been more or less 4 or 5 months that I have started to look seriously for a house to buy.

I think that it's one of those experiences that many other people had during their lives, some people even more than once, so in a way it gives me the chance to comply to the society and be stressed yet about another thing that probably stressed many others.

I started off with a very easygoing approach: "easy peasy lemon squeezy, I am by myself, how hard can it be to find a decent place?"...
Well history says that it is bloody hard, I thought it was going to be much easier to find a nice place to live, I am not looking anything special of course, I am single, and this house doesn't have to be the home of my life.

This is a wrong approach, I have soon learnt, because no matter how shitty a hole you want to buy but you will inevitably look at all details and pros and cons with great care.

After all the money that you are giving is good, whatever the amount is, and the house cannot be really changed like you change a pair of shoes.

So in the end after making and offer for one place (the offer was turned down), I am still on the look.
It's really hard work, getting all the appointments, trying to understand if you saw already THAT house (some agents do not post pictures of the flats), rushing away from work to dive yourself into the real estate market having to reason with people that overvalue their properties, just because there is this is how we are taught...

Yes, since we are kids, our parents told us that "the house always gains in value", it's a "safe investment"... WRONG!
Like any other market it can collapse, but it seems that this part of the Economic theory is not quite grasped by many of my fellow countrymen...

And there are Estate Agents... I am sure that there are a lot of professionals, but the ones that I have met, saving from a few ones, are really CRAP. There are people that don't take appointments because they are on a lunch-break (at 14:30 PM!!), people that "it's too late in the evening to see a house at 18:00", people that don't know what they hell they are talking about. Most of them would try to sell something just by adopting the standard technique that you can find in the preface of any salesman "oh, I shown this house to 10 other people yesterday, must make your choice quickly...".

IF they only knew that I am in sales myself (fortunately my bullshitting is much higher grade than "be quick because I have another client who's interested...").

Rule N.1 when you buy: ONLY listen to the technical talk, to understand if the person is knowledgeable and knows what he/she's on about. All the rest should be considered "white noise".

Anyways, I am getting fed up. I WANT A BLEEDING HOUSE, and cannot find it...

Main reason is that I need to move back closer to Florence, my social life is there, I need to go closer to it. And the countryside place is quite great but also very lonely at times, and I am by myself now, so it's not that great to be there...

Oh well, keep looking, this afternoon 2 more appointments, I am sure I'll find it, the time has come to be a house owner...

Scary...

Sympathies all the way with this Lox :-( Not an easy task.

Posted by Nigel at 2011/04/23 20:34:12.

Hi!
like you post: to my @urciibqo twitter

Posted by TheappilaFluh at 2011/11/09 11:02:31.

Esse site e9 maravilhoooso, fiuqei de cara .. eu tava procuramd gossip e no site que eu costumo baixar ainda tava o sem legenda, dai fui no google e achei esse site aqi .. o design dele me chamou atene7ao, e9 tao pratico, fe1cil e organizado .. eu nao conhee7ia e gostei muito je1 salvei nos meus favoritos.. frequentarei sempre para baixar gossip, house e vampire diaries (: Parabens !

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