clippy

I am looking for a family home in the morningside, bruntsfield, marchmont area. I think the public sector job cuts will have little impact on the prices of the places I am looking at. If any job losses were going to effect the prices of 3 bed + places in this part of town, it would have been the massive banking job losses. RBS alone has shed lots of jobs in the last few years (9000 rings a bell?), and house prices are still inexplicably shooting up... What would have more effect would be an interest rate rise, and after the recent growth figures, maybe an interest rate rise isn't that far off anymore.

Talking of flats, is there anywhere online where the public can find out which flats have HMO licences? I usually just ring a few buzzers to find someone who knows the status of all the flats in the stairwell, but if there was somewhere where the info was centrally held it would be handy.

I am with Mel and Buying. I have recently moved from a bungalow in the burbs, and NEVER again. We felt we were slowly slipping into middle age... Much as I love having a garden, if you have one you have to spend any weekend when it is not chucking it down doing the gardening. I have better things to do. Pokey rooms, ANCIENT neighbours, dull dull dullsville. Flats are much more glamourous. High celings, cornicing, history, how we longed for the tenement we used to live in. OK so there are noisy students, and high heating bills, and no parking, but you have a life! Now we are back in, we both feel 10 years younger - nearer to culture, museums, good schools. No major commute either - if you live in Greenbank and had kids you would spend more time sat on a bus on Morningside Road than with them. Trust me, it takes ages. The kids love being so near the meadows and the 3 playparks there.

My recent crazy housebuying story: 75 Findhorn place came on recently. A 3 bed lower flat, o/o £295. Seemed a good price. The home report valued it at £320k, which seemed on the low side. After 10 days it went to closing with 7 notes of interest. We bid what we thought it was worth, a bit more than the hope report. I didn't think we would get it, but I wasn't going to go silly as it was pretty near the busy Mayfield Rd, and didn't have much storage. I thought it would go for £350k. The surveyors are usually pretty accurate apparently, but there have not been many 3 bedders in the area on recently, as everyone knows... The flat went for over £400k. I was shocked, as was my solicitor. Much more shocking was to come though. Next week the same EA put on the SAME property 3 doors up with a new kitchen and bathroom, and the only storage turned into a loo, for o/o £430k