[bleed2loveme]

Hi everyone.

I used to live in council property so I have no experience in buying houses at all, in fact the whole thing confuses me..

I met my partner just over 6 years ago, started dating, then when we started to get serious we decided it would be the best thing for me to move in with him seeing as he already owned his own home.

We have lived here ever since, and have had the "future" talk, we both know we want to get married and settle down at some point, and basically we have decided to sell up and move back to my home town of manchester.

Our house is not on the market yet as we still need to finish certain things off, small things, such as fence the garden, paint most of the rooms, new internal doors etc.

I have a couple of questions if that is OK..

1:when do we start to look for our new home? The way I see it there's no point in looking now as if we see a house we like there is nothing we can do about it as we need the money from the sale of this house before we can buy another one?

2: what will be the cheapest way to get our stuff over to england from northern ireland? As in large furniture? Or would it be easier to just sell it and buy new when we get a new house?

3:when is the best time to get our house valued? Now? Or when we have finished off all the little things that need doing?

and finally, would it be cheaper to sell through an agent or to sell privately?

sorry for sounding so dumb lol, and thanks in advance for anyone who replies.

[tickle]

I don't know what the real estate market is like in Northern Ireland, but I would do a look around and see what the houses are selling for in your area. Do a little ground work to see what the market is like.

l. You can look but not act, be well informed. Start looking when your house goes on the market and has been appraised by the agent.

2. Get some quotes from moving agents. I am sure it is a normal occurrence moving across the channel. Depending on what quotes you get, determine what you want to keep that will be hard to replace again once you get where you are going. They charge by weight.

3. You can get your house evaluated by an agent anytime you want, but you must know from the taxes you pay what it is appraised at now. Housing values go up and down anywhere and you don't have to sign a real estate deal to get it appraised.

I would never advise to sell privately, there are pitfalls you may not know about. It is best to go through an agent, but then again, you can shop around for agents who have varying degrees of commission.

tick